| | JUNE - 20238IN MY OPINION BLENDED OR FLIPPED CLASSROOMS? WE NEED TO ENABLE INTEGRATED COMMUNITIES INSTEADBy Kate Ames, Director, Learning Design and Innovation, CQUniversityRight now, there's a good chance you're reading this in one location, while members of your work team are located elsewhere. Some people will be working from home, beaming into meetings via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, while others will experience those same meetings while sitting around a boardroom table as a connection hub.The rise of distributed, part-virtual/part-office teams has required upskilling by all in technology and reminded us of the importance of clear communication, where expectations and goals are understood across a network so that everyone who needs to be is included in planning and reporting.Distributed work is not easy, which is why many are defaulting to ¡ return to the office approach. But there's increasing evidence that workers are demanding flexibility and hybrid options even when working as part of a team. As educators, the same discussions are taking place regarding university classrooms. Do we return to campus? How do we manage a hybrid approach? How do we build a sense of community with our students when they don't want to come to class? How do we manage and support our staff?The past three years of COVID-19-influenced life have taught people a lot about online learning. What they like, what they don't like, how they thought they learned rather than how they do. Most people required to learn formally over the past two years would have been exposed in some form to online learning. It is a space many have occupied for decades, with forays into online education by those less experienced making an impact on quality and experience, and not necessarily positive.Like workplaces, universities are enabled and constrained by technology solutions. As our Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become more sophisticated, we have increased our reliance on them to engage with students and support their learning. The LMS decision has become quite critical, often focusedona discussion about how it complements face-to-face learning through flipped classrooms of hybrid learning.If we are to prepare our students to be career-ready, which is the current global focus of the sector, we need to move beyond blended and flipped options to think about how we enable and support integrated learning communities. It is increasingly important to prepare our students so that Kate Ames
< Page 7 | Page 9 >