Access and Opportunity

Can blended learning increase access? Strategically developing programs/courses that integrate blended and online instruction has the potential to maximize access to high demand courses and degrees, create flexibility and time/cost efficiencies for students and impact time to degree. Presentations within this track would address those strategies institutions and/or faculty use to enhance access to a quality education. Submissions may be as concurrent sessions, great idea presentations, posters or workshops. Topics may include:

• Program design with the goal to reduce the opportunity cost of an education for our undergraduate students by providing flexible degree options;
• Pedagogically-driven blended courses that increase enrollment capacity in high demand general education courses;
• Blended professional programs for working adults;
• Blended course and blended program offerings that allow students to work and attend school to minimize the risk students will need to drop-out or stop-out;
• Institutional strategies to teach more students within the parameters of existing resources by leveraging physical space usage and service operations;
• Programs to prepare students to learn online;
• Online advising programs providing flexibility for students;
• Communication and marketing plans for student/faculty information;
• Examples of blended learning as a recruiting opportunity;
• Sustainability financial models; and
• Scalability strategies.

Blended Teaching and Learning

This conference track seeks presentations, course demonstrations, panel discussions, great ideas and posters that address the many facets of blended teaching and learning with an emphasis on pedagogical practices.  

The conference planning committee is particularly interested in innovative approaches to teaching and learning using the blended model at all educational levels, including k-12, community colleges, and baccalaureate granting universities.  

We encourage faculty, teaching academic staff, instructional designers to share their course design(s) and teaching practices in blended courses.  Also, we encourage campuses to submit their faculty development program models used in preparing faculty and instructors to teach blended courses and to redesign their courses for blended learning.       

Possible emphasis areas include (but not limited to):

1. Faculty development workshops and programs
2. Course redesign best practices
3. Course showcases
4. Pedagogical strategies and teaching skills
5. Blended learning activities, integrating online and face-to-face
6. Assessing student learning

Submissions must focus on addressing the opportunities and challenges specific to blended learning. Those focusing on solely on fully online teaching will not be reviewed.

What Works and How Do We Know: Seeking Evidence and Impact in Blended Learning

This conference track seeks presentations, demonstrations, discussions, great idea sessions and posters that address the many facets of research, evaluation and assessment in blended learning with emphasis on knowing what works and how. The conference planning committee is particularly interested in innovative and proven approaches at the institution, program and class levels. Possible points of focus include (but are not limited to):

• The Sloan-C Pillars
• Student Learning Outcomes
• Assessment Strategies
• The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
• Instrument and Protocol Design
• Teaching Effectiveness
• Scalability and Sustainability
• Prediction
• Institutional Level Outcomes
• Analytics
• Retention and Completion
• Impact on Diverse Populations
• Outreach
• Methods and
• Formative Evaluation