Blended learning at the University of Phoenix

Brian Lindquist

his chapter addresses the emergence of blended learning options at the Uni­versity of Phoenix. Consider the fable of the three siblings of educational delivery. First born was " Classroom, " on whom was lavished all kinds of cur­riculum development over many years of refinement. Then Higher Education gave birth to " Online, " who received a new technology-laced wardrobe suitable for electronic delivery. But when the last sibling, " Blended Learning, " came late in Higher Education's life, it had to stitch together the hand-me-downs of its two mature siblings, Classroom and Online, to tailor a format for effective learning. However, in the spirit of all fables that end happily, Blended Learning chose only the finest material from Classroom and Online to craft a wardrobe just right for its intended learners.

Global Perspectives

This section shares the details of two flavors of blended learning used by the Uni­versity of Phoenix and the history behind the emergence of these models. In addition, the impact of the blended learning models on faculty roles and student enrollment trends is addressed.

The Handbook of Blended Learning

Sources of the Blended Learning Model

At the University of Phoenix, " Classroom" was born in 1976, when a new learn­ing model for working adults was introduced. Using the model today, learners meet with their faculty facilitators once a week and focus on one subject at a time, for five weeks (undergraduate courses) or six weeks (graduate courses). Between these class­room meetings, students meet as a learning team to accomplish projects related to the course objectives and to build their collaborative skills. Faculty facilitate learn­ing in the classroom by drawing on the professional experiences of the learners, all of whom work full time when they enter the University of Phoenix.

In 1989 the University of Phoenix introduced " Online" to serve the needs of learners whose professional lives and travel schedules could not accommodate the weekly classroom and learning team meetings. The " classroom" is virtual, and learning is organized asynchronously. A lecture is posted to start the week's learn­ing, and the faculty member engages the learners in threaded discussions. There is no place to hide in the back of this virtual classroom since everyone is required to participate several times each week. However, learners who may be reluctant to speak up in a face-to-face classroom have time to reflect on the discussion ques­tions as well as the input of their colleagues before they make their own contri­butions. Separate newsgroups allow the learning teams to conduct their meetings and accomplish their learning objectives. Far from being an impersonal virtual space, online learners report that they get to know one another very well, as well as their faculty facilitator, in part because of the required participation as well a-frequent interaction throughout the week. What continues to make these two delivery methods true siblings is that the course curriculum, learning objectives, and outcomes are virtually the same in each.

Both Classroom and Online at the University of Phoenix have matured quickly, with enrollments in each delivery mode exceeding 100, 000 students b\ May 2004. As with many successful siblings, they have been encouraged to grow and flex their muscle without concern that the success of one would jeopardize the other. This constructive competition has revealed the relative strengths of each delivery system. Classroom offers synchronous learning for those who prefer face-to-face socialization and practice in oral presentation skills available only in a phys­ical setting. Online offers asynchronous learning for those who prefer time to reflect before contributing to a discussion and whose schedules require more flexibility.

Some learners welcome the face-to-face interchange of a classroom envi­ronment that includes elements of socialization that they cannot find through online learning. However, they may live too far from a location where class-room delivery is offered. Although the University of Phoenix has physical class­rooms in over one hundred locations, working adults in many rural or suburban areas cannot justify a multihour trip each way for the workshops required in

Blended Learning at the University of Phoenix

classroom delivery. While learning completely online is one option, others would prefer to have some face-to-face time with their faculty member and their learner colleagues.

Blended Learning Models

In 2000 this clearly defined need gave birth to the third sibling, " Blended Learn­ing, " at the University of Phoenix, which has drawn on the strengths of two suc­cessful delivery systems, classroom and online. Two models are currently in use to organize the learning in this blended delivery. The first is the local model, which tends to attract learners within a reasonably close geographical perimeter who like the features of synchronous learning, at least some of the time, but whose travel schedules do not permit physical attendance weekly. These students meet in a class­room setting, called a workshop, for the first and last meetings of their course. The learning for the weeks in between is conducted online.

The advantage of the local model is that during the first four-hour workshop, the faculty facilitator can more easily frame the learning objectives and outcomes for each week of the course, assess the learners' preparation for the course, and quickly address concerns or issues. In addition, the faculty member has every­one together for the first meeting of the course to lay a solid foundation for the learning that will take place in subsequent weeks. The last workshop of the course also meets in the classroom. The curriculum in many courses suggests a project be completed by the learning team and presented in the last meeting of the course. When presented in the classroom, learners can demonstrate their oral commu­nication and small-group presentation skills, and the faculty member can syn­thesize the learning in the course by comparing and contrasting the outcomes from each of the learning team's oral presentations.

The other blended learning model currently in use is the distance model; as the name suggests, it respects that many of the learners are more geographically dispersed. As in the local model, these learners meet in a classroom with their fac­ulty facilitator twice during the course. The first meeting, an orientation to the course, lasts approximately two hours, and immediately follows the last meeting of the prior course, which was a classroom meeting. The advantage to this arrange­ment is that it respects the travel time for those who live far away from the class­room. By combining the last meeting of one course with the orientation to the new course, learners have to travel only once to a classroom for each course. The orientation meeting, however, does not count as one of the weeks of learn­ing. Officially, the first week of learning is an online week, which commences the day after the orientation in the classroom. The last meeting is also in the classroom and offers all of the advantages of practicing oral presentation skills as in the local model.

The Handbook of Blended Learning

The difference between the distance model and the local model is that in the distance model, no assignments are due when students first meet their in­structor for the orientation in the classroom, since the distance model adds an on­line week to the schedule. The first assignment in the course is completed online. However, as in the local model, the first classroom meeting allows the instructor to frame the learning objectives and outcomes for each week of the course, as well as assess the learners' preparation for the course.

Other configurations of classroom and online learning are possible. In the examples above, both the local and distance models combine classroom and online learning in each course. However, the blend of these two deliveries can be combined throughout the program while maintaining delivery integrity within a course. For example, at the University of Phoenix's School of Advanced Studies, which offers the doctoral programs, most courses are delivered online, but the program requires three residencies, commencing each of the three years in the program. Each residency serves a different purpose. The first residency is a course in critical and creative thinking whose purpose is to develop the learner as a creative leader and problem solver and to begin the transformation process of questioning previous assumptions and conven­tional patterns of thinking. The second residency begins the formal develop­ment of the learner's doctoral project, and the third residency continues the process by assisting the learner in developing the approved doctoral proposal into the final submission of the doctoral project. By 2005, the first five days of the third residency will also include a collaborative case study, in which all learners who have completed the course work in the first two years of their pro­gram will work in teams to solve a series of problems by applying their course work to issues both within and outside their disciplines.

The outcomes from these residencies benefit from the face-to-face exchanges among learners and immediate feedback available from the faculty member. For example, in the course on creative thinking during the first residency, learners engage in brainstorming activities that build on each other's contributions. The collabora­tive case study will simulate a variety of problems that are introduced sequentially and timed before the next problem is added to the previous solution.

In fact, blended delivery of classroom and online delivery methods should be tailored to the needs of both the learner and the program's architecture. For example, suppose a program is designed around problem-based learning, in which the learner defines and solves broad problems over the course of three weeks per problem. It would make sense for the research on the problem to be conducted in an online learning environment, but for the learners to gather in a classroom to present and defend their solutions to the faculty member and their colleague learners. This face-to-face session would provide a realistic environment for learners to experience the real-time question-and-answer

Blended Learning at the University of Phoenix

grilling that often accompanies a manager's presentation and defense of a pro­posed solution.

Roles of Faculty and Technology in Blended Learning

The coaching function of the faculty member is a consistent and essential thread that binds each of the delivery modes: classroom, online, and blended learn­ing. The roles of questioner, facilitator of collegial learning, and moderator of discussions are essential for the faculty member, whether the week's learning is delivered in a classroom or online. This is the centerpiece of the teaching-learning model at the University of Phoenix. While the role of the faculty member in a classroom delivery is well established, the advent of online learning in general, with its technologically driven delivery and sophisticated learning assets, is sometimes viewed as a method to diminish the role of the faculty member, making learning a more individual, or isolated, activity. The University of Phoenix, however, has always viewed learning as a social experience, capitalizing on both the learner-faculty relationship as well as peer relationships. The university has approached the use of technology as an aid to the social dimension of learning to assist faculty and learners to achieve competencies, including collaborative learning.

The technology used at the University of Phoenix in its blended learning delivery is both simple and sophisticated. The online delivery portion of blended learning uses an online learning system, which is based on Outlook Express, and is convenient and easy to use. Its use of newsgroups and threaded discussions serves the purposes of allowing faculty to conduct discussions that involve all the learn­ers, as well as allow learning teams to communicate and prepare their projects in a self-contained environment.

All three learning delivery systems at the University of Phoenix use a sophisticated portal to make the learning materials available to both students and faculty through a Web-based electronic campus. On a course-by-course basis, they access an electronic library of text materials; the syllabus for their course, which has been customized by their faculty member; simulations that support their course; the university electronic library, as well as a " reserve list" of library arti­cles suggested for their course; guides to direct each week's learning; and a pro­prietary software that gives feedback on how to improve their writing, among many other services. The objective is to emulate how professionals access the informa­tion they need to do their jobs. That is, while most people still value a physical book for pleasure reading, professionals tend to search electronically for materials they require to solve their problems at work rather than consulting a textbook. The objective of this portal to learning materials is to develop this competency among learners to electronically access relevant materials, as they would in their professions, to achieve the learning objectives in the degree program.

The Handbook of Blended Learning

TABLE 16.1. BLENDED LEARNING

ENROLLMENTS IN DEGREE

PROGRAMS AT THE UNIVERSITY

OF PHOENIX.

Date Enrollment

May 2001 154

May 2002 1, 433

May 2003 4, 352

May 2004 8, 449

Enrollment Trends and Staffing for Blended Learning

Since its inception in 2000, enrollments in blended learning have grown rapidly. Table 16.1 illustrates enrollments for May 2001 to 2004 (all campuses combined). While the growth rate is significant over this time frame, as of May 2004. blended learning students still accounted for only about 4 percent of the learners at the University of Phoenix. Nevertheless, the growth to over eight thousand stu­dents selecting this delivery method has required significant preparation on the part of the over forty campuses that offer this option in a wide variety of programs that include business, information systems and technology, education, and health care. Each campus that offers its programs through blended learning dedicates a full-time faculty member to coordinate the delivery and ensure that the faculty-have been certified by the University of Phoenix to teach in both the classroom and online delivery modes, both of which are used in blended learning (this training is described in greater detail later in the chapter). If growth in blended learning were evenly distributed among the campuses, the balance between demand and the capacity to meet it would be easier to accommodate. However, when growth in demand for blended learning is either unanticipated at one campus or outstrips the campus's ability to certify local faculty in the two com­ponent delivery methods, faculty from other geographically proximate cam­puses fly in to deliver the classroom workshops and conduct the rest of the weekV learning online.

Local Designs

The University of Phoenix has faced several challenges in implementing its model of blended learning, in particular, the challenge of addressing faculty expectation and training to teach in a blended learning environment.

Blended Learning at the University of Phoenix

Faculty Training for Blended Learning

The pitfalls that could endanger blended learning are many if the faculty mem­ber is not prepared for the experience. At the University of Phoenix, learners are working adults whose needs and approaches to learning are different in key ways from younger, traditional-aged learners. For example, adult learners have more life experiences on which the faculty member can draw to achieve the learning objectives. It is important for the faculty member to understand how to address the needs of working adult learners and access the considerable pockets of knowl­edge that these learners already possess. Moreover, the faculty member needs to create and support an organized and collaborative learning environment. The risk is great that switching between classroom and online learning within a course could lead to chaos and a disorganized learning process. The faculty member needs to be able to understand the process and how blended learning serves different needs as well as to provide clear direction to the students. To ensure that the learning proceeds during the course, the faculty member must actively facilitate each on­line week, be prompt in responding to questions, and give constructive and timely feedback to assignments.

Earlier in this chapter, the role of the faculty member as the facilitator and coach in the learning process was established. While this essential function is similar in guid­ing learning in both classroom and online deliveries, the University of Phoenix does not expect that all new faculty members have the skills to deliver on the promise of this teaching-learning model. Prospective faculty members are assessed initially for their capacity to facilitate learning as well as their content knowledge, but before they enter the classroom, they must successfully complete a certification process. For blended learning, this certification is particularly important because the faculty member will need to guide learning in two modalities. To that end, faculty " go to class" themselves to learn the competencies and discover the tools available to both them and their students as they prepare for the learning process that blends classroom and online.

To prepare faculty for blended learning, the University of Phoenix guides them through a course that will certify them to teach. The course emulates the learning environment that faculty members will use to manage blended learning with their own students. The course, spread out over four weeks, delivers in detail the foundation of the teaching-learning model at the university. Topics include facilitating learning, collaborative learning, course management, assessment of student learning, faculty standards, and policies and procedures.

At the beginning of this chapter, a brief chronicle of the delivery systems the University of Phoenix offers identified first the classroom, then online, and finally blended delivery. For many years, the university has provided orientation to its new faculty, and over time this has evolved into separate certification processes for

The Handbook of Blended Learning

both classroom and online faculty. While the principles of facilitated learning and assessment are common to both, the certification training for online delivery places more emphasis on the online learning system, which online faculty must master before conducting courses in this delivery method. When blended learning was introduced a few years ago, it drew on faculty who were already seasoned facili­tators. Some had taught only in the classroom delivery and needed to acquire the certification to teach online, while others were already certified in both classroom and online. More recently, blended learning has developed its own blended cer­tification to prepare new faculty to qualify to teach in this delivery method.

The certification course introduces an overview of the University of Phoenix: its curriculum development process, its academic vision, faculty standards, and course newsgroups as the communication vehicle during online learning. To ac­climatize prospective faculty members to the online learning system, the certifi­cation training provides them experiential lessons in attending an online class. They observe the structure of the online classroom and how assignments are posted as well as actively participate in newsgroups and discussion threads. After they are oriented to the online learning system, they begin to assume the role of facilitator of learning as they engage in their own learning in the types of content identified earlier: collaborative learning, grading, and feedback to students. This experience weaves their own learning about the University of Phoenix model with the delivery modalities that they will use during the classroom and online portions of the course.

In addition, the participants in the certification access their learning materi­als during the certification process in the same way that their students will in University of Phoenix courses. Their reading materials are available electronically on the learning materials portal, which includes multimedia exercises that allov. them to demonstrate and apply concepts. The prospective faculty members set-how the learning portal offers access to university-wide services, including the university library, assistance in improving writing skills, and proficiency assess­ments. This process increases the comfort level with these resources so that a< faculty members, they can demonstrate their use to their own students.

The participants in the certification also engage in learning team projects to experience how their own students communicate as they deal with completing task.» as well as the collaborative process while working in an asynchronous environment. Such activities not only emulate how professionals actually accomplish group task-, but prepare the prospective faculty members for how to manage segments of the learning that are independendy accomplished by the learning team members. The\ must complete tasks on time, resolve issues that arise in the process, and accomplish this with little or no face-to-face contact. The faculty member needs skills to coach and guide them, particularly in a course early in the program.

Blended Learning at the University of Phoenix

Upon successfully completing the certification process, the faculty candi­date is assigned a course to facilitate in blended learning delivery. As indicated above, the faculty candidate already has been introduced to the principles of the University of Phoenix teaching learning model and has practiced, under supervision, the behaviors that will lead to a successful learning experience for the students. But to ensure that the first course taught works well and for the faculty candidate to get additional feedback, a mentor is assigned to mon­itor the first course. The mentor has been trained to provide additional mate­rials, as needed, to the faculty candidate and must give routine assessments as well as feedback.

Beyond this first teaching experience, the faculty member has several support systems to develop facilitation skills and seek best practices from facilitator col­leagues. There are faculty development workshops, online learning system faculty lounges, peer reviews, and program chairs at each campus offering blended learn­ing to offer assistance to the blended learning faculty.

Tailoring Competency Development in Blended Delivery

While the role of the faculty is essentially the same in both delivery modes, class­room and online, the tools available to the faculty member to accomplish the learn­ing objectives vary somewhat in blended delivery but capitalize on the strengths of the other two. Classroom, by virtue of its face-to-face format, allows learners to practice presentation skills. The faculty member can give feedback on each pre­sentation, and colleague learners can provide a broader reaction to the oral com­munication skills of the presenter. Since the last workshop in blended learning is conducted in class and typically includes oral presentations, learners build confi­dence in their speaking skills to small groups throughout the program.

Faculty also can use classroom activities that benefit from the synchronous nature of the workshop. For example, an exercise that requires learners to select from disparate materials to build something cooperatively to develop creative and collaborative skills is easier to implement in a classroom setting. During the online portion of the course, the faculty member posts discussion questions to stim­ulate conversation in support of a learning objective. If the question is of a reflective nature, the asynchronous learning environment allows learners to contribute as they are ready, over several days, and does not suffer from the compressed time requirements of a classroom.

The learning expectations for blended delivery do not appreciably differ from classroom and online expectations. Moreover, as in the case of selecting activities, blended learning capitalizes on the strengths of each. As illustrated above, build­ing presentation skills is better done in the classroom, while reflective learning is

The Handbook of Blended Learning

better done asynchronously online. However, the learning outcomes that define the course are blind to the delivery method and hence are measured in the same way. Both the classroom and online components can accommodate a wide range of assessments, like problem sets, quizzes, papers, and debates. Given this range of learning assessments, many programs at the University of Phoenix require students to assemble a portfolio of their outcomes, which they align with the pro­gram competencies. All of these outcomes work equally well in classroom, online, or blended delivery.

Support Resources for Blended Delivery

The resources to support blended learning extend beyond those involved in fac­ulty certification, and these are coordinated by a faculty development manager who is dedicated to blended learning. Each campus that offers blended learning has a program chair who monitors the development of certified blended learning faculty locally to ensure that the demand among students for the blended learn­ing delivery option is aligned with the campus's capacity to offer it. Technical support personnel are dedicated to assist learners and faculty members who experience problems with the online learning system or with access to course materials. This technical support is available to all learners and faculty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The technical support staff have been trained to handle questions and issues that will most likely be raised, and the types of ques­tions asked are continually analyzed to refine not only the technical support but also how the curriculum and learning materials are delivered. This service is crit­ical to the success of the blended learning delivery mode at the University of Phoenix.

Expectations of Faculty

To ensure the quality and timeliness of the learning process, the University of Phoenix has established expectations for the faculty, particularly to promote active learning in the online mode of the course. Questions posed directly by a learner to the faculty member should be answered within twenty-four hours. The fac­ulty member should be actively engaged in discussions at least five out of the seven days during a week in which learning is conducted online. Such a practice sug­gests that the faculty member should not only log on to the discussion groups and observe the interactions among peer learners, but facilitate the learning by responding to the issues raised in the threaded discussions and offer additional probing questions to extend the learning.

Blended Learning at the University of Phoenix

This learning process becomes an excellent opportunity to develop critical thinking skills by challenging the assumptions, the logic of arguments, and the use of facts by learners as they make their case in responding to discussion questions posed by the instructor. The intended outcome is to develop the key competency among learners to substantiate arguments in a way that is logical and convincing. The faculty member promotes this skill in both the classroom and online portions of blended learning, but each modality offers a slight variation on the skill devel­opment. In classroom delivery, time for these debates and constructive arguments is more compressed, but neverfiieless reflects the need to " think on your feet" when professionals are engaged in discussion during synchronous meetings. In online delivery, a more reflective environment for debate mirrors the asynchronous com­munication in which many professionals engage using e-mail. Both, however, re­quire good critical thinking skills, which faculty members must encourage through their active participation in discussions, whether conducted in the classroom or online.

Research Opportunities

The outcomes of learners in blended learning, as well as those who com­plete their program exclusively in the two component delivery systems, class­room and online, provide a research opportunity to assess the comparative learning among the three deliveries of learning. As the populations of learn­ers grow in each of the three delivery systems, other explanatory variables that identify these populations of learners and might influence their learning paths will emerge. The colleges in the university are preparing rubrics for key as­signments, and in the future all students will submit their assignments elec­tronically, to which the rubric will automatically attach. The faculty member will complete the rubric as part of the feedback to the student, and when the assignment is automatically returned to the student, both it and the graded rubric will simultaneously populate a database, which will identify the mode of delivery for the course. Such a process will enable the university to assess not only differences in outcome among the three delivery systems, but how specific competencies within the program are achieved among the three de­liveries. From that research, the university can improve the curriculum to cap­italize on the relative strengths of classroom and online as they are packaged into a more effective blended delivery. Just as in the fable that started this chap­ter, Blended Delivery is highly resourceful in drawing on the best material from the older siblings. Additional research should be able to further refine this process.

The Handbook of Blended Learning

Conclusion

Blended delivery better emulates how professionals in the early twenty-first cen­tury conduct business. The norm today is to be proficient in face-to-face meetings but also to work asynchronously and electronically with other stakeholders to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Professionals must be precise in their com­munication in both synchronous, face-to-face environments and in e-mail communication and other asynchronous, electronic communication tools. They must be able to electronically access the materials they need, when they need them, to solve a problem. Seldom do professionals consult textbooks when they leave the formal learning environment, so it makes sense to develop the competencies to access information they need during their formal education. Blended learning is an ideal approach to capitalize on the relative strengths of classroom and online learning and to develop the communication and information acquisition skills needed for successful professionals.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN