I had the opportunity to attend the Sloan-C Blended Learning Conference in Oak Brook, IL, last week, and as with most education conferences, it’s left my mind full of questions—some answers, but mostly questions. There was a panel discussion on the second day, and some of the most interesting pieces related to research on blended learning conducted at the University of Central Florida (UCF).

Joel Hartman, Vice Provost at UCF (and EDUCAUSE Leadership Award winner) related some of the key findings from the study of about two million student evaluations taken over several years.

• Overall, student satisfaction was higher for blended courses than for either face-to-face or online. (At UCF, blended means “courses that combine face-to-face instruction with online learning and reduced contact hours.”)
• Regardless of format, a course has a 97 percent chance of getting an excellent overall rating if these three items receive excellent ratings: ability to communicate information, interest in student learning, and concern and care for students.
• For blended courses, the student success outcomes used to be about 14 percent higher than face-to-face or online. Now that gap is much smaller, most likely because strategies from blended are being used in face-to-face and online courses, blurring the lines between the three types.

A phrase about blended learning that I heard at the session that has really stuck with me is “classroom-enhanced online instruction,” as opposed to “web-enhanced classroom instruction.” As students realize that valuable learning opportunities can occur online—on their own schedule and in their pajamas if they wish—they naturally begin to wonder, “Why am I driving/walking/riding to campus?” With blended courses, the in-class time has to seem “worth it”—full of the types of activities that are best done in person and not the types of activities that are better accomplished online. In each discipline these activities will be a little different, but I would like to think and read more about general principles for how to best take advantage of face-to-face time and online time when designing a blended course.

Even though I didn’t win the Samsung Galaxy tablet, the conference was enjoyable and gave me a fresh perspective on course design and teaching. I highly recommend viewing the slides from the keynote address for some thought-provoking statistics and arguments about higher education today and where it needs to be in the future.