Learning Partnership: Students and Faculty Learning Together to Facilitate Reflection and Higher Order Thinking in a Blended Course

Abstract

This article discusses a learning partnership among faculty and students to influence reflective practice in a blended course. Faculty redesigned a traditional face-to-face (FTF) introductory physician assistant course into a blended course to promote increased reflection and higher order thinking. Early student reflective writing suggested a need for learner familiarization with levels of learning, types of reflection, and levels of reflective practice and for revision of writing prompts to encourage greater depth and breadth of reflection. This article presents results from an analysis of students' writings prior to and after the learning intervention and revision of writing prompts. Writings from Week 1 and Week 8 of the course were analyzed for level of reflective practice, depth and breadth of reflection, and depth of higher order thinking. Results indicate an increase in level, depth, and breadth of reflection post-intervention. Results also indicate an increase in occurrences in higher order thinking post-intervention. Findings suggest that purposive course design, combined with instruction on reflection and appropriate reflective prompts, can influence breadth and depth of reflection and higher order thinking in a blended course.

First-year students' experience of a WebQuest to explore the University's online resources and virtual learning environment

“…Blended Learning (BL) is widely considered to be the integration of traditional face-to-face teaching methods with e-learning activities in a coordinated manner to address the learning outcomes of a course 3,4 . Health science education has adopted BL as a strategy to address the intense learning demands of the rapid technological advancement and ever-expanding knowledge within the health professions 5 .…”

“…Health science education has adopted BL as a strategy to address the intense learning demands of the rapid technological advancement and ever-expanding knowledge within the health professions 5 . Blended Learning as an active learning style is thought to improve a students' critical and analytical thinking, application of new knowledge in clinical practice and reflective practice for higher order thinking 4 . Ocak and Topal 5 found that BL in an anatomy course allows for anywhere, any-time access to resources, which facilitated students' freedom to control their learning.…”

Blended Learning Outcomes in Academic and Professional Writing

“…Blending a teacher with online course materials has resulted in instructors' investigations into how and what kinds of mediation optimize the learning potential (Graham, 2013;Garrison and Vaughn, 2008;Graham and Dziuban, 2008). Blended learning has been investigated in research at the secondary (Larson & Murray, 2008) and tertiary levels, in business (Beckem & Watkins, 2012) science (McDonald, Straker, Schlumpf & Plack, 2014) and humanities courses, with specific populations (Shea, 2007) and longitudinally across tertiary institutions (Shea, Fredericksen & Pickett, 2001). Many of the studies focus on student satisfaction (Dziuban, Moskal, Brophy-Ellison & Shea, 2007;Bauk, 2015;Carter, 2013), while others investigate particular types of presence and their effects on learning outcomes (Wang & Chen, 2008;Ice, Curtis, Phillips & Wells, 2007;Garrison, 2007).…”

Blended teaching versus traditional teaching for undergraduate physiotherapy students at the University of the Witwatersrand

“…The extended community can be built into blended teaching by means of reflection, discussion groups, debates and seeking of information in small groups. This fosters critical thinking and reflection; supports flexibility, independence and collaborative learning; and enhances positive motivation amongst students (McDonald et al 2014;López-Pérez, Pérez-López & Rodríguez-Ariza 2011). Liu et al (2016) conducted a systematic review on the effectiveness of a blended teaching approach compared to no intervention, traditional face-to-face and e-learning approaches.…”

“…E-learning has the advantages of saving transport costs, the convenience of learning remotely and up-to-date information being available at the touch of a button (Liu et al 2016 ). The strengths of blended learning, underpinned by Siemens’ 2006 theory of connectivism, lie in the creation of an extended community, whereby students can engage in dialogue, debate and have open lines of communication with experts and the global community (McDonald et al 2014 ; Siemens 2006 ). The extended community can be built into blended teaching by means of reflection, discussion groups, debates and seeking of information in small groups.…”