Blended courses

At McGill, blended learning (or blended course) refers to “a combination of online and in-person course activities, both of which are necessary for students to achieve the learning outcomes of the course …” 

For online course activities, students’ physical presence on campus is not required; for in-person course activities, students are expected to physically be present in class. 

 

Course activities can be of two types:  

Synchronous: scheduled teaching activities that involve active or live teaching and learning, whether online or in person 

Asynchronous: teaching and learning materials/activities prepared in advance that students can access at a time of their choosing, which in some cases, may be within a designated time frame 

(Per McGill definitions of modalities of teaching)

This graphic illustrates the relationship among these definitions as they pertain to “contact hours” (see Understanding “class time”):

Back to top

---

McGill guidelines

Per McGill guidelines, “Blended learning where more than 15% but less than 50% of scheduled activities are online is to be implemented only with Faculty approval.” For a 26-class course to be considered blended, a minimum of four and a maximum of 12 in-person classes must be substituted with synchronous and/or asynchronous online activities. For a 13-class course to be considered blended, a minimum of two and a maximum of six classes must be substituted with synchronous and/or asynchronous online activities.

Courses with more than 50% of classes online need to be approved at the University level.

Back to top

---

Design considerations

Learning-centered course design principles used to design many fully in-person courses apply to the design of blended courses.  

Blended courses do, however, have the potential to be more time consuming to design than fully in-person courses: deciding which content should be synchronous—online or in person—and which should be asynchronous may take additional time, as might producing pedagogical material in multimedia formats. While time investment is an important consideration, good reasons also exist to (re)design courses in a blended format, such as: 

• Leveraging modality to support students’ achievement of learning outcomes: Strategically aligning learning outcomes with teaching modalities (online or in-person, synchronous or asynchronous) can potentially better support students’ achievement of those outcomes (Dziuban et al., 2018; Joosten et al., 2021; Means et al., 2013; Picciano, 2006). ^[1][2][3][4]

• Providing increased access points to enhance students’ engagement with course content: The various modalities afforded by blended courses can allow students to engage with course content when it suits them and as often as they would like. 

Instructors should be aware of these, as well as additional course design considerations that are especially relevant to blended courses. This article* provides information on these considerations: 

*This article draws on guidelines that have been co-developed by Teaching and Learning Services and the Desautels Faculty of Management, and are adapted from McGill’s Sustainable Online Learning Informed Design Framework.

Back to top

References