Justin Reich, a HarvardX Research Fellow, explores new research (pdf) into the roles humans play in blended learning environments. Mica Pollock and colleagues at the University of San Diego (UCSD)’s CREATE Lab, observed a summer’s worth of courses from USCD’s Early Academic Outreach Program, which allows underserved high schools students to take online courses that earn them credit towards the admission. These courses incorporate a blended model where local teachers provide supplementary support for an online curriculum. In observing the courses, Pollack created a taxonomy of seven kinds of work that humans took on in these blended learning environments, which include humans as fixers and explainers of technology, humans as explainers of content, humans as regulators of student behavior, and humans as peer supporters. Reich concludes that “these findings also may be a reminder that, especially when trying to serve the students who most need our support, there are plenty of crucial dimensions of learning for which humans remain irreplaceable.”
http://blogs.edweek.org/edtechresearcher/2014/05/humans-in-blended-learning.html