Re-imagining the "blend"

Blended learning isn’t a new term. Over the past decade or more, there’s been much debate about how the term should be defined or whether it’s useful at all(Oliver & Trigwell, 2005). This session seeks to question some... [ view full abstract ]

Blended learning isn’t a new term. Over the past decade or more, there’s been much debate about how the term should be defined or whether it’s useful at all(Oliver & Trigwell, 2005). This session seeks to question some of the binary assumptions driving the popular view of “blended learning” as it’s commonly employed by reflecting upon the experience of blending an inter-institutional PhD programme.

The SPHeRE Ph.D. Programme in Population Health and Health Services Research is funded by the Health Research Board (HRB) and involves a total of 37 teaching staff across three institutions - Trinity College, Dublin (TCD), The Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI), and University College Cork (UCC) . In 2014, the Programme began the transition from traditional face-to-face lecturing to a blended learning model. This year, for the first time, all six taught modules were delivered in the new format and the programme will soon undertake its eLearning Review. It’s the perfect time to re-examine and re-imagine the “blend”.

While it’s easy to quantify how many hours or how much content has been moved online, blended learning can be much more than this. In reviewing the challenges and successes of the new course design, we attempt to take into account what blended learning means to our lecturers, scholars and institutions. How do lecturers deal with the blend between the roles of “instructor” and “curator”? How do institutions deal with the blend of “in-house” and “external” material? In what ways is this approach useful and innovative? And can we do better?


Oliver, M. & Trigwell, K., 2005. Can “blended learning”be redeemed? E-learning and Digital Media, 2(1), pp.17–26.