Constructivist Design And Blended Instruction: Rethinking Course Design For The Engineering Classroom

The engineering classroom is changing 1 : the student body is ethnically, linguistically, and culturally more diverse 2 than ever before and the infusion of technology is redefining work skills and society's expectations. Web-based technology has grown to become a critical instrument in education 3 and its integration is often seen as a significant force driving change 4 . It is now causing educators to re-think the very nature of teaching and learning. But where do you start? How can instructors design powerful, innovative, and effective web-based environments that can be successfully integrated in a face-to-face class or stand alone to support a distance course? In this paper, we answer the question from the perspective of a four-year long project that led an instructor from using an institutional, unimaginative, web-based template to designing a fully customized, award-winning course that truly reflected his teaching style and philosophy, supported the institution’s mission statement and the course objectives, and supported the students’ learning styles. After a general introduction to instructional design, we provide a historical perspective illustrated by the four dramatically different designs that evolved over the years. We then propose a constructivist design approach to designing blended courses and guide the readers though its main stages.