28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

DOI: 10.20472/TEC.2016.003.009

BOB FOX
University of New South Wales, Australia

FLEXIBLE FRAMEWORKS FOR BLENDED LEARNING IN HIGHER

EDUCATION

Abstract:
Pressures to adopt new technology-based online solutions to enable increased flexibility in delivering
higher education have accelerated in pace. The primary reasons for this growth concern ongoing
debates about costs of residential on-campus courses and resulting economies of scale; demands
for more student-centred and flexible approaches, providing students with more choices in learning;
technology ubiquity, portability and their affordances providing solutions to identified student
needs; and the impact of MOOC experiences and lessons learnt, rolling back into mainstream open
and on-campus teaching. Based on case study analysis, this paper examines experiences in
developing open and blended learning solutions for predominantly campus-based education and
identifies longer-term impacts on changing core practices. The first case explores the impact of
distance and open education courses and course resources and activities re-purposed to replace
conventional on-campus teaching; the second a re-engineered continuing professional education
course converted to distance and blended learning; the third describes how a conventional course
structure, quality assurance and sustainable improvements were made through the introduction of
blended and online solutions; and the forth case explores the impact of an institution’s use of
MOOCs as a catalyst to effect changes in mainstream courses and programs. Arising from the cases
described, the paper identifies key concepts that support improved opportunities for success in
adopting open and blended learning. The paper concludes by outlining a curriculum design
framework, based on recent research and practice that facilitates sustainable and transferable
improvements to learning and teaching in universities adopting open and blended learning
strategies.

Keywords:
online learning; blended learning, technology affordance, curriculum design

JEL Classification: I29, O33, I23

This paper is adapted and extended from: FOX, R. (2015). The rise of open and blended learning. In
K.C. Li, & K.S. Yuen (Eds.), Studies and Practices for Advancement in Open and Distance Education
(pp. 93-103). Hong Kong: Open University of Hong Kong Press.

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 104
28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

Introduction
Open and blended learning strategies have become the mot-du-jour in delivering
higher education in recent years. The reasons for this focus are multiple. What this
paper illustrates is that quality open and blended learning has been practiced in higher
education for several decades. What is more important is not the delivery method itself
but underlining sound pedagogy and curriculum design. This paper outlines case
studies of good practices in open and blended learning and concludes with an
effective curriculum design framework to support future blended courses.

Case Studies In Open and Blended Learning

Case One: Distance Course Re-engineered For Blended On-campus Delivery
A distance course in microbiology was developed to enable practising nurses in rural
and regional Western Australia to upgrade their Nursing Diploma to degree status
(Fox & Edwards, 1990). Materials developed, included weekly video presentations
(laboratory demonstrations and short lectures) broadcast on Golden West Network, a
regional television station, activity-led print-based study guides and resources and
later, a series of computer problem-based scenarios via augmented learning exercises
(Russell, 2014), which enabled students to work through cases and make decisions
regarding, for example, different ways of collecting and storing urine samples for
laboratory analysis. The decisions students made were logged and individual
feedback given on the consequences of the decisions they had made. The distance
course was adapted for use with the Open Learning Agency of Australia (OLA) in the
mid-1990s OLA, 1993). Feedback on the course from distance students was positive
and resources and the teaching methodology used in the distance mode was
considered worth adapting to support on-campus teaching (Edwards, Fox & Philips,
1997).
The microbiology course was taught to a large number of students in health sciences,
with considerably increased numbers (750) in the early 1990s. The course was a core
as well as a service/elective unit of study for various health related degree programs.
The distance materials were initially made available to supplement the on-campus
course. The print-based study pack, which included resources for the course, activities
and simple tests with feedback and answers; links to the videos and additional
references, to enable students to self-study as well as self-monitor their progress
through the course was placed in the university bookshop and sold to students at cost.
The videos and computer-based case scenarios were placed in the AV section of the
library, for internal use by on-campus students. The decision to trial using the distance
resources to take the place of certain components of on-campus course delivery was
made following positive data collected from students using the materials, the number
of sales of the print-based study pack, and the number of uses of each of the videos
held in the library (Fox & Edwards, 1990). The VHS videotapes needed to be replaced

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 105
28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

several times in each semester, due to heavy usage and subsequent wear-and-tear.
Students were asked to review the videos for each week and to address activities set
in the study packs before attending the large lectures. In the lectures, students were
placed in groups to discuss answers to the tasks set prior to class and to raise
questions. Areas requiring further clarification, were supplemented, as needed, by a
review of sections from the video. The lectures, using this method became more
interactive. Students took some time to get used to the changed format, but broadly
appreciated the increased opportunities afforded for more activity, interactivity and
reflection (A.I.R.) (Fox & Radloff, 1999) in the lectures and the additional support
provided out-of-class. The lectures and tutorials were not only more interactive, but
enabled more detailed and enriched matters to be discussed. This approach to
teaching created new roles for lecturers and tutors and introduced roles for
educational developers and designers, who explored and recommended the changing
learning environments that took into account affordances of new technologies and
new practices and the adoption of re-engineered distance learning courses.

Case Two: Civil Engineering First Year Course Converted Using Personalized
System of Instruction (PSI)
The civil engineering course in this case study was a service/elective and a core
course for a number of different programs in Engineering, taught in the mid-1980s.
First year second semester students from multiple degrees, with varied interests,
understandings, capabilities and motivations to study were all enrolled together in the
same class. The number of students in the course varied from year to year, but
generally ranged between 120 and 250. To complete the course, students were
required to evidence their understanding of core components of the course by
addressing tasks and problems set, questions in the form of multiple choice and short
open ended questions, all set in authentic contexts related to civil engineering.
The course was taught using traditional methods of lectures, focussing on delivering
and contextualising content, followed by tutorials, clarifying content introduced in the
lectures and providing students with opportunities to raise questions and seek help for
tasks and problems set. While this traditional method worked well when classes were
composed of students from similar backgrounds and interests and when the number
of students taking the course was around 20-30, the shift to much larger classes of
students from different degrees and capabilities created major difficulties for both
students and staff teaching the course. Student feedback highlighted a number of
issues in the course, that could mostly be related to the broad student demographic
and different student needs, experiences and understandings. For example in the
tutorials, some students required detailed help in working through tasks set, while
other students needed little help, but just needed to know how well they had done in
addressing the tasks set, enabling them to move onto the next stage of the course.

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 106
28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

The course delivery was ‘flipped’, following the Keller Plan, also called Personalized
System of Instruction (PSI) (Pear, Schnerch, Silva, Syenningsen, 2011). The Keller
Plan, developed in the mid-1960s provided a systematic framework for self-paced
personalised distanced instruction, well suited to STEM subjects (science, technology,
engineering and maths) and others subjects, based on structured hierarchical
knowledge development and standard stepped testing procedures (Maciea & Usher,
2012).
Core tasks and problems in the civil engineering course, were given to students prior
to the start of semester, along with a self-paced study pack about the course and the
way the course was delivered. In the first ‘lecture’ students were informed that there
would be no lectures in the traditional sense, but that learners would be required to
work through the various exercises in the course manual, answering the tasks and
questions set. Student were told that the lecturer would still attend the lectures or at
least be in the lecture hall to assist individuals and small groups that needed particular
help with the staged activities. Those students who could successfully complete tasks
set on their own, could submit their work for early feedback, and then move through
other parts of the course at their own place. The study pack, produced by the lecturer
provided an interactive, self-paced text, including course content broken down into
small units with examples, short stories to illustrate issues and accompanying
questions, diagrams and figures to help students work through all the tasks. The
lecturer noted that time was needed in the first few sessions to explain and re-explain
to students about the format of this course and to assure students that despite having
no content driven lectures, they could very successfully work their way through the
course to successful completion. Overall, the new flipped method worked well and
student completion rates as well as grades were improved. Students who needed help
in getting through the course, appreciated the opportunity given to talk to the lecturer,
while those students who found the course and the PSI materials easy to work
through by themselves were happy to complete the course at their own pace, often
well before the end of semester, enabling them to focus on other courses they were
taking, that they found more demanding and needed increased effort. The greater
flexibility of this course catering for different student interests and capabilities was
much appreciated by students, who then put pressure on other courses to adopt a
similar method of delivery. Though the term ‘flipped’ was not used, the practice was
certainly similar to recent descriptions of changed teaching. Today, with advancement
in technology enhanced learning and teaching, the Keller Plan methods have become
popular again, especially in the STEM disciplines.
The success of this flipped civil engineering course led to very mixed responses from
academics around the campus. Some very positive, adopted similar strategies
themselves, while others expressed concern that this would lead to non attendance in
lectures and querying whether students could genuinely learn effectively through this
method. In the years that have passed since this PSI approach was adopted in civil

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 107
28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

engineering, the same criticism is heard, concerning students missing face-to-face

classes.

Case Three: Main Roads Engineering Courses

In the 1990s, engineers working for the government’s main roads department required
staff to complete continuing professional education (CPE) courses to update their
skills and knowledge and to keep up with changes in state and federal policy and
procedures. The courses run were conducted in conjunction with a local university.
Course delivery adopted a conventional face-to-face method, requiring staff to attend
classes in person. A difficulty arose when increased information was included in the
course and the course itself expanded to accommodate this change. However, the
engineers required to take these courses were increasingly finding it difficult to attend
classes at particular times, due to increased business at work. The course
coordinators were becoming more frustrated as they could not identify a time and date
that would be suitable for the engineers needing to take the required courses.
An examination of the course content by instructional designers identified that new
information was being added to courses but older information/content was not being
removed. In addition, the specified objectives of each course had become unclear and
unconnected to course objectives as each course had increased the content. Further,
the links within course components and between the courses also had become
tenuous.
The solution developed by the instructional designers was to complete a curriculum
mapping exercise, identifying the core business of each course, interrelationships
between course and assessment components and how the courses related and built
on each other. Older content of the courses was removed and clear links made
between the courses (Fox & Radloff, 1999). Delivery of all courses was blended,
enabling the engineers to complete the bulk of the coursework at a distance, at home
or in the office. Face-to-face classes were reduced to two times two-hour sessions.
Evaluations conducted identified improvements in grades as well as better retention
and pass rates. Again, this case made use of instructional designers and educational
developers, as members of the teaching and support team, ensuring that the revised
courses achieved the outcomes set, as well as ensuring teaching staff were provided
with training and support in the changed delivery practices, which incorporated
distance learning strategies.

Case Four: Piloting New Practices through MOOCs

In 2012, the university decided to strategically fund a selection of Massively Open
Online Courses or MOOCs. Reasons for developing the MOOCs was varied, though
one core purpose was to trial new approaches, practices, and innovations to
developing and delivering higher education, that could later be shared and in part

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 108
28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

adopted into mainstream on campus residential and blended learning. In the first year
of trials, the RASE (Resources, Activities, Support and Evaluation) design model
(Churchill, King & Fox, 2013) was adopted, along with a standard-based assessment
model, based on Blooms’ objectives and Biggs’ SOLO taxonomies (Krathwohl, 2002;
Biggs & Collis, 1982) and a 7-point grade scale. Amongst the lessons learnt from
these trials, the university was able to evidence the value of adopting a single
curriculum design model for the MOOCs that could also translate well into more
conventional on campus teaching and the adoption of open learning strategies to
residential courses. The final section of this paper outlines the design framework and
the values such a model offers to higher education programs and courses.

RASE Model For Developing Courses

One core benefit of trialling MOOCs as well as other cases in open and blended
learning is the opportunity to trial and evaluate new approaches to higher education
learning and teaching. Over the last decades, different design models have been tried
and tested in the above cases of this paper and the RASE model builds of this
previous work (Churchill, King & Fox, 2013), within an outcomes-based curriculum. An
advantage of this model is that it takes into account changing technologies and their
evolving affordances, while maintaining core principles that support quality learning
and teaching. Fundamental to this model is that quality content and accompanying
resources are not sufficient for achievement of the learning outcomes, but that four
interrelated core components should include: 1. Resources, for example, crafted
content to engage students through experiments, demonstrations, mini-lectures, or
readings, etc., enabling students to learn with, not just learn from resources; 2.
Activities for students to engage in using resources and working on tasks such as
experiments and problem solving leading through experience towards achieving
learning outcomes; 3. Support, including peer, course teacher and technology-
platform support to help students solve emerging difficulties as they work through the
course; and 4. Evaluation, to provide structured information to guide and enable
student’ self-progress and to serve as a tool for teachers for understanding what else
is needed to ensure that learning outcomes are being achieved. This four-step model
supports a range of summative assessment activities to assess and provide a basis
for the certification of learning. The RASE model, used in conjunction with an
outcomes-based curriculum, has been trialed with blended on campus courses as well
as in the MOOC courses and has to date, enabled quality assurance and
improvement within and across courses. In line with Biggs (2014) paper on the
importance of institutional constructive alignment between programs and courses, the
RASE model is now being used in the design and development of programs and
courses across the university. The framework with notes in its components is provided
in Figure 1 below.

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 109
28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

Figure1: RASE within an outcomes-based curriculum

Source: Fox, 2015

In Figure 1:
Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) prescribe the knowledge, skills and
applications that students are expected to demonstrate in completing a program of
study.
Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) prescribe the knowledge, skills and applications
that students are expected to demonstrate in completing a specific course. CLOs
articulate with PLOs.
Learner Needs are the individual students’ needs catered for to ensure their greatest
possible engagement in learning.
Course Components are the combination of resources, activities, support and
feedback/evaluation (formative assessments) required for full achievement of course
learning outcomes.
Assessments measure actual learning outcomes. Assessment methods can be
formative or summative.
Measuring Actual Learning Outcomes ensures that the student can demonstrate
they have achieved the intended learning outcomes of the course and program.
Strategic Intent and Graduate Capabilities. Strategic intent establishes university-
wide aspirations for all programs, and broadly defines what students may expect to
experience when undertaking a program at a particular university. Graduate
capabilities are the broad knowledge, skills, practices and dispositions that students
are required to develop during their time at university. Strategic intent and graduate
capabilities are integrated within PLOs.

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 110
28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

Conclusion
There is ongoing demand for adopting open learning strategies in all forms of higher
education and much has been learned by researching and re-developing distance
courses to open and blended learning in residential courses. Though is no one-fits-all
model for the design of curriculum, programs and courses, the RASE model, outlined
in this paper, in conjunction with Biggs’ constructive alignment (2014) is assisting in
improving the quality of higher education provision in a growing number of institutions
that have adopted open and blended learning strategies.

References
BIGGS, J. B. & COLLIS, K. F. (1982). Evaluating the quality of learning: The SOLO taxonomy
(Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome). New York: Academic Press.

BIGGS, J. (2014). Constructive alignment in university teaching. HERDSA Review of Higher Education,
Vol. 1, 5-22.

CHURCHILL, D.; KING, M, & FOX, B. (2013). Learning design for science education in the 21st
century. Journal of the Institute for Educational Research 45 (2), 404-421.

EDWARDS, P.; FOX, R. & PHILLIPS, R. (1997). Microbiology project case study. In R. Phillips (Ed.),
Developer's handbook to interactive multimedia, (pp. 157-175). London: Kogan Page.

FOX, R. & EDWARDS, P. (1990). Microbes and the media: a telecourse for nurses. In R. Atkinson & C.
McBeath (Eds.), Open Learning and New Technology: Conference Proceedings, 147-153. Perth:
Australian Society for Educational Technology.

FOX, R. & RADLOFF, A. (1999). Unstuffing the curriculum to make room for lifelong learning skills. In
E. Dunne (Ed.), The Learning Society: International Perspectives on core skills in higher
education. (pp. 130-139). London: Kogan Page.

FOX, R. (2015). The rise of open and blended learning. In K.C. Li, & K.S. Yuen (Eds.), Studies and
Practices for Advancement in Open and Distance Education (pp. 93-103). Hong Kong: Open
University of Hong Kong Press.

KRATHWOL, D. R. (2002). "A revision of Bloom's taxonomy: An overview". Theory Into Practice, 41 (4):
212–218.

MACKIEA, A. & USHER, B. (2012) A New Implementation of Keller Plan Teaching for an
Undergraduate Electronic Engineering Course. Proceedings of the 2012 Australasian Association
for Engineering Education (AAEE) Conference, Melbourne, Victoria. Available from:
http://www.aaee.com.au/conferences/2012/documents/abstracts/aaee2012-submission-90.pdf
th
[Accessed: 16 December 2015].

OPEN LEARNING AGENCY OF AUSTRALIA PTY LTD (1993). ‘Who are we?’. Available from:
th
http://www.open.edu.au/about-us/who-we-are/ [Accessed: 16 December 2015].

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 111
28 June 2016, 3rd Teaching & Education Conference, Barcelona ISBN 978-80-87927-26-7, IISES

PEAR, J. J.; SCHNERCH, G. J.; SILVA, K. M.; SVENNINGSEN, L. & LAMBERT, J. (2011), Web-based
computer-aided personalized system of instruction. New Directions for Teaching and Learning,
2011, 85–94.

RUSSELL, D. (2014). Learning, Problem Solving, and Mindtools: Essays in Honor of David H.
Jonassen. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 8(1). Available from:
th
http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1492. [Accessed: 16 December 2015].

http://www.iises.net/proceedings/3rd-teaching-education-conference-barcelona/front-page 112