Technology Blended Learning Approaches and the Level of Student Engagement with Subject Content

Abstract

This paper evaluates the implementation of technology blended teaching and learning in the Foundation Mathematics Program at a private college of higher education in Kuwait with a view to identifying improvements in student performance. The traditional classroom teaching was blended with a significant component of online learning with MML (MyMathLab), involving in-class tutorials and outside of class online activities. The aim of introducing this approach was largely to achieve a greater level of engagement with the course content and to increase the amount of practice time students devoted to doing problem solving exercises. The study used data generated by the MML tools as well as data on success rates from previous semesters when only the traditional approaches were used for teaching and learning in the Foundation Program. The study found that there was an increase of between 12% and 35% in the normal expected time required for problem-solving practice with the MML system. The greatest advantage was the student activity monitoring data available from the system could be used for identifying students at risk of failure and developing tailored and targeted support programs and strategies. In addition, comparison of results from previous traditional approach and the newly introduced blended approach revealed that grade inflation can be avoided and a greater degree of fairness can result in online grading.

Keywords: Education technology, Learning styles, Online learning

JEL Classification: 120