Hybrid Courses and Online Policy Dialogues: A Transborder Distance Learning Collaboration

Y

12

Educational Policy; Cooperation; Foreign Countries; Distance Education; Feedback (Response); Graduate Students; Course Content; Colleges; Blended Learning; Videoconferencing; Policy Formation; Electronic Publishing; Web Sites; Technology Uses in Education; Educational Objectives; Goal Orientation

Canada; New York

10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2011.1.7

1918-2902

This essay describes a blended (hybrid) course collaboration used to facilitate policy dialogues between graduate students at two institutions (one in Canada and the other in the US) as a way to teach about policy. The course content and design is informed by three trends in research and practice: increased policy borrowing across boundaries and jurisdictions; calls to democratize policy making in general and in education policy in particular; and developments in teaching and learning online. Drawing on students' informal feedback in combination with reflections on instructors' experiences, we suggest that policy dialogues are a promising strategy for promoting students' learning about education policy. We also illustrate how professors can use a hybrid course structure between two institutions.

As Provided

32

2012

EJ985719