Online and Blended Postsecondary Learning

Barbara Means is Principal Learning Sciences Researcher in the Center for Learning Sciences Research at Digital Promise.Rebecca Griffiths is Postsecondary Learning Research Director in the Center for Learning Sciences Research at Digital Promise.

“Barbara Means and Rebecca Griffiths offer everyone interested in the future of higher education and meaningful student learning a clear-eyed view of the current research and theory related to teaching and technology along with an informed and thoughtful roadmap for the way forward. Providing accessible summaries of complex scholarly literature, frameworks to interpret often over-hyped claims about ed tech and AI, and practical recommendations for centering people, the socioemotional elements of learning, and the promotion of uniquely human qualities and capacities as we navigate an AI-integrated society, this book is essential reading for higher ed instructors, instructional designers, researchers, policymakers, and funders alike. I, for one, took great comfort in the balanced, sane, and human-centric wisdom contained in this important new volume.”-Flower Darby, Author and Associate Director, University of Missouri Teaching for Learning Center“This important book highlights theory- and evidence-based insights for improving online and blended post-secondary learning. Research shows the bankruptcy of claims that modern edtech can dramatically change how people learn, retaining quality while minimizing the role of human instructors. Instead, all stakeholders in higher education can apply the authors’ practical, proven strategies, complementing traditional assessments with new ways of measuring value and matriculating students with the human-centric skills employers want.”-Chris Dede, Senior Research Fellow, Harvard University“We’re living through unprecedented technological change, and education is still catching up. It's more important than ever to understand what does and what does not work in online education. We need to be able to separate the effective methods from those that are merely common or traditional. In Online and Blended Postsecondary Learning: An Evidence-Based Perspective, Barbara Means and Rebecca Griffiths provide a comprehensive and meticulous discussion of what supports effective online learning.”-Julie Dirkson, Learning Strategy and Design Expert“Online and Blended Postsecondary: An Evidence-based Perspective, provides a much-needed update for researchers, instructional designers, practitioners, students, policy makers and anyone interested in the facts behind the often-distorted headlines. This book is a treasure.”-Dr. Peter Shea, Editor-in-Chief, Online Learning Journal

• Part I: Foundations for Understanding Online Learning 1. Introduction 2. Antecedents of Online Learning: Learning Theories and Technology 3. Evidence-based Teaching Practices That Can Be Supported by Technology Part II: Evidence on Effectiveness of Online and Blended Learning 4. Research Methods for Investigating the Impacts of Learning Technology 5. Research on the Effectiveness of Online and Blended Learning 6. Research on Contemporary Technology Affordances 7. How Learner Differences Play Out in Digital Learning Part III: Applying Evidence to Design, Practice, and Policy 8. Research Methods for Improving Outcomes with Learning Technology 9. Tools and Practices Supporting High-Quality Online and Blended Learning 10. Contextual Factors Underlying the Growth of Online Learning 11. Generative AI and the Future of Teaching and Learning 12. Conclusion: Realizing Our Aspirations for Technology-Enabled Instruction