Abstract:

Before COVID, blended learning was still somewhat new. Teachers who engaged in online methods were considered ‘trendy’. The pandemic caused a disruptive change however, and in a very short time span a large part of the world’s learning community had to move to emergency online education.
 
Now that schools are opening again, we are happy to be back inside a classroom. Moving from offline to online has taught us valuable lessons, however, and it would be a waste to simply ignore the good things we have learned. We know more now about the importance of student well-being when it comes to success in following a blended program. Sense of belonging is an important contributor to students’ adaptability to change and sense of self-efficacy. Moreover, we’re learning more about the present generation of students: generation Z. They are native to modern-day technologies, but they have strong preferences and desires when it comes to the way they engage with peers and with their education. Radical transparency, being part of a network and having a sense of purpose are important to them.
 
When developing blended learning, we need to consider a multimedia approach in course material. Online and offline teaching should complement each other to provide an optimal learning path for our students. Every required action from students should be purposeful and actively engaging. We need to make sure students feel valued and ‘seen’. Based on various learnings from the pandemic, this article provides practical guidelines on designing an engaging, blended curriculum that meets our current generation of students’ needs.

Keywords:

Generation Z, curriculum design, blended learning, engagement.