Whether referred to as a blended course or a hybrid course, how are you able to determine if your students are experiencing the required hours of instructional activity (HIA) for the course? While the number of required hours may be dependent upon your institutional policies and any state education department guidelines, when designing a blended course, you will want to know if students are partaking in too much, too little or just about the right amount of instructional activities.
There are two variables in the HIA equation: equivalent instructional activities (EIA) and equivalent learning activities (ELA). Together, EIA and ELA should add up to the number of hours required by the course, department, and/or university. For example, a 1-credit course at Penn State, as per University Senate Policy 42-23, requires 45 total hours of instructional activity so a 3-credit course would require 135 total hours. Students are expected to spend twice as much time on learning activities as they do on instructional activities. If the 3-credit course meets for three hours weekly for 15 weeks, students should expect to participate in six hours of learning activities weekly for those 15 weeks.
Instructional activities are those activities that are typically instructor led, guided, or facilitated such as group discussions, field trips, and lectures. Learning activities, on the other hand, are those that students actively participate in such as reading, writing, and analyzing. In a “traditional, lecture-based face-to-face” course, you would consider most of what is happening in the classroom as instructional activities being led by the instructor while assignments that are completed by the students outside of class are considered the learning activities.
But what happens when the learning environment is no longer a “traditional” one and instead the course is flipped with more active learning in the classroom or blended with less classroom time? In the case of blended, some of the instructional activities will no longer be taking place in a classroom setting but rather will be taking place online. Regardless of how many hours are in the classroom and how many are being replaced, the equivalent instructional activities and the equivalent learning activities need to equal the required hours of instructional activity.
While students will not all perform at the same pace, counting the learning activity hours can still be based on generally accepted hours. Many institutions have some type of guideline or tool to help faculty ensure that their course is a whole course and not a course and a half or half of class. Some examples include:
- Equivalent Instructional Activities, Duquesne University
- Rice University online Course Workload Estimator http://cte.rice.edu/workload
As you look at existing resources, you can see that there are many commonalities from institution to institution. When blending your course, start first with your institution’s policies and guidelines. You will also want to check federal and state guidelines as well as any financial aid requirements. If none exist, refer to those from a similarly structured institution.
Credits: The above information is a result of investigations and research done by Jennifer Keagy, Director of the Faculty Center at Penn State Harrisburg. Her initial work has laid the groundwork for a working group that is developing a resource that may help faculty and instructional designers at Penn State have a better understanding of the total instructional hours of their online and blended courses.
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