Blended Learning: Past and Present with Special Reference to COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The Clayton Christensen academy describes blended learning as a structured educational program in which a student learns at least in part into internet-based content delivery and training with some characteristic of academic supervision from home. This process involved time, place, pattern, and careful monitoring facilities. It also encouraged the learners to feel more optimistic regarding their studies. The fundamental concept of driving blended learning is that it encourages a combination of self-learning and collective communication-oriented practices. However, during COVID-19 besides virtual and non-formal institutions, the formal educational institutes also moved to blended learning. As this was a new practice for the formal instructors and learners, therefore, this study was carried out for discovering the concept of blended learning with special reference to COVID-19 pandemic and for this reason three sub purposes were; shed light on the concept of blended learning; to describe terminologies used for blended learning in the past and present with special reference to COVID-19 pandemic and to discover blended learning strategies in the past and presnt with special reference to COVID-19. This study chartered a qualitative method with succeeding in the analysis of documents related to blended learning and how this strategy was used during COVID -19 for engaging the formal instructors with their students. The Study followed the five years documents available online since 2011-20. But some documents from 2021 were also viewed for methodology.The researchers’ inquiry into 10 years of data was for the purpose to discover the past strategies of blended learning in comparison to the strategies used during COVID-19. Data were analyzed through emerging themes from the documents. Therefore, the main themes aided to interpret the results. The results exposed dissimilar terms for blended learning such as F2F, hybrid, and the online teaching-learning process.The strategies used during COVID-19 were more advanced as compared to the past years. Traditional methods of blended learning included online sessions and face-to-face classes. Microsoft, Webinar, TREAD, zoom, and Google Classroom, and other applications have been commonly used throughout the COVID-19 affected countries. The formal institutions for the teaching-learning process to carry out in COVID-19 period frequently practiced some new strategies.