Blended courses
What's considered a blended course?
Minnesota State classifies a blended or hybrid course as one in which 25% to 75% of the required faculty contact and direct instruction time is delivered in-person, with the remainder offered online using synchronous and/or asynchronous methods. There are many variations of this blended approach, but all require prioritizing, and sometimes redesigning, a subset of class activities for in-person delivery while migrating other classroom activities online. Although instructors may choose to meet with the entire class in-person, blended courses often limit in-person meetings to subgroups of students. Developing a blended course typically involves reserving in-person meetings for activities that maximize the benefits of being together physically, such as:
- Problem-based learning. Work with students as they solve problems individually or in teams. Allocating in-person time to what students used to do as homework while migrating your lectures online is often referred to as a “flipped classroom” model.
- Student performance. Use in-person time with small groups of students for skills development and evaluation of behavioral competencies that benefit from immediate social contact and feedback (e.g., presentations, artistic performances).
- Project work. Use in-person time with small groups of students to support team and project-based learning activities.
Online activities are not limited to watching recorded lectures and include contact with the instructor through email, text messaging, discussion boards, and assignment feedback. Consult additional information about Minnesota State course classifications or Media Codes as needed.
Example - Blended
A PSYC 210 instructor decides to divide her class of 70 students into thirds and meet with each smaller group in-person once a week, focusing on demonstrations, problem-solving, and guided discussion. The instructor records and publishes what she would normally present as in-class lectures online in MediaSpace and embeds those videos as content in her Brightspace course. She uses Brightspace to create additional asynchronous online activities that integrate with the in-person meetings and recorded lectures.