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The chapter illustrates why blended learning should be the minimum threshold that teachers of higher education should meet to address the students' dynamic needs, demands, and preferences. It shows how COVID-19 disrupted the status quo of the global education system, warranting schools to transition to online education fully. The chapter starts by addressing the pre-COVID-19 learning strategies. Schools mainly adhered to traditional face-to-face teaching in classrooms. Nevertheless, the COVID-19-related restrictions (lockdowns) coerced them into introducing e-learning, which was a new experience for most teachers and students. This situation made educators realize they can successfully incorporate virtual learning into their pedagogy, allowing them to implement a blended system. Moreover, the section identifies the main blended learning models that teachers can use depending on their choices, students' preferences, and institutions' resources and capabilities. These frameworks are face-to-face driver, rotation, flex, online lab, and self-blend methods. They have different approaches as well as merits and limitations. The chapter contributes to active and transformative learning by introducing more attractive, relevant, and flexible teaching methods. Owing to the flexibility of the models, the number of students enrolling in diverse programs in the post-COVID-19 era has increased. The chapter highlights various strategies that educators can apply to ensure that learners achieve optimal outcomes from blended learning. Moreover, the segment highlights the prerequisites and compatibility of blended learning for economics classes. Before unveiling blended learning, professors should ensure that students can access digital devices and the internet and understand the operating software. Thus, educators should at least consider using this model in the post-COVID-19 era.

The Catholic Church expects theological institutes, priests and seminarians to be well-informed, critical and creative users of information and communications technology. Currently, most theological institutes use the traditional face-to-face teaching method. An attempt to implement blended learning as an innovative teaching and learning modality for communication theology was made at the Saint Peter’s Pontifical Institute, Bangalore, India, using the lab-rotation model for one semester. This paper aimed to study the two important course outcomes: participation and satisfaction.

The course was designed using the analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation (ADDIE) model, developed, implemented and evaluated for 21 first-year theology students. The combination of descriptive and quasi-experimental research used an online questionnaire containing statements on a five-point Likert scale. The study evaluated the potentials of blended learning as an innovative modality through student participation and satisfaction.

This research found that a high level of participation augmented satisfaction among the students during the implementation of the blended learning modality. The positive results revealed that future shepherds in the Catholic Church could effectively integrate information and communications technologies (ICTs) in their life and mission and serve digital citizens.

The research was conducted in St. Peter’s Pontifical Institute of Theology (SPPI) for an elective course, Communication Theology, taught once a week. Only two outcomes; participation and satisfaction were studied. The respondents were 21 first-year theology students of the SPPI, which could have limited the generalizability of the results. They were not allowed to use any gadgets. So this research had to adopt a lab-rotation model wherein the students followed part of their course in the computer room.

This pilot experience in blended learning modality will help SPPI recognize the advantage of such an approach and possibly decide to adopt it as one modality in the institute. It may also serve as a model for other Catholic schools and this could trigger the wider adoption of blended learning among Catholic schools. Results of the study can demonstrate to the faculty how blended learning is designed and a sample module can easily guide them on how it may be implemented. Hence, this can equip them already with knowledge and skills about the new modality.

The positive learning experiences will help the professors to further discover and adopt new and existing learning technologies that can enhance the learning atmosphere for post-millennials. They can now innovate teaching and learning strategies to best address the learning needs in their classroom, given the pervasiveness of ICTs in the everyday lives. This study will also provide a new learning option for the students as they undergo a new student-centred learning exercise.

The pioneering effort of integrating ICTs in the form of blended learning in theology curriculum was executed in SPPI. The application of the blended learning approach to teaching communication theology is innovative in that educational technology is not only applied to theology courses but involves the promotion of technology use among future religious leaders. From a long-term perspective, this attempt can transform traditional face-to-face dominated teaching approaches.

This paper aims to provide evidence that online well-designed educational tasks can provide more relevant and richer active learning environment for business English learners. The benefits of online tasks, as an education tool, became more apparent and gained more importance during the events related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The task design is based on task-based interactions and in a sequence of tasks with the support of an online learning management system (LMS). The findings suggest that online task-based learning (and would-be blended learning in the future) enables meaningful and authentic activities promoting interactions and communicative competences to prepare for learners of business English to enter the workplace.

The overarching aim of the study is to explore how task-design-utilizing online LMS could contribute to enhancing the learning process and to the development of the learner's communicative competences. The study included two aspects, namely: (1) the design of online tasks and (2) pilot evaluation. The task design involved tasks that required interactions between the learners. The pilot evaluation relied on data collection via questionnaires.

Two aspects relating to the findings: (1) a description of the teaching initiatives which was designed to see how blended learning and online tasks can enhance learning and develop the skills of the learners: with questioning techniques targeting communication skills, simulated workplace situations and timely feedback and peer influence; (2) the findings of the pilot study evaluation to see the actual implementation of online tasks. The students' responses corroborate the teachers' comments. The findings of this research showed that LMS tasks, which were designed for this study, helped the learners to enhance their competence in business English. Such competences included communicative skills needed for learners to enter the workplace such as interpersonal skills, presentation skills and negotiation skills in contexts. These findings lead to significant recommendations regarding the way forward for developing active blended learning.

Firstly, teachers need to be trained and involved in designing such online tasks and materials to be used in active blended learning. More training in language teaching methodologies should be investigated to adapt the transition from a traditional to a computer-assisted language learning teacher. This helps teachers to design and implement online simulated workplace tasks. Secondly, time for the use of online tasks should be allocated satisfactorily. This can be achieved by building online learning sessions into class schedule or developing active blended courses. The time for the use of online simulated tasks should be allocated satisfactorily with lab or simulation room, in which students would be shown how to access the online tasks designed on the university LMS and the way to practice with different kinds of tasks.

In this study context, the online tasks design can initiate at activity-level blending to support face-to-face (F2F) activities, for example, online activities to support tasks for the topic Make a request or Offer for help. This can be extended to course-level blending when more online activities are designed to use with F2F activities such as online comparing and contrasting tasks to develop skills in connections with the awareness of cultures. The findings of the research suggest to develop and to implement online tasks alongside with classroom learning and teaching to enable the objectives of business English programme at university for preparing learners to enter the workplace. The recent pandemic highlighted the need for effective methodologies for active blended learning. It is now required that professionals in higher education to collect evidence base to inform future practice of such methodologies. Further significant research efforts should be directed towards collecting such evidence of the effectiveness and improvements of such methods. The support of higher education management professionals in securing funding for such research will be essential.

The chapter discusses pedagogical models of digital learning in the United Kingdom with a focus on online and blended learning, rolled out as a case study in one university. The chapter appraises the effectiveness of the model that implemented and foregrounded the evidence in the wider literature on models of digital learning in higher education. The chapter provides thematic analysis and methodological opportunities for the improvement of practice and presents a set of implementation implications and pitfalls to avoid for higher education institutions in Africa. Furthermore, a number of trends regarding the blending of learning and communication synchrony in digital learning have also been identified.

Higher education has seen an unprecedented amount of change in recent decades, with technological advancements impacting on the very essence of teaching and learning. As there are an abundance of digital tools available to educators, it can be a challenge to select the most appropriate online platforms to incorporate into the classroom. This chapter discusses the topic of digital storyboarding by providing a case study of how the author adopted the online platform Storyboard That to enhance student engagement and co-creativity within a UK higher education institution. The chapter debates the benefits and challenges of technology-enhanced learning as part of a blended approach, and concludes with advice for educators wishing to adopt digital storyboarding within their own educational context.

Universities across the globe have had to rethink how the significant resources devoted to learning, teaching, and assessment might be reconfigured to better support student learning across different modes of delivery. A focus on ‘flexibility’ in assessment arrangements supports the need to be responsive to the requirements of a changing and increasingly uncertain higher education landscape across Africa and elsewhere in the world. This chapter explores how professors and lecturers in higher education can deliver effective assessment processes that meet the demands of online and blended learning environments. Flexibility in assessment is about responding to students’ individual learning needs as well as the needs of the curriculum. The key is making assessment relevant to the students. The proliferation of learning technologies and tools, coupled with the increasing diversification of student profiles and pathways through programmes, provides the context for developing flexible assessment. Here technology is a key enabler for personalised and active blended learning experiences. This chapter considers practical ideas and strategies for inclusive, authentic, and flexible assessment task design, delivering effective feedback, and ensuring quality and consistency within assessment processes – all of which are relevant in an era of COVID-19 pandemic disruptions in higher education.

Emergency situations call for effective means of providing quality education. Higher education institutions are therefore required to use effective and efficient online approaches for teaching and learning which necessitate students, academic practitioners and institutions to engage and interact with each other successfully. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the importance of interaction and engagement in the use of blended learning online tools during emergency situations. The theoretical lens that informs the chapter is social constructivism which argues that learning is a social endeavour. The literature findings show that the effective engagement of students contributes to the overall quality of students’ produced experiences as well as pass rates. Furthermore, the importance of student–lecturer engagement and student–content engagement cannot be taken for granted. The right balance of synchronous and asynchronous online learning tools contributes to fruitful interaction and engagement. Online engagement seems to have many benefits as compared to conventional based engagement such as the ability of students to contribute to their teaching and learning. Despite these advantages, challenges associated with online learning such as balancing life commitments, confidence, students’ approach to learning, high investment costs in resources, motivation, competences of lecturers and students, interest of lecturers and students and efficacy of lecturers and students cannot be ignored. The authors therefore recommend that effective and efficient online learning requires the correct blend of online learning tools accompanied by the correct engagement strategies.

The objective of the study was to explore which COVID-19 teaching and learning methods, that enhanced accounting students' learning experience, should be applied at a residential university after the pandemic.

A qualitative exploratory approach within an interpretive paradigm was applied. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with accounting students and the data were analysed using thematic analysis.

This study shows how pre-COVID-19 accounting education can be adapted by learning from the teaching and learning experiences gained during the pandemic and that there are various teaching and learning methods that can be applied in the post-COVID-19 period to enhance students' learning experience. These blended active teaching and learning methods include: the flipped classroom, discussion forum, electronic platform (to ask questions during class), key-concept videos and summary videos. Introducing these teaching and learning methods comes with challenges and the study provides recommendations on how to overcome foreseen obstacles. The contribution of the research is that it informs accounting lecturers' decision-making regarding which teaching and learning methods to apply in the aftermath of COVID-19 to enhance students' learning experience.

It is uncertain which teaching and learning methods employed during the COVID-19 pandemic should be applied at a residential university to enhance the teaching and learning experience after the pandemic. Accounting lecturers might return to their pre-COVID-19 modus operandi, and the valuable experience gained during the pandemic will have served no purpose.

The purpose of this reflection on practice is to consider and attempt made by the present author to re-imagine online distance learning (ODL) environments to provide a greater opportunity for learner engagement.

ODL environments were augmented by video-conferencing to increase dialogue, instructor presence and a sense of instructor care, concern and guidance. The video-conference component was limited time-wise (40 min per weekly module) and aimed at explaining and integrating learning content and activities. The resulting courses were thus augmented and enhanced and not transformed into blended learning courses.

Preliminary feedback from video-conference discussions and learner reflective journals indicates that the innovation was well received by students and contributed significantly to their appreciation, satisfaction and overall engagement.

The augmentation is simple and effective. It may be an approach that is particularly relevant in designing and facilitating ODL environments in an era of uncertainty, disruption and far-reaching educational changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The author argues that the introduction of an active learning component has significant implications for learner performance, satisfaction and persistence with distance learning programs.

Attempts to increase social presence and engagement are not uncommon in ODL. This particular approach is simple, easily enacted and has a perceived element of originality and innovation that appeals to learners. It is argued that it contributes significant value to the quality and outcomes of the distance learning experience.