In Pursuit of the Right Mix - Blended Learning for Augmenting, Enhancing, and Enriching Flexibility

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aran

Blended learning is presented as a mainstream way to bridge onsite and online education, offering flexibility to learners, instructors, and institutions. The paper defines blending as combining onsite and online strengths while reducing each modality’s weaknesses, with flexibility enabled through time, space, path, and pace via sequential or parallel designs. It also emphasizes proper technology use, clarifies terminology confusion, argues for a theoretical and conceptual foundation, highlights liquid curricula, expands blended learning boundaries, and applies the approach to both social and pedagogical contexts.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Blended Learning as Deus Ex Machina in a Time of Pandemic

Flexibility and resilience during COVID-19

Blending as the new normal

Blending to Achieve the Right Mix!

Defining the purpose and needs

Design choices: sequential vs parallel

Blended Learning: What does the Term Literally Refer to?

In Pursuit of the Right Mix: Blended Learning for Augmenting, Enhancing, and Enriching Flexibility Aras Bozkurt, Ramesh C Sharma Abstract: Blended learning, which has emerged as a mainstream approach for bridging onsite and online learning, promises flexibility to stakeholders in the educational process. This paper argues that blended learning can be understood as a process that combines onsite and online learning by blending the strengths of one modality and neutralizing the weaknesses of the other to provide flexibility to learners, instructors, and educational institutions. This flexibility can be afforded to time, space, path, and pace through sequential or parallel designs. In blending modalities and pedagogies, it is important that technologies are properly utilized in achieving the required systematic approach to get a right mix. This paper draws attention to the issues of confusion in terminology, the need to apply a theoretical and conceptual approach to blended learning, the empowerment of educational technology with a suitable pedagogy, the development of liquid curricula to increase flexibility, the extension of the boundaries of blended learning, and the application of blended learning to social contexts as well as to pedagogical contexts. Keywords: blended learning, flexible learning, hybrid learning, flipped learning, hyflex learning Blended Learning as Deus Ex Machina in a Time of Pandemic Flexibility is a required feature of resilience, as understood from our experience with the pandemic. Considering the global impact of COVID-19, all segments of our lives, including education, have been affected. Emergency remote teaching and learning was put into practice to soften the repercussions of the pandemic, sustain education, and survive in the new normal (Bozkurt & Sharma, 2020a) . It has been argued that the normal as we once knew it was problematic, and that therefore we must adapt to the changes of the new normal to be resilient (Bozkurt & Sharma, 2020b) . One of the most significant changes to the educational landscape has been the increased demand for blended learning, as this approach has offered greater flexibility during the tough times of the pandemic. Following the first waves of the pandemic, rather than maintaining the normal onsite learning or switching to only online learning as a mainstream approach in the new normal, the educational system has largely embraced blended learning to take advantage of both modalities. (Bozkurt, 2022; Kohnke & Moorhouse, 2021; Pelletier et al. , 2021; Raes et al. , 2020; Singh et al. , 2021) . Blended learning appeared as a Deus ex machina , a working solution to solve the problems caused by the pandemic. Ata time when convergence is shaping our educational approaches (Brown, 2021), blended learning is being recognized as the new normal in the educational landscape (Dziuban et al. , 2018) . In addressing the conditions unleashed by the pandemic, it has been argued that “educators will take the role of the alchemist and develop, refine, purify, and perfect the educational system to achieve a successful learning ecosystem” by reimagining, redesigning, and recalibrating it (Bozkurt & Sharma , 2020b) . To be an educational alchemist, we need to merge, mix, combine or converge the educational elements. In this context, we must revisit the blended learning approach to get the right mix and transform educational elements into something new, something workable, something that actually functions properly. Blending to Achieve the Right Mix! It should be emphasized from the outset that blending for the sake of blended learning has never worked and will never work! Before considering blending learning processes, we must first ask the following questions to identify our needs and to get the right mix. What is the purpose of blended learning? What and why do we mix, merge, flip, combine or converge different approaches? Do we blend just modalities, just pedagogies,

FAQs

How does the paper define blended learning and its purpose?

Blended learning is defined as a process that combines onsite and online learning by leveraging each modality’s strengths and neutralizing the other’s weaknesses. Its purpose is to provide flexibility through design choices in time, space, path, and pace.

Why is blended learning emphasized during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The paper links blended learning to resilience by offering flexibility during disruptions caused by COVID-19. After initial pandemic waves, education systems largely adopted blended learning to benefit from both modalities rather than choosing only onsite or only online.

What key factors does the paper say matter when achieving the “right mix”?

It highlights the need to decide based on needs and purpose before blending. It further stresses comparing sequential versus parallel designs and considering time, pace, space, and path to adopt an effective blended learning model.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aran