Abstract:

In a blended course, the teacher's online interaction with students can impact on the students' perceptions of the course (Moore, 2014). In a blended professional communication skills course for a large group of student teachers in Singapore, the participants experience a range of interactive activities with their teachers throughout the course, beginning with the teacher's introduction and framing of the course for participants. In this blended course, can the teacher's face-to-face (F2F) communications impact on the participants' blended learning experience? This presentation will first describe the design of the course which blends F2F and e-learning sessions for all participants, and offers some sessions as either F2F or e-learning. The presentation will then describe some of the communications about blended learning options that all participants receive, followed by specific communications that a subgroup received. In an end-of-term course improvement survey, the feedback suggested possible ways that teachers could approach their communications to their students about the e-learning options to enhance their students' blended learning experience.

References:
[1] Moore, R. L. (2014). Importance of Developing Community in Distance Education Courses. TechTrends, 58(2), 20–24. doi: 10.1007/s11528-014-0733-x

Keywords:

Blended learning, teacher communication, student blended learning experiences.