Abstract:

Background
In the LEPHIE project a course “Leaders for European Public Health” is developed as a blended learning course. All aspects of the course - lectures, plenary sessions, tutorial meetings, and collaboration between fellow students - are offered in a blended learning way. In a two-day ‘train the trainer session’, partner universities are instructed how the blended course must be taught.
Moreover, the instructional design of the course uses Problem-Based Learning (PBL) principles. PBL is an educational method which is highly student-centred. Learning is considered as a constructive process as it is goal-oriented, contextual and cooperative. In the current course the problem-based learning principles are combined with new technological insights such as innovative ICT teaching and learning, resulting in a blended learning format combining the best of face-to-face education and online instruction.

Objective
The aim of this contribution to the workshop is to show how the blended PBL course is designed and present the results of the evaluation of a pilot which will take place in June-July 2012.
The presenters will show examples of the practical implementation of the blended learning course, using different didactics and blended learning tools to promote student learning. Additionally, the evaluation of PBL/Blended learning approaches in the pilot gives insight in the effects of the educational innovation on student learning and satisfaction. Next to these empirical results an overview will be given of the existing literature about effectiveness of blended learning. A meta-analyses will be performed on this topic.

Results
The pilot evaluation of the course will run in April-May 2012. Results of the evaluation of the used Blended Learning didactics are available during the conference. A pretest-posttest design is used to measure leadership development during the course. Additionally, student experiences with the innovative blended learning environment are evaluated qualitatively at the end of the pilot.

Conclusions
The results and conclusions from this project will offer valuable information to other universities who start up building innovative blended learning programmes.

Keywords:

Blended learning, international, problem-based learning.