Design Principles of Blended Learning Environments

When designing class material, educators must strategically address both the prod- uct (lesson plans or instructional material) and the process (delivery methods, activities, implementation and management of the overall design process)

Outcome-based education

Outcome-based education is a student-centric educational theory that seeks to align outcomes with course pre-requisites, content, instruction, learning activities, and assess- ment, and is practiced around the world after gaining international recognition pursuant to the signing of the Washington Accord in 1989

Outcome- based education focuses on shaping an educational system around what is essential for all students to be capable of successfully performing at the end of their learning experiences. Successful outcome-based education programs demonstrate that students have attained the knowledge, attributes, and skills required to be successful after graduating from their educational institutions.

Active learning is “a method of learning in which students are actively or experien- tially involved in the learning process and where there are different levels of active learning, depending on student involvement”. When students engage in active learning, such as working together to apply a newly learned skill, they are more likely to retain what they have acquired.

Instructional strategies that involve students as active participants in the classroom are challenging; these challenges are amplified in a virtual space where online tools are the primary means of engaging students. An evaluation of low- and high-tech active learning classrooms concluded that several problems emerged with high-tech active learning, most of which were related to the instructors’ experiences and the extent of their abilities to deal with technological obstacles.