How well people absorb, process and remember new concepts and skills can be dependent on how the information was transferred to them. Was it through a lecture or video, through drills or individual problem-solving, through collaborative group work – or some combination and variation? A growing body of research indicates that blended-learning programs, which combine multiple modes of instruction, are most effective – and the proliferation of ever-advancing technologies adds greater depth to the equation. Online learning environments today are far more sophisticated than a decade ago. Beyond synchronous and asynchronous options, adaptive platforms, interactive tools and mobile technologies offer a breadth of instructional and learning opportunities.
Kaplan K12 Learning Services new white paper, “Online and Blended Learning: What the Research Says,” offers an easy-to-digest overview of how best to harness online and blended formats and to apply instructional best practices to deliver effective programs. Pulling from a breadth of research in cognitive and neuroscience, white paper author Marcella Bullmaster-Day, Ed.D., the Associate Director of the Lander Center for Educational Research at Touro College, highlights key findings and outlines a prescription for engaging students in ways that result in long-term learning and academic success.
Three key findings from the research indicates effective online and blended learning…
No two students are exactly the same. They differ in the pace at which they learn, in their readiness to learn, and in which concepts and skills they still need to learn. So when it comes to helping every student learn in a formal course or classroom setting, following the same sequence and emphases will never benefit each student equally. Instructional content, processes, and products must be differentiated to meet each student’s learning needs and goals.
Over the past decade, mounting empirical findings from cognitive research and neuroscience have shed further light on how to design and deliver online and blended-format instruction that effectively helps people learn, remember, and transfer new concepts and skills. These findings, combined with the ever-increasing sophistication, prevalence, and accessibility of rapidly proliferating digital technologies, have spurred the escalation of courses offered in purely online environments and in blended-learning formats that involve some combination of online and face-to-face classroom instruction.
Prompted by a swiftly evolving global economy, U.S. policymakers and educators have raised the goals for K-12 schooling. Today’s students must be prepared for the high-level intellectual demands of college work and the competitive challenges of the 21st-century workplace. Toward this end, more rigorous, research-based Common Core State Standards (CCSSs) for student learning have been adopted by nearly all states, with aligned curriculum frameworks and assessments to follow.
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