Blended Learning FDP, IIM Bangalore, 7 March 2020 ..

On Saturday 7 March 2020, I was at IIM Bangalore early morning for the Faculty Development Programme (FDP) on Blended Learning for academic leaders from across India. It was surprising to see that in spite of the Corona virus scare, there were more than a hundred participants for the Workshop.

How it all started in the morning of 7 March for FDP on Blended Learning

It started right on time at 9.30 AM with a brief introduction by the Chair E-learning, IIMB Prof. Jose. 

The presentation was really world class, it touched upon many unknown aspects of E-learning stats and data from across the world.

The most gripping mood throughout the session and presentations from the invited speakers was the fact that E-learning is here to stay in the world. While the conventional chalk and blackboard education system in the building called college is what has been followed for more than 300 years across the world, the time has come high to change this to the modern digitally interfered system.

Interesting stats from the global MOOC providers ..

It was not long back, I remember having made the presentation on  the live e-learning setup in Goa Engineering College (first in South India) at a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) convention in Bangalore palace in 2005, talking about the Learning Management System (LMS) software MOODLE.

It has to be reaffirmed that at that time Bangalore and its institutes, even IIMB, was new to Learning Management Systems in public domain. 

How MOOCs are provided on different subjects ..

By getting the E-learning site of my employer the Govt College of Engineering Goa learning site go live by mid 2004, I was having an edge over educational institutions in the region in the e-learning domain. My almamater IIT Bombay went live in 2004 May or so, exactly one month after Goa Engineering college went live.

It is really very encouraging to find with enough public funds, IIM Bangalore is doing workshops on blended learning for faculty from across the country, though I am not sure how effective is blended learning in their  own curriculum and what is the level of acceptance (not disclosed..).

Full Online degrees offered by top 3 global MOOC providers ..

IIMBx now offers more than 50 MOOCs prepared in-house by it's own faculty (for the public at a cost) or at Edx, the same can be audited at zero cost.

Course Central is considered to be the largest MOOC aggregator website, (not provider) and its offerings are given in the picture. The number of learners, the courses, micro-credentials and degrees given by the most popular MOOC providers of the world are given in the  exhibit. 

The hype curve gives an idea of how educational technologies and innovations are getting accepted across the educational domains of the world in different
countries.

Hype Curve on E-learning technologies .. Courtesy IIMB

As per the hype curve, MOOCs are at a dip now (having peaked 2 years back) and soon, it will mature and plateau.
We find currently AI elearning courses are at it's peak and virtual reality is picking up. It is observed, once the AI courses are popular, the practical applications and acceptance of the technologies also pick up fast.

Compared to previous years, the online full scale qualifying degree courses offered by the 3 major MOOC sites of the world, Coursera, EdX (from US) and Future Learn (from UK) have increased from previous years. As of 2019, there are about 15, 10 and 23 online degree courses in different disciplines ranging from Management to technical subjects respectively offered by the three MOOC sites.

How to leverage e blended learning in our institutions ..

This also means that from the luxury of the home, one can appear and graduate in as much as 48 online degree courses offered by the top Universities of the world. 

Prof. Manikutty, adjunct faculty from IIMB (left in picture with me) took the session of how through global literature he could teach different leadership styles starting with the history of Spanish civil war using the fictitious character Don Quixote. Prof Manikutty used blended learning here. He explained how he used videos and gave interesting multi-media assignments to the students to illustrate different leadership styles.

Some of the challenges of blended learning ..

E-learning by MOOCs is facing challenges, like poor awareness for existing faculty. Faculty mostly are not tech savy and this restrains them from using technology for their teaching sessions.

Even though Corona virus scare was very much prevalent on 7th March in Bangalore, the high attendance at the FDP speaks high about the quality of this FDP. It is also tells us how much important has elearning, MOOC and blended learning become in the daily lives of faculty and students of the present day society.

This was the 16th version of the FDP. I am sure in the history of IIMB there would not be any FDP which has been as successful as this blended learning FDP.

With Prof. Manikutty (left) ..

I am not sure how successful IIMB has been in convincing the faculty members at IIMB to follow the blended learning curriculum, whether they walk the talk themselves. In Alliance University, out of a faculty strength of approximately 300 across the schools, hardly less than 10 are using blended learning in their teaching process.

MOOCs could be used as a faculty Development Programme for faculty in enhancing knowledge. Institute faculty would get points based on the number of MOOCS they pursue with certificates, leading to high quality professional development.

I am sure IIMB will partner with other Institutes to bring such high quality FDP to benefit faculty members from other institutes in the future.

An area where I found discussion lacking at the FDP was on feedback. Any blended learning exercise can have faltering steps in it's journey. Understanding them and taking corrective actions is a sure step to address issues of Blended learning acceptance among the faculty.

FEEDBACK - Feedback on the student performance is an area where digital interventions play a great role. Ever since I started using elearning, quizzes have been a topic of great interest for the student community.

Immediately after a topic is taken in the class, either in the same session or the following session the student should be checked on what is his/her understanding or comprehension of the topic.

Prof. Jose winding up the very fruitful day session on
Blended Learning

A small 20 to 30 question quiz to check the understanding of the different concept is an excellent tool to realise this. The students are excited to take the quiz and are elated to get good scores or meditate over why they got lower scores. Immediate feedback to quiz is a great learning tool ..

In the e-learning setup, when one is exposed to quick and effective feedback, the impact is great. In addition a survey to find how the student community appreciates the Blended learning and inviting suggestions is a great tool that reinforces student learning.

Importance of feedback.. E-feedback is fast and effective ..

Click here for a form on collecting feedback on blended learning, which I administer to my class .. Even though I have been using blended learning (not self-developed MOOCs) for the past fifteen years in my teaching process, the IIMB exposure gave me insight into MOOC creation aiding blended learning. This was very helpful. Interaction with peers at other academic institutions around the world is a very fruitful and beneficial exercise for all of us.

Here is the online feedback, more than 70% agree to online quizzes as a blended learning strategy, (click here for the feedback received on online quiz administration) I have received from students when I asked them to give their feedback on the online quizzes I administer every week, as part of the Blended Learning exercise.

George.. (Thanks to Prof. Jose for permission to use some of his slides in this writeup on the FDP)