When design meets identities: a case study of blended learning in undergraduate educations

Aalborg University (DENMARK)
The aim of this paper is to present result from the first period of implementing models of blended learning in two Danish educations centers at a University College. The question addressed is how activation of blended learning models in undergraduate education for teacher and radiography affects knowledge development and which are the constraints or challenges to take into consideration in the process of implementation. The research takes its departure in the two different models of blended learning designed by teachers in undergraduate education centers. This is an investigation of the first period of implementation at a Danish University College in the year 2012-2013. The design of the research is grounded in the pragmatic mixed methodology. Empirical data consists of data from a survey as well as focus group interviews and some observation studies. These data is analyzed and interpreted through a critical hermeneutical process of prefiguration, configuration and refiguration. The results illustrate a significant impact of students identities as a part of the referential whole, since it is both prerequisite and an obstruction in the activation of blended learning environments. It is significant that students’ identities are related to sociality, where both the self and the others take part in the process of knowledge development. Students’ identities and learning are intertwined and related to age, movements, spaces and practice. On basis of the derived results, it is stressed, that the students’ adaption of blended learning environments and access to processes of knowledge development is dependent of a change in the identity as a transformative learning, taking the zone of a proximal development into account. The significant importance of identities, as both prerequisites and constraints, in implementing of new design calls for attentions toward identity as a matter of didactical reflection for designers. On the basis of the theoretical approach, the empirical data and the results derived, this paper outlines a conceptual model to take into considerations when implementing new designs in educations.