Elements of Quality Online Education cation

Using Blended Learning to Drive Faculty Development (And Vice Versa)I. INTRODUCTIONA. What's Up with Blended Learning?A Sloan-sponsored workshop on Blended Learning [1] produced a fascinating and complex picture ofwhat is being done with blended learning and why. Despite examination, however, no clear picture, noeasy consensus, no standard definition emerged. We are still feeling our way with blended learning. Butour experience in CUNY, now stretching over half a decade and hundreds of courses, points us in adirection some may find surprising and by no means wholly institution-specific. Though we do see thestandard virtues that cause many to pursue blended learning elsewhere—convenience (prized both bystudents and faculty), heightened interaction, even the possibility of conserving classroom space—CUNY's chief interest is actually faculty and course development, and above all the community-buildingand idea-dissemination that blended learning ideally entails.B. Blended Learning and Faculty DevelopmentWhy would blended learning be a driver for faculty development? Well, for one thing, it has a specialappeal to mainstream faculty, the still largely untapped mass of the professoriate who have not yet taughtonline or who are just beginning to work with online instruction. And the reasons have to do with muchmore than meeting faculty halfway (promising them they can keep one foot in the classroom as theyventure online). The most important reasons have to do with what is emerging as the special nature ofblended learning. Blending tends to deal in pedagogical units which are more digestible and importablethan whole courses, yet far less atomistic and fragmentary than course documents or learning objects. Itscurrency, or stock-in-trade, comprises the sort of teaching resources faculty are especially likely to see asimportant, mutually enriching assets.C. Blended Learning as Via MediaOriginally viewed as a kind of via media between in-class and online instruction, blending has emerged asa different kind of middle path: it allows the development of course materials that are generative withoutbeing template-like, that are evocative of a pedagogical philosophy and not just an assignment or learningexercise. Blended learning bridges different teaching styles, even different student constituencies, whileremaining tied to specific disciplinary and institutional contexts. It allows those doing faculty and coursedevelopment work to navigate between the all-too-generic and the thoroughly individualized, and eventhe downright idiosyncratic.At CUNY, blending has evolved to create special opportunities for growing online instruction, not least ofall from a pedagogical perspective.II. HISTORY AND BACKGROUNDA. The CUNY ExperienceA union-imposed moratorium on distance education, in effect well into 1999, had taken work in onlinelearning off the agenda at the City University of New York. Once it was lifted, however, a grant from theSloan Foundation supported the piloting of online course development in CUNY. Based on that 1999–2000 pilot, a proposal for 2000–2003 was made and funded. Over the four years of grant support, CUNYOnline, the University-wide online course development program, sustained by the grant from Sloan, madeonline courses available at every campus and every level of instruction. For the grant period, CUNYOnline delivered 750 courses (with 16,000 enrollments) and trained 380 faculty—outcomes very nearly72