A 2nd
Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016:
“Maximizing Learning Outcomes through Blended
Learning: What Research Shows”
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Post 286
“English language acquisition around
the world is increasingly being seen as a skill for personal as well as
national development. English language skills are becoming increasingly more
closely aligned with employability” (Glick, 2016) .
English has proven itself a means of instrumental motivation to find better
jobs and opportunities in life in many Latin American countries. Seeing what it
is happening in my home country, Costa Rica, I can see what Glick labels as the
alignment with employability when referring to English language skills. But the
problem is not the individual or national desire for people to be employed with
a higher salary or with the provision of more perks for employees; the issue
comes as to how make all these English learners become fluent in the target
language.
Dr. Danny Glick, Edusoft Limited – ETS and
University of California, Irvine’s Digital Learning Lab, California, USA
At ABLA 2016, Dr. Glick, -based on his
research case study carried out in a university in Northwestern Mexico-, claims
that Edusoft’s English Discoveries can provide a way to maximize student
learning in a language course. The experience that Dr. Glick describes is not
that new to me since, as an English Discoveries Online (EDO) user and
administrator in the cultural center I work for, I was able to witness some of
his claims: the outperformance of learners using the virtual platform, the gap
in favor of the blended model of language learning, and the cost effectiveness
of blended courses when compared to entirely F2F-taught courses. In spite of
Dr. Glick’s quantitative analysis of the data gathered in Mexico and shown
during his presentation at ABLA, the corpus of statistical data I processed at
the binational center where I work was approached from a more qualitative frame
of reference.
“Students taking blended English
language courses using English Discoveries outperform students taking the same
course in a face-to-face format” (Glick, 2016) .
At the binational center where I hold a curricular position, we started using
EDO back in 2014. Part of the rationale we used to start using this online
platform was the need to provide learners with a virtual space to practice
course content outside the classroom. When we started analyzing the data coming
from our electronic gradebooks, especially in final examinations, we started to
see a difference in the way learners were performing prior the use of EDO and
when they had had six months of EDO usage. There was a gradual improvement we
could note in the way our students were performing. Our experience did not
count with students who were solely taking our courses F2F since the transition
to a blended format took place in about 4 months, but when compared to what had
been happening before EDO started being used, learners were performing exceptionally.
And as Dr. Glick stated in his ABLA presentation, the difference we could also
see “did not happen due to chance” (2016); something was being gestating cognitively
speaking in the minds of our students.
“The gap in favor of the blended model
increases as the English proficiency level of the students increases” (Glick, 2016) . EDO helped us
improve our students’ performance in our binational center’s English program,
but we did not get to see the gap spotted by Dr. Glick as the level of
proficiency increased. Based on his quantitative analysis of data presented at
ABLA 2016, the higher the level of mastery of the students the wider the gap
between EDO users and non-users was. That is, higher proficiency levels were
favoring the learners who were working with the blended format. What I
basically observed in the samples of data gotten from the database of
gradebooks was that final written exams were becoming better in terms of their
grades when compared to what we used to do prior the implementation of EDO at
our binational center. There was indeed a difference in test scores, but we did
not quantify what was observed in the Mexican case study. Though I do not have
evidence of this per se, what was noticeable
in our database was an increase of final test performance and their
corresponding grades.
“Blended courses were found to be more
cost effective when compared with traditional fact-to-fact teaching” (Glick, 2016) . Having learners
transition from a F2F teaching format to a blended one was a great improvement
in our teaching standards at our binational center; we found that having
learners work on an online platform benefitted them especially because we
decided to grade their work on it. Based on our national idiosyncrasy, we agreed
on grading student platform work because otherwise they wouldn’t work on it
autonomously. From this point of view,
the course turned “cost effective” because the investment on the platform
brought interesting changes in learner performance when we got to the program’s
exit exams, the TOEIC test. Since differences in test scores do not “happen due
to chance,” a blended format in our program produced a positive change in our
students who –after more hours of language exposure- were able to get better grades
in their exit exam tests. From a mere qualitative stand we can conclude that
the effect of a blended cycle in which EDO played a great part positively
affected learner performance on this exit test.
Like in any case study, we need to
keep in the lookout that it pertains to a very specific group of individuals
with very specific teaching and learning conditions. Dr. Glick’s “case study” learners
were located in a Mexican university where they were using English Discoveries
as part of their courses. However, as it was explained by him, there were other
groups who did not participate and who were used as a basis for comparison. In
my particular situation, we were migrating our whole F2F program to a blended
format by means of EDO, and we did not have controlled groups or anything like
that. What we can attest and corroborate with the school’s course databases is
that there was an improvement in language proficiency.
I must agree 100% with Dr. Glick that
phenomena like these do not happen just by chance; something triggers these
changes in student behavior. I am more than certain that EDO (English
Discoveries Online by Edusoft) must have played a role in the improvement of
student language proficiency, but there are other factors that also need to be
considered in our particular case: the amount of blended learning training hours
invested on instructors, a marked change in the recruitment policies our institution
had to look for more suitable teaching candidates with some electracy traits in
their teaching profile, the continuous guidance given to students in the use of
the platform by our teaching staff, the weekly class performance reports issued
by Edusoft that allowed us to pinpoint courses where supervisors needed to help
the instructor with the blended learning cycle implementation, the inclusion of
test items coming from lexical component extracted directly from EDO, and so
on. There were and continue being changes in our blended program that make it
more robust and competitive in our local teaching market.
Reference
Glick, D. (2016, August 16-19). Maximizing Learning
Outcomes through Blended Learning: What Research Shows. 21st Century Challenges ABLA 2016
Convention Program . Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico: Instituto Mexicano
Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
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