Faculty seeking blended learning resources for their post-secondary classrooms are often faced with a problem: although there are many resources available online, many resource lists are aimed at K-12 educators.
Below is a comprehensive list of resources, including blogs, books, conferences, and courses — all of which are designed for instructors seeking more information about blended learning in higher education.
We’ve tried to curate a list of resources that is both comprehensive and high quality, but if you want to recommend another resource to add in a future update, please do leave a comment below or contact us.
Blended learning research and support
Christensen Institute: The Clayton Christensen Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank dedicated to disruptive innovation. One of the areas studied by the institute is higher education, and blended learning is frequently a subject of the think tank’s research.
EDUCAUSE: EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association devoted to advancing higher education through information technology. EDUCAUSE is a trove of blended learning resources, offering a library of research, a glossary of terms, a network of professionals, professional development resources, fellowships, and grants.
Online Learning Consortium (OLC): Formerly the Sloan Consortium, OLC is devoted to online learning and offers instruction, research, and resources to educators.
Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE): SITE is a unique group because it is entirely devoted to ed technology in teacher training. The group offers research, events, resources, and an annual conference.
Blogs with blended learning resources
Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Higher Education: This post on Jackie Gerstein’s User Education blog focuses on the flipped classroom and its role in higher education. It discusses some of the problems that can arise when educators attempt to flip a classroom and provides a list of resources.
George Veletsianos’ blog: George Veletsianos, a Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology and an associate professor at Canada’s Royal Roads University, has been studying online learning since 2004. His long-running blog examines developments in online learning.
How to Successfully Teach a Blended Classroom: An insightful post featured on the popular Top Hat blog by Taunya Tremblay of Seneca College in Ontario, Canada.
The Hyflex World: A blog dedicated to the hybrid flexible model of learning, written by Dr. Brian Beatty, associate vice president for academic affairs operations at San Francisco State University.
Online Learning Update: A comprehensive digest of news about online education run by Ray Schroeder of the University of Illinois at Springfield, one of the pioneers in this field.
Acrobatiq: Our own blog covers many topics related to blended learning, including personalized learning, as in this interview with WCET’s adaptive fellow Niki Bray, and instructional design, as with this post about design thinking and faculty.
Books
Blended Learning Research Perspectives, Volume 2, by Charles D. Dziuban, Anthony G. Picciano, and Charles R. Graham: A collection of essays providing research perspectives on blended learning. (The first volume appears to be out of print.)
Conducting Research in Online and Blended Learning Environments: New Pedagogical Frontiers, by Charles D. Dziuban and Anthony G. Picciano: This book attempts to examine the present and future of research and online learning.
Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide, by Jared Stein and Charles R. Graham: This serves as a clear and helpful guide for implementing blended learning in the classroom.
Flipping the College Classroom, Practical Advice from Faculty, by Barbi Honeycutt: A field guide to flipping, from instructors who have been there.
Learning Online: What Research Tells Us About Whether, When and How, by Barbara Means, Marianne Bakia, and Robert Murphy: Learning Online is a guide to different forms of online learning, including its applications in K-12 and higher education.
Conferences
Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts:For six years, Byrn Mawr College has held this conference, enabling faculty and staff to share resources, techniques, findings, and experiences related to blended learning.
EDUCAUSE: The EDUCAUSE Annual Conference is a conference bringing together IT professionals and technology providers in higher education.
Distance Teaching and Learning Conference: The Distance Teaching and Learning Conference, which is sponsored by University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been held since 1985. Although the conference does include some K-12 education, higher ed is well represented.
OLC Innovate: In 2016 The Online Learning Consortium and MERLOT offered their first OLC Innovate conference to examine innovations in online and blended learning. The second conference will take place in April, 2017.
USDLA’s National Conference: The United States Distance Learning Association’s (USDLA) annual conference addresses online and blended learning in many sectors — higher ed, corporate distance learning, military training, and K-12.
Courses
Blendkit 2017: This free MOOC, a partnership between University of Central Florida and EDUCAUSE, provides assistance to faculty members and instructional designers who are developing and designing blended courses.
Blended Learning Mastery Series: This series of workshops from OLC promotes a deeper understanding of blended learning research and practice among teaching faculty members, instructional designers, and administrators through discussion and critique of recent literature on blended learning.
Blended Learning with edX: This self-paced course introduces learners to the principles of blended learning.
News
Campus Technology: Campus Technology is a journal dedicated to educational technology. The publication covers news and breakthroughs in blended learning and other related technologies.
e-Literate: MindWires’ Michael Feldstein and Phil Hill’s e-Literate blog is a trove of news and thought leadership about online learning. This includes blended learning resources and related phenomena, including information about adaptive learning.
Frontiers: WCET’s blog is devoted to online learning, and the policies and practices that affect it.
Tools
The Blended Learning Toolkit: The University of Central Florida probably has the most extensive blended learning toolkit for higher education. The Blended Learning Toolkit, a collaboration between the University of Central Florida and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, is a free, open collection of information and resources..
The University of Michigan’s Flipped Classroom: A toolkit from the University of Michigan’s Academic Advancement Network. This is a page of resources for instructors who may need help with the concept of the flipped classroom, but it is open to all.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Blended Learning Toolkit: A blended learning toolkit was put together by UW’s Blended Learning Fellowship Program; this includes a blog, tutorials, resources, and classes for instructors.
White papers
Breaking the Iron Triangle at the University of Central Florida, S+R Ithaka: A case study featuring UCF’s experimentation with the flipped classroom and blended learning.
Implementing Adaptive Learning at Scale: Insights From National Louis University, Acrobatiq: A case study featuring the Harrison Professional Pathways Program, a blended program implemented at National Louis University to improve outcomes for struggling students.
Institutional Drivers and Barriers to Faculty Adoption of Blended Learning in Higher Education, by Wendy W. Porter and Charles R. Graham: A study focusing on institutional adoption of post-secondary blended learning.
Instructional Design in Higher Education, Intentional Futures: A study focusing on the role of instructional design in higher education and online learning.
Interactive Learning Online at Public Universities: Evidence from Randomized Trials, S+R Ithaka: This study measures the effect on learning outcomes of an online statistics course by randomly assigning students on six public university campuses to take the course in a hybrid format or a traditional format. The study, which also examines the cost of such models, is accompanied by a cost simulation macro file.
Interactive Online Learning on Campus, S+R Ithaka: A case study featuring MOOCS and other forms of hybrid learning on the University System of Maryland’s campuses.
Perspectives on Blended Learning in Higher Education, Norman Vaughan: An overview of blended learning from the perspectives of faculty, students, and administrators.
Personalizing Post-Secondary Education, Jessie Brown of S+R Ithaka: A comprehensive overview of adaptive learning solutions available to post-secondary educators.
This Thing Called Blended Learning, Geraldine Torrisi-Steele: Torrisi-Steele investigates the various competing definitions of ‘blended learning” and offers her own.
Time for Class: Lessons for the Future of Digital Courseware in Higher Education,Tyton Partners: A three-part survey of faculty and administrators and a review of courseware products written to help educators understand the courseware market, other institutions’ use of courseware, and how those products should be used.
Using Data-Driven Online Courseware to Optimize Teaching and Learning, Acrobatiq: A case study focusing on a University of Vermont professor who used adaptive learning technology to improve student outcomes.
Video
e-Literate TV: MindWires’ Michael Feldstein and Phil Hill investigate ed tech and how it is used at various universities. The case studies filmed by e-Literate TV explore different hybrid models as well as other ed tech that relates to blended learning, like personalized learning and MOOCs.
How and Why to Flip the College Classroom: This Cengage-produced webinar provides insights about how to flip an existing college course, featuring Craig Roberts, a professor of neuroscience and education at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, and Marc Sperber, an educational technologies consultant at the Duke University School of Nursing.
Why massive open online courses (still) matter: Anant Agarwal, head of edX, argues that the blended MOOC can revolutionize higher education.
A.J. O’Connell is a freelance journalist specializing in education reporting and a former college journalism teacher.