Deconstructing the challenges and opportunities for blended learning in the post emergency learning era

ABSTRACT

This paper, as part of a European Commission-funded project entitled REBEL (Repurposing Education through Blended Learning), deconstructs school communities understanding of the challenges and opportunities for blended learning in the school sector in Ireland with perceptions shaped by experiences of enforced school closures during the pandemic. It provides an overview of five case studies in primary and post-primary schools in Ireland. The findings from this research indicate that the emergency remote teaching experience has cast an unhelpful shadow on blended learning. To avoid stigmatising online teaching and learning based on less than ideal experiences, in spring 2020, Hodges and co-authors referred to this period as ‘emergency remote teaching.’ (Hodges et al., 2020). Perhaps blended learning is also the victim of a similar stigmatising effect. The paper makes several contributions, including a need to differentiate between blended learning, emergency remote teaching and the suite of additional factors that impacted the school closure experience for teachers and schools. In addition, the findings signpost some succinct questions for consideration, that is, what conditions, social, cognitive, and teacher presence, resources and supports are necessary for effective intentional blended learning in schools.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• blended learning
• hybrid learning
• asynchronous learning
• synchronous learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Commission [grant number: 2020-1-IE01-KA226-SCH-082959].

Notes on contributors

Martin Brown

Dr. Martin Brown is Head of School of Policy and Practice, Co-Director, EQI, The Centre for Evaluation Quality and Inspection, DCU Institute of Education, Dublin Ireland.

Craig Skerritt

Craig Skerritt is a researcher at the Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection, DCU Institute of Education. He is also the Policy and International Programmes Manager at the Royal Irish Academy and a policy fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, University of Bath.

Patrick Shevlin

Dr. Patrick Shevlin is a former member of the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) Northern Ireland and a senior researcher at EQI the Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection, School of Policy and Practice, DCU Institute of Education.

Gerry McNamara

Professor Gerry McNamara is professor of Educational Evaluation, a director of EQI the Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection, School of Policy and Practice, DCU Institute of Education.

Joe O’Hara

Professor Joe O'Hara, former President of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland and currently President of the European Educational Research Association is Professor of Education and Co-Director of EQI the Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection, School of Policy and Practice, DCU Institute of Education.