Blended+Learning+Solution+-+FINAL

Executive Summary
﻿This report offers a blended learning solution to address the needs of a cohort of two dozen international students studying contract drafting at an Australian university while working on improving their linguistic skills. The proposed solution is a mix of face to face and online interactions in order to negotiate and draft a well-written contract and post it on wiki. This approach is justified by ample research supporting the benefits of such a goal oriented and collabaorative approach. Face to face time will support instruction in "fuzzy" areas where immediate feedback is helpful.Blogs and wikis provide authentic publishing opportunities. Attention will be placed on fostering the emotional well-being of students.

1.1. Background
Dr. Smith, a university law professor, has received a financial grant of $10 000 to support a learning program to improve the linguistic skills of about two dozen international English second language (ESL) students while they are introduced to Australian law and the legal system, with an emphasis on contract drafting skills.

Adding to the complexity of managing a diverse mix of linguistic, educational, cultural and legal backgrounds is the complexity of contract law. Contract law is voluminous and boundaries are very fluid since they constantly change to address new situations. Additionally, contract law is inherently textual, with clarity being key to avoid misrepresentation. To add a final layer of complexity, in any transaction the lawyers invariably negotiate the wording of contracts, so another key success factor is verbal negotiation skills.

Recent studies have shown that Web 2.0 based technologies, such as Blogs and Wikis have been used successfully to support and improve ESL students’ linguistic skills. Dr. Smith believes that by incorporating these Web 2.0 technologies into his course he can provide his students with both face-to-face and Web based activities to achieve his contract drafting course goals, while also improving ESL students’ linguistic skills and meeting budgetary constraints.  Given the fact that up to 50% of U.S. students enrolled in online education drop out, any online components should address the emotional state of students. In order to maintain an emotionally healthy environment, there needs to be informal and frequent feedback and praise.

1.2. Purpose
The purpose of this report is to outline a suggested blended learning approach to teach a diverse group of ESL students contract drafting skills while improving their linguistic abilities.

2.0 Solution Outline
The proposed blended module is a mix of face to face and both synchronous and asynchronous online interactions. This approach will enable the instructor to adapt the media to the course objectives, and to extend limited classroom time to provide students with ongoing, easily accessible and self-directed learning opportunities. Classroom time will be used for supportive instruction in ‘fuzzy’ areas where immediate clarification and feedback is helpful. Given the budget constraints, the online components will be a mix of open source Web 2.0 applications with which the student are already familiar.

The table below summarises the outline of the course as well as the purposes for the various learning activities or tools used, in order to achieve the learning objectives. Briefly, this e-learning course will consist of a face to face component as well as an online component. In attempting to achieve the content and language learning objectives, learning activities are integrated into both forms of media. For example, the content objectives are to be met by both online (Wiki) and face to face (Simulation) components. It would be likewise for the language objectives.



3.0 Justification
Given the significant demands on the international students (linguistic, content, processes, time etc.), one of the objectives of the module is to incorporate Mayer and Moreno’s (2003) recommendation that “multimedia instructions should be designed in ways that minimise any unnecessary cognitive load.”Research has shown that L2 acquisition is reliant on a number of factors, including: implementing a chain of predictable sequences, avoiding isolated error correction and supporting understanding by contextualising language.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The above points mesh well with what is known about knowledge acquisition in general. For instance, Reiser (2002) suggests that the Knowledge Age requires good thinkers, not the ability to produce facts on tap. Schraw (2006) emphasises the need to limit input to avoid overloading the working memory. Vygotsky (1978) elaborates how knowledge is socially constructed.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Linking to these, a blended approach would be one effective mean for the acquisition of knowledge in a social context, where communication and language skills are also integrated into the learning. Blended approach according to Dzubian, Hartman & Moksal (2004) “combines the effectiveness and socialisation opportunities of the classroom with the technologically enhanced active learning possibilities of the online environment”. Heinze and Procter (2004) go beyond the technology to also include different teaching/learning models in the mix and so besides blending different media, different teaching approaches to be blended needs to be considered too.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Isolation, disorientation and questionable existence can make students feel lost and uncomfortable" (Hughes et al., 2007). The nature of the blended approach creates an opportunity to establish a learning community and network both in the physical and virtual learning environments, for support and interaction. Blended learning provides learners, through the use of for example Wikis, with the opportunity to interact with fellow students and teacher. The incorporation of these technologies in a learning program promotes collaborative and goal-oriented learning (Priyanto, 2009).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Blogs, Wikis and other online personal publishing space have allowed for great success in teaching and writing (Johnson, 2004; Godwin-Jones, 2003). They also provide platforms for authentic and contextualized tasks that require collaborative, critiquing, and reflection skills, along with the associated language components.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Using blogs as part of the blended solution has been used with success to teach writing skills (Langdon, 2005). Publishing individual work using blogs has been shown to encourage student ownership and responsibility for the work they publish (Godwin-Jones, 2003). Students tend to be more thoughtful and thorough for what they publish because the audience is real and may be less ‘compassionate’ if error of fact and grammar exist in the posting (Langdon, 2005). Blogs too provide a secure learning environment, since they can be limited to a small audience circle and thus provide a low risk context (Langdon, 2005). In addition, it has a feature that restricts the rights of modifying a comment to blog and the creator of the blog can also opt for moderation of a comment before allowing it to be published online.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wikis are very good at facilitating collaborative learning (Priyanto, 2009) and are ideal for creating ‘communities of practice’ which can help achieve collective applied learning where members’ expertise increase over time as a result of the collaborative environment where knowledge is increased and skills improved (Godwin-Jones, 2003).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wikis also require the integration of all language skills to participate and contribute (read, listen, and discuss), thus creating and ideal space to improve second language skills (Priyanto, 2009). Further, being aware of a real audience will influence the quality of the language used (Priyanto, 2009), thus continually improving the students’ language skills as they participate in the Wiki.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For perspective, Wikis present a higher risk scenario, since outsiders can read, comment on, and critique the published content. Nevertheless, LeLoup and Ponterio (2006) also recommend the use of Wikipedia as a valuable source of information to empower foreign language learning. In addition to its collective and public editing opportunities, Wikipedia should be viewed as another new tool to increase exposure to a wide variety of topics.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4.0 Conclusions and Recommendations
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Our recommended blended solution will utilise a combination of face-to-face instruction, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 technologies, specifically Blogs and Wikis with chat functionality where is this addressed in the recommendations? , to achieve the course objectives of negotiating and drafting a well-written contract and post it on a Blog site while improving linguistic skills.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Although there are a number of components to our bended solution as outlined previously, we will conclude with recommendations for the following main components:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Face-to face classroom instruction
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The face-to-face component of the course should be used by the teacher to provide direct and supportive instruction in subject specific topics and ‘fuzzy’ areas where immediate clarification and feedback is helpful.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">During face-to-face sessions the tutor will present topics related to Australian law and legal system, with an emphasis on contract drafting skills. These sessions will be subject content intensive to provide students with the foundation to apply their knowledge and understanding to contract drafting. These sessions provide students with the opportunity to learn and practice negotiation principles through review activities and simulations, ask questions directly to the teacher, and receive immediate clarification and feedback.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This supportive environment will also provide students with the opportunity to practice grammar, practice using rhetorical devices, practice constructing sentences and paragraphs with a focus on clear writing, practice receiving criticism and so forth.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">These sessions should also be used to introduce and establish the various online components and activities of the course such as the use of Wikis and Blogs. The interactions and feedback received from students during the face-to-face sessions should also be used to design and adjust the specific activities that need to be completed online. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wikis
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Initially, students should be divided into groups of 3-4 students with at least one English first language student per group. Each group will be asked to create a Wiki site for the purpose of collaboratively drafting contracts on a chosen area. These collaborative activities will help students to share and consolidate their knowledge, share ideas, clarify concepts, and receive and offer feedback on the legal and linguistic aspects of the drafting activity. The Wikis should have a chat feature to enable students to communicate synchronously as well as asynchronously.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">﻿The pairing of ESL and English first language students will allow the ESL students to receive feedback on their linguistic skills, such as word choice, grammar and so forth, and also give them the opportunity to practice their conversation skills with English first language students on a very regular basis. Because Wikis require the use of reading, writing, and discussion skills with a real audience, it will positively influence the linguistic skills of the students when contributing in the Wiki. This will help improve these skills of the ESL students in general use of the English language and specifically in the use of English in contract drafting.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The drafted contracts will be used in class for peer review and simulated in-class peer negotiation activities.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Blogs
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When the students have completed a number of Wiki activities and have sufficiently practiced drafting contracts as a group, the students will be asked to individually draft and post contracts online using a Blog site. The Blog site will be available to the tutor, fellow students and the wider university legal department for review and comment. These Blogs will encourage ownership and responsibility to draft the contract correctly, both in legal and linguistic terms, because these Blogs are created for a real audience.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Over and above the drafting of a contract and posting for review and comment, students will also be required to post their reflections about contract drafting principles, sharing which contract drafting areas are of personal interest, review actual contracts, and comments on peer Blog postings.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Emails
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Emails should be used as a general communication tool to summarise week’s discussions, provide links for readings and videos of contract negotiations and other relevant materials.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">References
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Donnelly, R. (2008). Harmonizing technology with interaction in blended problem-based learning. Computers & Education, 350-359. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Godwin-Jones, R. (2003). Blogs and Wikis: Environments for On-line Collaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 12-16. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Landon, S. (2005). Wiki & Blog: Using Social Communication Tools for Teaching Writing. IATFEL CALL Review, 38-40. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Lim, S.-W. Y. (2007). Strategic Blending: A Conceptual Framework to Improve Learning and Performance. International Journal on ELearning, 475-489. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hughes, M., Ventura, S. & Dando, M. (2007). Assessing social presence in online discussion groups: a replication study. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 17-29. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sharma, G. M. (2009). Blended Learning in a Web 2.0 World. International Journal of Emerging Technologies & Society, 83-96. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Priyanto, A. D. (2009). Retrieved March 25, 2011, from Universitas Sebelas Maret: agusdepe.staff.uns.ac.id/files/2009/08/fullpaperagusdepe.pdf <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Schraw, G. (2006). Knowledge structures and processes. In P. A. Alexander & P. Winne (Eds.),Handbook of educational psychology (pp.245-263). Mahwah, NJ: LEA. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reiser, R. (2002). A history of instructional design and technology: Part 2: a history of instructional design. Educational Technology Research & Development, 49(2), 57-67