Schools Take Part in Hybrid Learning Effort
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWabash College and DePauw University are taking part in a six-school effort to design and teach hybrid courses. The Midwest Hybrid Learning Consortium, funded in part by a grant from the New York-based Teagle Foundation, focuses on courses that combine online and classroom teaching.
March 19, 2015
News Release
Crawfordsville, Ind. — Wabash College, in partnership with Albion College, DePauw University, Grinnell College, Hope College, and Lawrence University, has been awarded a $335,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation to design and teach hybrid courses, an approach to online learning designed to combine the best of classroom teaching and digital technology.
The six institutions are working together as the Midwest Hybrid Learning Consortium (MHLC). Through the project, titled “Hybrid Liberal Arts Network: High Touch Learning for the 21st Century,” they will share the courses that they develop and expand the range of liberal arts courses available to their students, all the while providing faculty development in the use of digital technology in teaching.
“This opportunity from the Teagle Foundation leverages the expertise of Wabash faculty and the strength of our consortium partners to the benefit of all our students,” said Professor of Physics Jim Brown. “Cooperation and hybrid courses enable us to share the strengths of Wabash with the students and other colleges, and in turn benefit from the strengths of those institutions. This grant will provide our students and faculty the opportunity to both teach and to learn from a wider audience.”
The Teagle Foundation (teagle.org) is a leader in knowledge-based philanthropy that promotes innovation within the liberal arts sector of higher education. The hybrid learning grant initiative through which the foundation made its award is designed to strengthen residential liberal arts colleges by leveraging technology and innovative practice in order to expand institutional capacity while retaining their traditional liberal educational values.
The Teagle support includes a $310,000 program grant and a $25,000 planning grant awarded a year ago. The grant will enable faculty to design and develop courses collaboratively across institutions by working in faculty pairs. The specific topics will be developed in 2015, including through a workshop that will be held this summer. The first courses in the program will debut in the spring of 2016, with more to follow in the fall of 2016 and the spring of 2017.
“The opportunities for Wabash faculty to work with our partner institutions to develop innovative course materials is very exciting,” said Scott Feller, Dean of the College at Wabash. “The potential for digital technology to extend the classroom is enormous and this project can help us identify the options that are most valuable in a residential liberal arts college setting.”
Source: Wabash College