For example, I am involved in an online pilot project incorporating flipped learning concepts where students might watch a video of a skill being demonstrated or a lecture on a concept and then be given questions to answer on a blog. This would also be followed up with a synchronous online class where students could be involved in small group investigation and then present their findings to the other students. There is great potential for learning and growth using this structure as well as for creating a learning community.
One supporting factor is the instructor engaging with the students in their blog posts acknowledging, questioning, and suggesting areas and direction for further investigation. The intention, of course, is that this will heighten student / instructor engagement and then also student / student engagement as a result of the modeling, acknowledgement, and encouragement of the instructor. This is not only a new skill for many instructors, but one that also requires "buy in", commitment and ongoing monitoring of these blogs.
Another component that is new for many instructors is allowing and encouraging students to take charge of their learning while allowing them their direction and mistakes in the process of their learning. How do we convince these instructors of the value of this process and to develop the new habits and integration needed to successfully carry out these new duties? Also, how do we convince students that this new and, to many of them, novel structure will support greater learning and integration? I have had a number of conversations over the last few months with adult students in both higher education and skills-based learning environments that lean more toward this type of learning environment than the more traditional lecture based environment. There was quite a bit of discomfort with not having the expert telling them what to do. A number of the students were using blogs to post findings of research and investigation in their subject areas. When the instructor took an active part of the conversation, the students reported to me that it was much more motivating and felt more encouraging, enabling them to engage and build on the conversations. When the instructors were absent from the conversation, the students started to wonder why they should be posting, and if anybody was even noticing their posts.
As educators supporting communities of learning, student-centered learning, and open educational concepts, we need to sell, encourage and model what we believe in to fellow educators and students. This is the challenge.