6    Blended Synchronous Learning in One University’s Graduate Programs in Education

Sawsen Lakhal

The work environment has changed significantly in recent years in order to cope with major trends in technical and technological progress (Valenduc & Vendramin, 2016). These changes require companies and social institutions to become increasingly competitive through, among other things, a highly skilled and innovative workforce. Education and training are key issues in facing these changes. Carey and Ferreras (2017) observed that “it’s . . . about a workforce with new technical smarts and with a broader understanding of the big picture of workplace innovation” (para. 3). Consequently, many adults have to go back to postsecondary education institutions and some of them to universities to acquire additional skills in order to remain competitive (van Rhijn, Lero, & Burke, 2016). However, these adults have multiple responsibilities while attending courses, including professional and family responsibilities. Moreover, often they interrupt their studies for long periods of time. Because of these responsibilities, they cannot participate in face-to-face classroom sessions every week (Duarte, de Oliveira Pires, & Nobre, 2016). On the one hand, traditional face-to-face teaching and learning processes are more adapted to traditional full-time students; on the other, some online learning, in which all teaching and learning activities occur asynchronously, does not always meet the needs of adult students (Bower, Dalgarno, Kennedy, Lee, & Kenney, 2015), who often need to socialize with their instructor and other students enrolled in the course to remain engaged and motivated. To meet the needs of adult learners, to take into account their constraints, and to increase their access to higher education, universities have adapted their modes of course delivery. The development of information and communication technology and the availability of high-speed broadband Internet connectivity have allowed new opportunities in course delivery to emerge. Of these delivery modes, blended learning is one of the most promising and popular for adult students (Hill, 2012; Irvine, Code, & Richards, 2013) because it combines the benefits of face-to-face interaction with online flexibility and ubiquity (Lakhal & Khechine, 2016; McGee & Reis, 2012).

Blended Learning and Blended Synchronous Learning

Blended learning combines face-to-face learning with online learning in a planned and pedagogically valuable manner to form an integrated instructional approach (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008; Graham, 2006). In this mixed mode, faculty members and students work together to accomplish learning outcomes supported pedagogically by teaching, learning, and assessment activities and to offer a meaningful course environment to students (Lakhal & Khechine, 2016; McGee & Reis, 2012). Therefore, “blended education goes beyond just combining traditional and online teaching and learning. It involves a total redesign of traditional courses to include the use of technology for online communication, activities and delivery” (Kyei-Blankson, Godwyll, & Nur-Awaleh, 2014, p. 244).

Blended learning can take on different forms along a continuum, with a focus on face-to-face activities complemented by online activities, on the one end, and a focus on online activities complemented by face-to-face activities, on the other. Blended synchronous learning is one form of blended learning. It is defined as “learning and teaching where remote students participate in face-to-face classes by means of rich-media synchronous technologies such as video conferencing, web conferencing, or virtual worlds” (Bower et al., 2015, p. 1). “Multi-access learning” is another term employed to describe the phenomenon examined here. First introduced in Canada by Irvine et al. (2013), multi-access learning is defined “as a framework for enabling students in both face-to-face and online contexts to personalize learning experiences while engaging as a part of the same course” (p. 175). Often, moreover, some of the face-to-face sessions are replaced by online sessions for all students enrolled in the course. At francophone universities in Canada, blended learning is characterized as hybride, which means “blended” in English. Although researchers and practitioners define this phenomenon differently, essentially they are referring to the same mode of course delivery. This highlights the many ways in which modes of course delivery are described. In the rest of this chapter, I use the term “blended synchronous learning” (BSL).

In this chapter, I report on a scholarship of teaching inquiry into current practices in graduate programs in education using BSL in greater detail, as well as on the benefits of using this mode of course delivery and the challenges experienced by instructors and students, focusing on the use of video/voice and text. Given the recent interest and the scant published research in BSL contexts, the results reported here should provide faculties and higher education administrators with additional information and guidance, based on empirical data, in using this mode of course delivery in graduate programs.

In the following section, I present a literature review of blended synchronous learning, including its advantages and its challenges. I then discuss my experience with BSL. I provide a description of the sample and the procedure before presenting and discussing the results. I end the chapter with the implications of the study, its limitations, and future research directions.

Research and Literature Review

Theoretical and empirical research on blended learning is abundant and has been the subject of several literature reviews and meta-analyses (e.g., Bernard, Borokhovski, Schmid, Tamim, & Abrami, 2014; Boelens, De Wever, & Voet, 2017; Drysdale, Graham, Spring, & Halverson, 2013; Halverson, Graham, Spring, Drysdale, & Henrie, 2014). However, little research has been done on BSL (Bower et al., 2015; Szeto & Cheng, 2016). Despite this paucity, one can extract from previous research some benefits and challenges of this mode of course delivery.

The references cited in the literature review deal exclusively with BSL. Some of the advantages and challenges are the same as those encountered in online learning, but others are exclusive to BSL.

Advantages of BSL

One acknowledged advantage of BSL is the increase in higher education student enrolment and the reduction in instruction costs. BSL can represent a solution for institutions of higher education with limited classroom space (Educause, 2010; Miller, Risser, & Griffiths, 2013). Another acknowledged advantage is accessibility. BSL provides students with greater educational access since it responds to their scheduling needs by offering flexibility in course attendance (Abdelmalak, 2014; Bower, Kenney, Dalgarno, Lee, & Kennedy, 2014; Bower et al., 2015; Cunningham, 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Miller et al., 2013). This is especially true for students who live far from university campuses (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Educause, 2010) or who have work schedules and family responsibilities that make it difficult for them to attend weekly face-to-face sessions (Abdelmalak, 2014; Bower et al., 2014; Kyei-Blankson & Godwyll, 2010). Regardless of whether the student is enrolled in a face-to-face or an online synchronous course session, BSL gives him or her equal opportunities to interact in real time with other students and faculty members (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Miller et al., 2013). Moreover, online students and face-to-face students might be able to get together in small group discussions (Bell, Sawaya, & Cain, 2014; Cunningham, 2014) and complete collaborative learning activities (Bower et al., 2014). Thanks to these interactions, BSL reduces feelings of isolation among online students (Cunningham, 2014) and allows them to get to know their classmates much better than if they were attending the course online asynchronously (Bower et al., 2015; Cunningham, 2014). BSL also promotes students’ engagement in their learning (Cunningham, 2014) and produces similar if not more effective outcomes compared with traditional face-to-face courses (Kyei-Blankson & Godwyll, 2010; Kyei-Blankson et al., 2014). Finally, in BSL, there are better course and program completion rates for students who interact synchronously with other students and faculty members compared with those who rely solely on asynchronous communication (Bower et al., 2014).

Challenges of BSL

According to the authors reviewed, BSL has many challenges. They are classified into four subthemes: course design, management of online students and face-to-face students at the same time by faculty members, technological issues, and relationships between face-to-face students and online students. I summarize these issues in the following paragraphs.

Designing a BSL course involves much more physical and social preparation than courses in a single mode (Bower et al., 2014), for example face-to-face or online, such as setting up the rooms (both physical and virtual classes) in order to create meaningful learning environments. Faculty members can spend a lot of time anticipating interactions and collaborations between the two groups of students (i.e., face-to-face and online students) that do not occur spontaneously and have to be well planned (Bower et al., 2015). Otherwise, learning via videoconferencing would not be the same as in face-to-face classrooms because of inappropriate instructional planning (Szeto, 2014).

Another important challenge pertains to the management of online students and face-to-face students at the same time by faculty members (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Hastie, Hung, Chen, & Kinshuk, 2010). In this particular context of learning, faculty members might have to slow down the teaching pace or overdone repetition in order to give additional explanations to online students, which can affect face-to-face student learning (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Szeto, 2014).

A third challenge is related to students’ levels of technological skill. If some online students lack technological skills, then faculty members might focus on them and spend much time troubleshooting technical problems (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Cunningham, 2014). Moreover, issues with connectivity and technology can be barriers for online students in BSL (Abdelmalak, 2014; Cunningham, 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Kyei-Blankson et al., 2014).

Finally, some face-to-face students reported that interacting with online students was indirect, and therefore cooperative tasks were difficult to carry out in virtual environments; additional efforts were required to foster group interaction in the instructional process (Szeto, 2014). Communication and interaction seem to be more difficult between face-to-face students and online students than between face-to-face students (Bower et al., 2014). Moreover, some online students might feel less attended to and unwelcome in the course (Hastie et al., 2010), or they might perceive that their comments are not taken into consideration by face-to-face students. In fact, it is difficult to give free access to speaking rights to online students. They often have to indicate when they want to speak in text, and sometimes they are limited to written participation. Forming relationships with fellow classmates might be difficult for online students because they do not meet in person every week, making it more difficult to form relationships with face-to-face students (Francescucci & Foster, 2014) and thus to build up a social presence that would be helpful in learning (Cunningham, 2014). Therefore, social and emotional connectedness needs to be encouraged and fostered by faculty members in such a learning environment (Bower et al., 2015).

BSL in a Master Teacher Program

Transferring from a face-to-face mode to BSL presents universities with many advantages and challenges (Bower et al., 2015; Lakhal, Bateman, & Bédard, 2017). BSL has been used in the Master Teacher Program (MTP) in a Canadian francophone university because of its context in which face-to-face students are combined with online students and in order to expand teaching practices. The MTP is designed for practitioners to enable them to develop reflective and critical thinking on their teaching and to develop research expertise using methods of inquiry. These practitioners are teachers currently deployed in anglophone public and private colleges in Québec: Dawson, John-Abbott, Vanier, Champlain Lennoxville, Champlain St. Lambert, Champlain St. Lawrence, Marianapolis, Centennial Academy, and Heritage. In Québec, public colleges are called collèges d’enseignement général et professionnel or CEGEPs, and private colleges are designated as collèges. They refer to postsecondary institutions exclusive to the system of education in Québec. They are exclusive in that the diploma of college studies, called diplôme d’études collégiales, is required for university admission.

The MTP grants three levels of a graduate degree: a graduate certificate in college teaching (GCCT), a graduate diploma in college teaching (GDCT), and a master’s degree in college teaching (MCT). The MTP targets educational psychology, pedagogy, pedagogical content knowledge, and discipline-based learning with the aim of furthering the professional abilities and reflective practices of its teacher-participants. In an effort to serve anglophone colleges outside the Montréal region, BSL has been implemented since 2006 and is still in operation.

The MTP uses BSL, which requires students who live in the Montréal area to attend face-to-face classes, whereas students who live outside the Montréal region attend the classes synchronously online. Instead of using podcasts to reduce distant students’ feeling of isolation, as suggested by Conrad (2014), desktop videoconferencing, which permits bidirectional communication, is deployed in each course session. Moreover, face-to-face session time is reduced and replaced with learning and assessment activities conducted asynchronously and, in some courses, conducted online synchronously between class meetings. The context of BSL use is different from contexts reported in the literature by Bower et al. (2015), Educause (2010), Irvine et al. (2013), Lakhal, Khechine, and Pascot (2014), and Miller et al. (2013) because students have no choice in the type of course participation; residents of the Montréal area must attend face-to-face classes, whereas students at a distance must attend courses online synchronously. Distance students who complete the MCT are asked to be present in class at four key times throughout the 45-credit program in order to have contact with their colleagues and to develop a sense of belonging to their cohort or class group. The travelling fees and hotel accommodations for these students are paid by the deans of the anglophone colleges.

Methodology

Participants

All course instructors in the MTP were invited to participate in the study during the 2017 summer session. Four of the 16 instructors agreed to participate in the semi-structured interviews. These participants were coded as T1, T2, T3, and T4. Participants were offered $50 as compensation for the time devoted to the study interviews. Table 6.1 outlines the demographic details of the study sample.

Table 6.1 Demographic details of the study sample.

Methods and Analysis

An exploratory case study was adopted for this research using qualitative data (Yin, 1994). Data collection comprised semi-structured online interviews using Skype software. Because the principal researcher was also the manager of the MTP, her research assistant was responsible for conducting the interviews and anonymizing the data, using a code for each participant. Ethics approval was granted from the ethics review board of the francophone university where the study took place. During the interviews, participants elaborated on their experiences with BSL in the MTP. The interviews lasted between 90 and 120 minutes and were recorded on video. The method used for data analysis was thematic analysis following the six stages of Braun and Clarke (2006): transcribing data, generating initial coding, searching for themes, reviewing themes, naming and defining themes, and producing the report.

Results and Discussion

Five major themes emerged from the data: (1) accessibility; (2) course organization, planning, and design; (3) teaching, learning, and assessment activities; (4) communication and interaction; and (5) technology. Table 6.2 presents these five themes and their subthemes. Within them, the MTP practices with BSL as well as the benefits of using this mode of course delivery and the challenges experienced by faculty members and students are reported accordingly. The advantages and challenges of BSL are summarized for each theme in the appendix.

Table 6.2 Themes and subthemes that emerged from the study results.

Accessibility

In the case of the MTP, BSL provided access to higher education. The four instructors interviewed agreed about this advantage. Accessibility had two significations for study participants. On the one hand, BSL gave access to the MTP to students who lived in the Montréal region and were therefore supposed to attend face-to-face sessions but were not able to do so for exceptional reasons. These students were still allowed to participate in the course while benefiting from the interactions with their instructor and classmates in real time. Instructor T2 recognized that accessibility is “the main advantage. . . . I think about another teacher who ended up on bed rest with her pregnancy. Even though she was a face-to-face Montréal participant, she could still do the course because she could do it online” (55). On the other hand, BSL in the MTP allowed students from other regions to attend class sessions and to interact with their classmates in real time. These students were able to obtain a university graduate degree in education while remaining in their communities. Instructor T4 pointed out that “we are helping people that cannot otherwise get a university education at the master’s level, and these are teachers” (106). As this instructor added, “we saw that they had had aspirations to do something like this, . . . get some more educational background in pedagogy and teaching, but there was no way for them to do it, so [this] was their opportunity” (121). Distance education students appreciated the chance to take BSL courses and programs and to be in touch with colleagues from other CEGEPs. Talking about students from a distance, instructor T4 stated that “I think people really appreciate the chance to be doing that and to hear from their colleagues” (117). Moreover, participants observed that these online students were enthusiastic about attending class sessions and active compared with face-to-face students:

From the beginning, we saw that they were very, very keen. They were the ones who would post things first. They were the ones to be more actively involved. The people in Montréal were . . . more laid back—“Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow”— . . . whereas right after class these people would post things right away, and they were all excited. (T4, 121)

Some participants in the study wanted more choices for students living in the Montréal region in terms of course attendance in order to increase enrolment. For example, some students encounter issues because of traffic and road conditions, especially in winter sessions. These issues prevent them from enrolling in some courses, as instructor T1 indicated:

Sometimes traffic, having to travel from [College A] to [College B]. Some people have decided not to take the course because of that. If we allow them to take it in blended format, then they would take it. If we force them to drive, then they won’t. (3)

Some instructors even question why the university does not extend the program to other provinces. For example, instructor T3 argued that “we have students from all over, like in Québec, maybe open to other provinces. This program, by the way, can be very good for people from other places. I don’t know why we keep it here in Québec” (97).

Previous studies also revealed that BSL courses provide students with greater educational access since they are available to those who live far from university campuses (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Educause, 2010). Moreover, previous studies reported that BSL courses offer flexible attendance to those who have work schedules and family responsibilities that make it difficult for them to attend weekly face-to-face sessions (Abdelmalak, 2014; Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Cunningham, 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Miller et al., 2013). However, in the MTP, students do not have a choice in course attendance. Access to class sessions online is given to students from the Montréal area only in exceptional circumstances.

Course Organization, Planning, and Design

Course Organization. Besides class sessions in which online students are mixed with face-to-face students, two other types of activities are planned in using BSL in the MTP: face-to-face activities and online activities for all students enrolled in the course. The program committee chose to hold some face-to-face activities among all students for certain pedagogical purposes. Indeed, students are asked to be physically present in class in Montréal at four key times throughout the MTP. Regarding the role of these practices in enhancing the perception of social presence among students, instructor T2 claimed that, “when the people at a distance come in, those couple of days that we do in the program . . ., it helps as well to foster that bond” (34). Instructor T4 added that “we also have times within our program that everyone must be in Montréal, and the connections . . . at that point are tremendous, and then when you see them online you feel that much more connected to them” (106). Some activities in each course are held online for all students. Having face-to-face activities and online activities put all students on the same level. All students, whether they are from Montréal or other regions in Québec, are thus on the same page, so no one has an advantage or disadvantage. The inclusion of these activities also enables the program to offer a certain variety in course attendance. Talking about the two types of activities, instructor T4 revealed that “once again everyone is on the same level. You have these occasions throughout our program when everyone is face-to-face or regularly throughout the courses that everyone is online at the same time” (135).

Course Planning and Design. Planning and design in BSL courses are different from face-to-face courses or online courses. Indeed, instructors have to plan and design the courses in order to consider both online students and face-to-face students. For example, they have to create opportunities for all students to participate on their computers, so that those online and those in class contribute at the same level:

You have to remember, it’s like you’ve got two groups that you’re always trying to make into one group. You need to be aware of both sectors and then try to blend it together to have the activities blended. (T4, 106)

There are advantages in having students online and students face-to-face in the same group. Indeed, giving access to students outside the Montréal region and mixing them with students from Montréal open the classroom up to other realities and, in the case of my study, to CEGEPs in other regions:

The English colleges are fairly large . . . and so we have a sense of what works in an urban environment in large colleges. When you talk about the English participants from smaller colleges that are rural, there’s a whole other perspective there, and to be able to bring that into our context was really eye-opening I think for all of us. The exchange was really rich, and the different programs of course that they brought with them in the sense of what they were teaching was also very eye-opening for all of us, so very rewarding all around. (T4, 102)

However, BSL courses require more time to design than courses in other formats. Instructors also have to be familiar with the online aspect of the course. Indeed, for “a teacher that’s not familiar with how it feels to be online, they may not realize the impact of their actions” (T1, 25).

It seems to be harder to design a BSL course than a face-to-face course according to instructor T2: “It’s harder to design the course so that you can obtain the same learning and the same learning outcomes” (55). The planning also has to be more accurate. From the point of view of instructor T1, a BSL course works well when “it’s super organized. We have everything down to five minutes, and we respect our timing. We always have our little schedule” (1). However, such accurate planning does not leave room for flexibility. The lack of flexibility results from the fact that activities have to be planned and available to online students on the Moodle page a few days before the class. A last-minute change to the teacher’s plan cannot work in these circumstances.

These challenges were also reported in previous studies that found that a BSL course demands much more physical and social preparation than face-to-face or online courses (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014), such as setting up the rooms (both physical and virtual classes) in order to create a meaningful learning environment. In fact, instructors might spend a lot of time anticipating interaction and collaboration between online and face-to-face students (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014).

Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Activities

Useful Activities for Students. Instructors try to make sure that all teaching, learning, and assessment activities are relevant and useful for students. Students are always encouraged to discuss their concerns and experiences in class sessions. They are also invited to draw links between their experiences and theory. Instructor T3, for example, asks students “what can you take from this theory . . . and actually apply tomorrow when you go to the classroom, what can you do about it? Give me the scenario” (67).

Students should also be able to build on and use their learning in their own teaching. Talking about a learning activity, instructor T3 claimed that “it has to be very, very relevant to what they tackle every day” (58). Instructor T4 added that “it’s targeted as what the participant’s needs are. I really try to focus on that. What’s going to make the most sense for you with this kind of assignment? How will it be the most useful?” (108). Thus, the activities carried out—whether synchronously or asynchronously—should be transferable to college teaching, preferably in the short term. Instructor T1 claimed that “what’s really important is that they get to use what they’re going to learn for something that’s not two years down the line, for something that’s coming, making the learning and the assessments useful to them right away” (7).

Activities presented to students in BSL meet the characteristics of educational approaches for adult students, as described by Stöter, Zawacki-Richter, and von Prümmer (2014). These authors revealed that learning for adults is characterized by, among other things, connecting new knowledge to their experiences and immediacy in application.

Student-Centred Activities. In the study, it was found that instructors used a variety of teaching and learning activities in order to meet different students’ needs and characteristics and to make sure that all the course objectives are met. Instructor T4 claimed that “I really feel that our students are so diverse. Their intellectual abilities, their types of learning. . . . Anyways, there’s just so many different types of learners and that you need the variety” (112).

Most of the time, instructors used student-centred strategies in order to encourage students to participate in their learning. Instructors act as a guide, even as a learner, and not the only holder of knowledge. They are part of the whole class and learn and share with the students. Instructor T4 argued that “I don’t want to be seen as the sole source of knowledge” (117). This instructor also recognized that “I’m in there with them, I’m learning as well as they’re learning, and how can we do this together? How can we collectively experience and learn whatever our topic is” (113). This advantage was also reported in previous studies according to which BSL allows instructors to use different strategies in order to meet different student learning preferences, approaches, and strategies (Abdelmalak, 2014; Kyei-Blankson et al., 2014). Moreover, the roles of instructors and students have to be conceived differently compared with those in traditional face-to-face courses. In BSL courses, the strategies of teaching and learning should be more student centred. Therefore, instructors should enhance students’ participation in their learning and support interactions between face-to-face and online students (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2010; Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Hastie et al., 2010; Szeto, 2014).

Instructor T4 makes sure that all students participate in their learning, even the quietest ones. This instructor gives them the same opportunity to participate by calling on everyone in the class to go up to the white board (face-to-face students) and even at home (online students).

In the synchronous activities, group work is one of the most often used learning strategies in the MTP courses. The four instructors interviewed perceived this learning strategy as the most efficient. Moreover, it seems to foster the engagement of all students and a better understanding of the course content, whether students are online or face-to-face. Talking about group work, instructor T2 claimed that “it’s to keep everybody active and engaged but also to have a better understanding of the content” (32). Group work also makes it possible to have discussions and encourage feedback among students. In the MTP, group work has also been identified as a means to enhance a sense of belonging or social presence, as defined by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000, 2001).

When you allow them to do a lot of group work together, . . . they discover they don’t live apart. They will travel together. They will group in somebody’s office and all attend the session together. . . . It creates the sense of their belonging to a group. Then the group belongs to the class, and the class belongs to the program. (T1, 15)

In online synchronous activities, some instructors also seek students’ participation. Instructor T2 claimed that, “when we’re all online, I like to use the poll feature in WebEx, just to make sure that everybody is active and following along” (31). This instructor allows students to add to the PowerPoint slides during these synchronous sessions: “When they’re online, . . . I give them the rights to write on the PowerPoint slide so that they can add [to it]” (34).

For the asynchronous activities, instructors employ all the features of Moodle, such as discussion forums, Wikis, quizzes, questionnaires, lessons, and glossaries. Some of these tools are employed for learning and others for assessment. Group work, with a mix of online students and face-to-face students, is used in these activities while taking advantage of these tools.

Asynchronous activities make it possible to provide continuity among synchronous activities in terms of learning and interacting among students and with course content. Instructors use the readings, the database activities, and the discussion forums in Moodle because they want students to think and to see what other students think about a given topic in order to integrate other viewpoints, not just the instructor’s.

Student Engagement. To ensure that students are engaged in their learning activities, 20% of the grade in the MTP courses is devoted to engagement, which pertains to participation in course activities. Instructor T2 argued that this is “making sure that they are doing the work in the discussion forum. That they are contributing to the database. That they are contributing in class. [That] they are being vocal in class” (33). For instructors, measures of engagement, as an assessment strategy, are important because not all sessions are face-to-face. Some are done online asynchronously. Assessment of engagement ensures that students participate in learning activities in order to replace face-to-face or synchronous learning time. This was also reported in previous studies (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2010). Instructor T2 argued that “you’ve got so many hours now that are no longer in class. You got the hours that are now online outside of class. You’ve got to make sure that the students are doing it” (33). T3 elaborated:

We have a forum in the course, so we have a little back and forth with ideas, sharing of ideas. Because I like to keep the class even though there’s no classes, so you create this forum and people share. . . . It’s not always effective, but it’s something that creates some kind of learning experience outside. (75)

This type of engagement is particularly true in intensive course sessions, in which students are supposed to accomplish some learning activities online, more often than in regular course sessions. Students are expected to go online regularly, almost every day, to check the Moodle page, to contribute to the posts in discussion forums, to submit questions, and to respond to other students’ questions. Instructors expect students to be visible throughout the course.

Engagement also means that students interact with each other and further their learning. For example, instructor T2 claimed that students not only have to post in forums but also have to reply to others in order to ensure continuity (32). For these activities, there needs to be clear time frames. Otherwise, some students do not participate promptly, and this could affect the learning of other students. As T4 noted,

some people are so good with it, but then they posted, and no one respond[ed] to them or their partner who should have responded [and] didn’t respond, and then they email me and say, “What do I do?” Those are the kind[s] of things that are problematic. (105)

Management of Online and Face-to-Face Students. It is difficult for instructors in BSL classes to manage online and face-to-face students at the same time. Some instructors might even forget that they have students online and focus on their face-to-face students:

I’d be honest with you, sometimes it’s very easy to forget students outside. It’s so easy. . . . I always have to . . . remember you have these students that are outside, because it’s so hard to disengage from the environment of the classroom. (T3, 60)

Instructors reported that they were unable to manage students online and face-to-face at the same time. This challenge was also highlighted by previous studies (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Hastie et al., 2010). For example, in cases of trouble with technology, they cannot provide the support for online students and put face-to-face students on hold. Instructor T1 mentioned that “I can’t do the technical support because it’s only a three-hour period, and you just don’t have time to say to all the others hold while I figure this out” (4). To overcome these issues, each instructor in an MTP course is paired with a teaching assistant. This solution has been adopted in other contexts. Teaching assistants have been employed to manage technology-related problems, respond to online student chat comments, and manage other issues (Bell, Sawaya & Cain, 2014; Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014). In the MTP, the teaching assistant is called a tech support. The four instructors interviewed agreed that the teaching assistant is a must in each BSL course because they are not able to manage the course alone. Instructor T2 commented that “you absolutely have to have tech support. You cannot do this without a proper technician” (56), and T4 claimed that,

if I would be expected to do it all on my own, I’d be out of there very quick. You have to be on the ball, you have to know what’s going on, you have to be there, and the teacher already has two elements, two mini subgroups of a whole larger group. You can’t also do the tech support, you really can’t. For three hours, it’s not possible. (107)

The role of the teaching assistant is mainly to help include online students. This person is perceived to be the voice of online students as they use chat to ask questions, to add their comments, or to participate in class discussions. Talking about the teaching assistant, the four instructors interviewed agreed on his or her role. As T3 commented, “he is the actual frontline, the mouth for them” (77).

The qualifications of the teaching assistant seem to be an issue in BSL courses. As instructor T1 revealed, “the quality of the tech support, that has a huge impact too on making the class run smoothly” (25). Among other qualifications, the teaching assistant should have good troubleshooting skills.

Communication and Interaction

Participants in the study pointed out the importance for students to communicate and interact with each other and with instructors in order to enhance the three types of presence: social, cognitive, and teaching (Garrison et al., 2000, 2001). In previous studies, students enrolled in BSL courses were reported to experience high levels of social presence because of real-time communications with instructors and classmates (Bower et al., 2015; Cunningham, 2014). The Moodle features listed in the teaching, learning, and assessment strategies, such as reading, and discussion forums and Wikis enable communication and interaction among students. They are possible mainly through the use of text. Moreover, group work, one of the learning strategies used the most often by instructors in the MTP, allows students to work together, exchange ideas, and construct knowledge. Some instructors use “breakout rooms” with VIAand WebEx, which are two desktop web conferencing systems, when the groups are composed of face-to-face and online students. In these situations, students have to use their cameras and headphones as they rely mainly on voice and video to communicate and interact with each other.

Communication and Interaction Between Face-to-Face and Online Students. In class sessions, some instructors encourage face-to-face students to communicate and interact with online students by means of the chat room on WebEx. It also allows for immediate feedback. This is known as backchannel communication among students. This advantage was also reported in previous studies (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Miller et al., 2013) and requires a degree of letting go from the instructor on behalf of the students. Along these lines, instructor T1 reported that, “in the class . . ., we allow them in WebEx to chat with each other so they can send private messages through one another” (12). However, not all instructors permit students to interact with each other using WebEx. Communication and interaction among students are vital in the context of BSL in order to ensure that online students develop a sense of belonging to the group and do not feel isolated and excluded, especially in class sessions in which there is a mix of face-to-face students and online students. Instructor T4 added that “we have to remember the people online, so we have to just engage them and make sure that the people in class are also working with the people online” (120).

Communication and interaction among face-to-face students are easy, but for online students additional efforts need to be made. Accordingly, instructor T1 recognized that

when [you’re] sitting next to somebody, you tend to talk with that person and discover something. . . . If we don’t allow communication, it’s the same like I just said, the exclusion, the people online, we need to make the effort to link them to the people in class. (10)

Talking about communication and interaction between online and face-to-face students, instructor T4 added that, in sharing their experiences, it is easier for face-to-face students compared with online students: “It’s easy for them, and once again it’s harder for the ones at a distance because you can’t just casually chat with someone. . . . It’s definitely more difficult for the people online” (118).

Face-to-face students have to show openness to online students and indicate that they really want to connect with them. Talking about face-to-face students, instructor T4 claimed that “we all collectively recognize that there’s people at a distance that need to be included and that the group in class is aware. Each of them individually [is] also aware that there’s these people at a distance” (101).

Not every student is ready to be an online student. Some students are not comfortable with the online aspect of the courses. Instructor T4 recognized that “within the blended learning we need to think that everyone online is not necessarily comfortable online” (135). Sometimes online students do not participate in the course. They are not there even if they are logged in. The visual anonymity makes it easier for online students to disengage from class discussions (Francescucci & Foster, 2014). Talking about a situation that happened in a course, instructor T4 related that “every once in a while someone [had] gone off to do their laundry or something. I mean you can’t tell. They’ve logged on” (115).

Online students have to possess some specific skills. One of the best online students in the program was described by instructor T2 in these words:

She’d have her webcam on. She would always jump in. She never hesitated. When you said “Okay, those of you online, have you got something to add?” she would always jump in. She was always using her hand or the emoticons. She was always writing on the board. She’s probably one of our best online learners. (35)

To help students become good online learners, some training should be provided to them at the beginning of the program, as mentioned by instructor T2: “One of the things we need to do as an MTP program for everybody who’s going to be online, they need a primer. They need a tutorial or something before they start” (36). For example, a module on Moodle or some videos should be available to these students.

Synchronous communication and interaction between online and face-to-face students can also be possible in group work. While using this learning strategy, some instructors mix online and face-to-face students. Group work with such a mix was also reported in previous studies (Bell et al., 2014; Cunningham, 2014). Instructors in the present study believed that it was their responsibility to create occasions when online students could work with face-to-face students. Instructor T2 argued that, “when I’m doing the group work, I’m always trying to mix them up so that the online people are working with the face-to-face people too” (42). Moreover, instructors can ensure that students have the chance to work with different colleagues instead of always having the same students in each group. Instructor T2 revealed that “I keep a long list of who’s worked with who each class so that I make sure that the two people in Gatineau who already share an office aren’t always working together” (32).

Finally, in order to optimize the mix between online and face-to-face students in group work, the number of each should be equal according to instructor T2: “Half the students were face-to-face, and half the students were online, so it made blending the groups very easy” (27). Instructor T4 preferred to have four or five students online, which corresponded to a quarter to a third of the class:

There’s 15 to 18 people generally in our classes, so we’re looking at four. Four is a great number online. Four, five, that kind of number, like maybe a third. Quarter to a third are online. That’s a good ratio. When you only have one person online, that’s more problematic, I find. (101)

To arrange the groups when instructors do not have enough students online, some of them might ask students from the face-to-face group to be online intentionally.

Some instructors are reluctant to mix online and face-to-face students in groups because they reported that face-to-face students are against this. Talking about group constitution, instructor T3 reported that, in order to eliminate the irritants, “people in the classroom are going to create groups, people in Sherbrooke, in Gaspesie, in Québec City are going to be as a group themselves” (81).

Communication and Interaction Between the Instructor and Face-to-Face and Online Students. In class sessions, instructors have to ensure that face-to-face and online students have the same chance to step in. To make this happen, they have to be inclusive and show openness to online students in their attitude and their position in the classroom. Instructor T1 acknowledged that “the teacher has to be inclusive as well in their mind and think of the people that are online. The enthusiasm of the teachers too is really important to make them want to pursue, to continue [their learning]” (14). Talking about online students, instructor T4 added that “I really make an effort to individually acknowledge their presence and expect that they will be contributing to the class” (117). Instructor T1 advised to “always turn to them and try to include them and not just as an afterthought” (11). Instructor T4 took a position in front of the camera so that, even when speaking to the group in the room, T4 always looked at the camera.

Instructor T4 believed that it is harder for online students to be involved in class discussions. Moreover, some online students might feel less attended to and not welcomed in the course or that their comments are not taken into account by face-to-face students (Hastie et al., 2010). Instructor T4 made additional efforts to facilitate their interactions by giving them priority:

They’re having a little bit harder time . . . than everyone in class, so then they get a little bit of a privilege every once in a while. If I’m asking for some feedback on something or asking a question, I often will start with the online participants first—anyone online [who] want[s] to address this question first, that kind of thing. (113)

This challenge was also reported in previous studies (Francescucci & Foster, 2014). Despite the efforts made by instructors to include online students, their ability to gauge online students’ understanding of the course content is a challenge in BSL courses. With face-to-face students, instructors can always see non-verbal attitudes of the students and determine if they understand the topics being taught. This is not the case with online students. Talking about face-to-face interactions, instructor T3 reported that, “in the classroom, it’s much easier because you talk about body language, and you can talk about things that they see and they feel” (61), as opposed to interactions with online students. For this instructor, interactions with face-to-face students are “more direct, . . . you’re feeling the atmosphere in the class, body language. I’m very into body language involvement, expression, tone of voice. Again, electronically, things are not transmitted as they are” in physical classrooms (79). This challenge was also reported in previous studies (Cunningham, 2014). Some instructors might feel guilty about online students. Instructor T3 recognized that “you feel you don’t give enough to them, and you want to nurture them as much as other people” (76).

Informal Communication and Interaction. It is more difficult for online students to have informal communication and interaction and to create relationships with face-to-face students and instructors because they are not present in person during discussions before class or on a break:

One of the things that they said at a distance is that they missed the pre-class discussions. They missed the break discussions. They missed the jokes that happened at the coffee machine. They missed those stories that the teacher and the students talk about in between. They miss out on that. There’s definitely less opportunities for that to happen. That’s huge. It’s got nothing to do with academics. It’s got nothing to do with pedagogy. It’s [got] nothing to do with the content of the course. (T2, 38)

This challenge was also reported in previous studies, according to which it is more difficult for online students to form relationships with fellow classmates (Francescucci & Foster, 2014) and to build up a social presence that would be helpful for learning (Cunningham, 2014). Therefore, social and emotional connectedness needs to be encouraged and fostered by faculty members within such a learning environment (Bower et al., 2015). Online students make some efforts before and after class to be part of the group. Often they stay connected online after the class in case they hear something new from their classmates.

The instructor can also make additional efforts to ensure that online students do not feel left aside. For example, instructor T2 explained how he acts on this matter:

Before class starts . . ., I always say hello to everybody online and make them come up so that they can say hello to everybody. . . . I stay online after class all the time. I’ll put the headsets on so that it’s not the whole class hearing and say “Do you guys have any questions? Is there anything that wasn’t clear?” (39)

Other strategies can be used through technologies that allow students to connect with each other. For example, the use of cameras by online students in group work to allow face-to-face students to get to know them better is advised by some instructors. Other instructors encourage them to complete their profiles in Moodle in order to obtain general pictures of them.

Technology

Software and Equipment. The use of technology is necessary in BSL. Technology makes it possible to run online synchronous course sessions for all students. The technological tools used in face-to-face sessions are also used with a mix of online and face-to-face students. For asynchronous activities, Moodle with all its features is used, which presents some advantages. It enables instructors to keep track of students’ learning. Instructor T1 claimed that “you . . . can go explore, and you get a lot of data that way. You can track your students and know what they’ve done and not just turned on Moodle and did nothing on it” (5). Moreover, it allows instructors to post course session records so that all students can access class sessions that they could not attend or for the purpose of review. This advantage was also reported in previous research in other contexts (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014). Instructor T4 indicated that “we can record these sessions [so] that, if someone is sick or they’re just not able to get there, they can review the class. . . . That’s a benefit of the courses being blended because then they’re taped” (106–107). Technology also enables online students to attend class sessions with face-to-face students in real time. In the MTP, VIA and WebEx are used to permit backchannel communication between face-to-face students and online students on the one hand and between online students and the teaching assistant on the other. In addition, cameras and microphones are necessary in the classroom to allow online students to see and hear face-to-face students and instructors. To make group work more efficient, and to avoid noise in the principal classroom, some instructors who mix online and face-to-face students need two or three additional small rooms, all equipped with cameras and computers. They might send some of the face-to-face students in these rooms to work with online students. In this context, talking about room settings, instructor T2 claimed that, “ideally, you’d have one big room with two or three small rooms on the side all with computers. All with hanging microphones from the ceiling. All with at least two webcams in the room at each end” (55).

Colleges where course sessions take place are different in terms of configuration and room setting. Instructor T4 reported that “every college is different, so the expectations and the room configurations are different” (135). Unfortunately, some of them are not well equipped for BSL. In this regard, instructor T2 claimed that “we didn’t have the proper equipment. [It] . . . is always problematic when it comes to equipment” (29). More equipment is requested for teaching in some colleges. The equipment can be

as simple as [a] microphone, as simple as headphones, as simple as [a] camera, there’s no budget. I don’t get it. Why do we sometimes have to bring them up? This is [an] elementary aspect that, like you have fingers and you have eyes, so it should be in the needs for [a] blended learning class. Before we talk about all the pedagogy, these are simple tools that we have to have there. Sometimes this is broken. (T3, 99)

Other technological tools have to be explored, such as the use of social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and mobile learning, as described by Conrad (2014), in order to enhance interactions in BSL.

Challenges with Technology. According to the four instructors interviewed, technology can be a challenge in BSL for different reasons. It evolves quickly, and instructors have to be open to adapting to the changes. According to the instructors interviewed, technology has to be reliable. When it is not adequate, it prevents online students from participating with face-to-face students, and it hinders their sense of belonging to the group. Talking about online students, instructor T2 claimed that “you want to integrate them as much as possible with the people in the classroom, [but] we had so many technical problems that semester. We couldn’t put them with the people in the class” (29). Moreover, students’ access to the Internet can be a challenge, especially for those outside the Montréal region. This issue has also been reported in previous studies (Abdelmalak, 2014; Cunningham, 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Kyei-Blankson et al., 2014). For example, talking about students in Granby, about 80 kms from Montréal, instructor T2 added that “Granby is talking about the rural environment and how the students in the rural environment don’t necessarily have access to good wifi” (28).

Problems with technology can have other negative effects, such as delaying the beginning of a course session: “People online that login late [means that] . . . we can’t troubleshoot” (T1, 3). Instructors might also have to stop a course session, as noted by instructor T1: “We had VIA, and it wasn’t working, even with WebEx. All of a sudden, a session quits. We have to put everything on pause” (3).

Instructors’ levels of technical skill can also be a challenge in BSL. Some instructors are comfortable with technology, whereas others are not, as reported by instructor T4:

As a teacher, I need to be very comfortable with Moodle. I need to be very comfortable with WebEx. I really feel that because I used it in different ways . . . I understand it, but not everyone is that comfortable with that. (135)

Students’ levels of technical skill can likewise be a challenge in BSL. Talking about some students in a particular course, instructor T1 revealed that

they were so afraid of technology. It was very difficult to get them to break the barrier. . . . I’d say the biggest difficulty is always the difference in skill levels. Some are very, very low; some are very high or more high. . . . When you have a class of 28, it’s really difficult to have eight people that can’t help themselves. (3)

These challenges have also been reported in previous studies (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Cunningham, 2014). It is essential for instructors and students to learn to use technology adequately. Some training and videos should be provided to them in this regard.

For instructors, it is important to have a technical person available while running class sessions, especially on weekends. The availability of this person is essential to running course sessions smoothly. Instructor T1 claimed that “having a technical person we can access weekends . . . would be really interesting. . . . A chat somewhere or somebody that could come in and see what we’re experiencing, troubleshooting” (26). Since these course sessions are held in different colleges, the training and the availability of technical persons might vary. Moreover, these technicians are not always informed about MTP needs in regard to BSL. Instructor T1 claimed that “we’re experts in our fields, but the technic[ians] of the locales, when you’re working in several schools, they’re not trained. Nobody has given them any kind of info” (27).

Implications

The results of this study help to enrich existing knowledge of BSL in higher education. This knowledge, based on empirical data, can give faculty members and higher education administrators additional information on the use of this mode of course delivery if they wish to implement it in graduate programs. It can also help instructors who aim to use BSL in their courses to make better decisions based on the MTP instructors’ experience with this type of course delivery. At a more local level, the advantages can be exploited, and the issues raised by the MTP instructors can be addressed in order to implement a stronger model of BSL in graduate programs.

Limitations and Future Study

The findings of this study cannot be extended to broader populations or transferred to other contexts because of the small sample size. Indeed, these findings might present some bias because of the characteristics of the four instructors interviewed. Another limitation of this study pertains to the data collected. Indeed, the practices, advantages, and challenges of BSL in the MTP are reported solely according to instructors. The interviews with them are part of a larger study in which distance education students, students in the Montréal area, teaching assistants, and technical persons will be interviewed in order to obtain their points of view and to clarify the results of the study presented here and the themes and subthemes that emerged from the data. Moreover, observations of BSL class sessions and analyses of pedagogical documents such as course plans, teacher evaluation reports, and program evaluation reports will take place.

Conclusion

The aim of this study was to report on current practices in the MTP with BSL as well as the benefits of using this mode of course delivery and the challenges experienced by faculty members and students, focusing on the use of video/voice and text. To my knowledge, this is the first study conducted on this topic in a university in Québec. Indeed, previous studies on practices in BSL courses were carried out mainly in Australia, where this type of course delivery seems to be popular in universities (Bower et al., 2015; Bower et al., 2014; Cunningham, 2014; Hastie et al., 2010), and in the United States (Abdelmalak, 2014; Bell et al., 2014; Francescucci & Foster, 2014; Miller et al., 2013). The other studies carried out in French-speaking universities in Québec focused mainly on the determinants of students’ use of desktop videoconferencing (Khechine, Lakhal, Pascot, & Bytha, 2014; Lakhal & Khechine, 2016; Lakhal, Khechine, & Pascot, 2013) and on students’ satisfaction and learning outcomes (Lakhal et al., 2014) in BSL courses. The results of this study show that BSL in the MTP has many advantages but also faces challenges that have to be addressed. Some of these challenges were also reported in previous studies, but others are more specific to the context of this study, such as the variability in room settings and the availability of technology and technical persons from one college to another. The success of BSL courses is highly dependent on technology; thus, issues related to colleges have to be corrected. Moreover, instructors have to improve the inclusion of distant students, and some training could be provided to them to assist them in this matter.

Appendix: Advantages and Challenges of BSL

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