Education & Technology – Will it blend? Qualitative study on implementation of blended learning services
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Business |
Master's thesis
Author
Date
2018
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Information and Service Management (ISM)
Language
en
Pages
82
Series
Abstract
Artificial intelligence, machine learning and educational software are expected to shake up field of education by challenging the old roles of students, teachers and the ways we have learned for decades. Consequently, the investments to education technology companies are reaching new heights around the globe, and the rise of such companies will offer new opportunities for schools, universities and companies to educate their staff, faculties and students by utilizing a completely new set of services. The combination of traditional ways of teaching and online activities to enhance learning, so called blended learning, has been suggested as the first step of technology entering classrooms. However, several challenges in the implementation process of blended learning services still exist in addition to the natural scepticism towards change. The objective of the thesis is to be an initial explorative study of blended learning implementation in the context of Finnish universities. At the same time this research aims to understand challenges and the effects of different factors on implementation of blended learning solutions. In order to accomplish this, the thesis builds on existing literature in service processes and different service types, blended learning implementation categories and its challenges. Qualitative research method is chosen for this study, as the goal is to understand teacher’s perspective on implementation of blended learning. Empirical data was gathered through semi-structured thematic interviews with 10 teachers from Aalto University School of Business. The study analyses the interviews through an analytical framework that divides teaching environments into segments after teachers’ usage of digital services and lecture type. The findings of this study suggest that the best educational environment for implementation of blended learning solutions is in small classrooms with teachers who are already heavy users of digital services. Firstly, these teachers were the only ones not considering the main implementation challenge – variation of students’ knowledge – to be a problem for them. Secondly, the other main challenge from the literature review – teachers’ scepticiscm – was not an issue for this group as they had the most optimistic attitude towards the future of education. Thirdly, trying new digital tools proactively to find ways to improve their teaching made them stand out positively compared to the others. Lastly, the teachers expressed open-mindedness towards finding new ways to form incentive structures more aligned with teaching performance or students’ learning.Description
Thesis advisor
Kuula, MarkkuTinnilä, Markku
Keywords
blended learning, service process, education technology, implementation
