Talk on Online and Blended Learning for Distance Students
January 2020
On 14 January, Dr Daniëlle Verstegen from Maastricht University came to give a talk about her findings with online and blended learning for master-level and post-academic students who are working professionals and live far away. The university has a strong history in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) which has proven to be effective with students who are on-campus and study full-time but also was proven successful in one of the examples given where the online course used PBL principles.
Dr Verstegen mentioned that a different amount of time was used to organize and structure the courses when it came to different examples. For the first example shown (synchronous online PBL), it took some time and effort but not that much since it was easy to record lectures, all the course materials were already online for both full-time and part-time students, and they could use the existing virtual classroom facilities for online tutoring sessions. However, for the fourth example (PBL Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)), a lot more time and effort was taken because none of them had experience with MOOC and there was no existing MOOC in PBL format, so they had to do market research and needs analysis which took 1.5 years to get ready.
When asked about what got her interested in online and blended based learning, Dr Verstegen said, “Combining online and face-to-face elements can make learning better and more efficient, because you can use the valuable contact time for more active learning formats, like exercises or discussions (rather than, for example, lectures); online learning also makes it possible to reach out to students who do not have the possibility to study full-time on-campus (like working professionals), and it makes it possibles to mix students who would otherwise not be learning with and from each other (e.g. interprofessionally and internationally). On top of that a personal reason, I feel that I learn a lot myself (as a teacher) from the contacts that I have with such a variety of students from different professional backgrounds and from all over the world. And I would like my students to offer the same opportunities.”
This online and blended learning worked better with mature students because they actively chose to pursue a course and therefore more motivated and used to organizing their own work. It was advantageous to mature students because they had the flexibility to work at their own pace, choose a course that was probably not offered in their country and saved on travel time. The main takeaway from all examples given was the importance of flexibility that was given for all the courses and that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for student-centred online learning. The instructional design needs to be adapted to the characteristics of the target learners, the setting and the available resources.
Maastricht University portrays itself as the most international university in the Netherlands, so this goal to take this online and blended learning internationally is part of the university's vision and identity. They are planning to offer an existing full-time master program and a part-time program for working professionals with this unique aspect so that it would distinguish them from other master programs in health professions.
