Recommended Books on Blended Learning

From time to time I’m asked what books I recommend for someone interested in learning more about blended learning. For those interested in a more in-depth read, here are a few on my bookshelf that I highly recommend. Most of these should be available via your local institutional library.


Blended Learning in Higher Education: Framework, Principles, and Guidelines by D. Randy Garrison and Norman D. Vaughn. (2007). ISBN: 0787987700

Blended Learning in Higher Education

In this much-needed book, authors D. Randy Garrison and Norman D. Vaughan present the foundational research, theoretical framework, scenarios, principles, and practical guidelines for the redesign and transformation of the higher education curriculum.This groundbreaking book offers a down-to-earth resource for the practical application of blended learning in higher education as well as a comprehensive examination of the topic. Well-grounded in research, Blended Learning in Higher Education clearly demonstrates how the blended learning approach embraces the traditional values of face-to-face teaching and integrates the best practices of online learning. This approach has proven to both enhance and expand the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching and learning in higher education across disciplines.

Blended Learning in Higher Education

  • Outlines seven blended learning redesign principles
  • Explains the professional development issues essential to the implementation of blended learning designs
  • Presents six illustrative scenarios of blended learning design
  • Contains practical guidelines to blended learning redesign
  • Describes techniques and tools for engaging students

Available in paperback or Kindle versions from Amazon


How to Design and Teach a Hybrid Course: Achieving Student-Centered Learning through Blended Classroom, Online and Experiential Activities by Jay Caulfield (2011). ISBN: 1579224237

How to Design and Teach a Hybrid Course

This practical handbook for designing and teaching hybrid or blended courses focuses on outcomes-based practice. It reflects the author’s experience of having taught over 70 hybrid courses and having worked for three years in the Learning Technology Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a center that is recognized as a leader in the field of hybrid course design.

Jay Caulfield defines hybrid courses as ones where not only is face time replaced to varying degrees by online learning, but also by experiential learning that takes place in the community or within an organization with or without the presence of a teacher; and as a pedagogy that places the primary responsibility of learning on the learner, with the teacher’s primary role being to create opportunities and environments that foster independent and collaborative student learning.

Starting with a brief review of the relevant theory – such as andragogy, inquiry-based learning, experiential learning and theories that specifically relate to distance education – she addresses the practicalities of planning a hybrid course, taking into account class characteristics such as size, demographics, subject matter, learning outcomes, and time available. She offers criteria for determining the appropriate mix of face-to-face, online, and experiential components for a course, and guidance on creating social presence online.

Available in paperback from Amazon


Blended Learning: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy (New Pedagogies and Practices for Teaching in Higher Education) edited by Francine Glazer. (2011). ISBN: 1579223249

Blended Learning by Glazer

The book constitutes a practical introduction to blended learning, illustrated by implementations across a broad spectrum of disciplines. It enables faculty unfamiliar with this mode to address the core challenge of blended learning―to link the activities in each medium so that they reinforce each other to create a single, unified, course―and offers models they can adapt.

This book contains examples of specific blended courses and frank discussions of the challenges unique to each course. Each instructor used blended learning differently to address those challenges, so five different types of course design are presented. Blended learning is a flexible pedagogical tool that can be used in many different disciplines and implemented as many different ways to engage students and enhance their learning.

Available in paperback or hard cover from Amazon


Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide by Jared Stein and Charles R. Graham. (2013). ISBN: 0415636167

Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide

Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide provides a practical, streamlined approach for creating effective learning experiences by blending online activities and the best of face-to-face teaching.

This guide is:

Easy to use: Clear, jargon-free writing; illustrations; and references to online resources help readers understand concepts.

Streamlined: A simple but effective design process focuses on creating manageable activities for the right environment.

Practical: Real-world examples from different subject areas help teachers understand principles in context.

Contemporary: The variety of modern, connected technologies covered in the guide addresses a range of teaching challenges.

Forward-Looking: The approach bridges the gap between formal classroom learning and informal lifelong learning.

Standards-based: Guidelines and standards are based on current research in the field, relevant learning theories, and practitioner experiences.

Effective blended learning requires significant rethinking of teaching practices and a fundamental redesign of course structure. Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide simplifies these difficult challenges without neglecting important opportunities to transform teaching. This guide is suitable for teachers in any content area.

Available in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle from Amazon

What favorite books of yours regarding blended learning did I leave off my list above? Leave a comment with your recommendations.

Designing Your Course to Achieve Alignment

This video discusses the need to align the key components of your instruction: learning objectives, teaching strategies, learning activities, and assessments. It explains what instructional alignment is, provides examples, and explains why it is important.

Distinguishing Flipped from Blended Learning

The Faculty Development Center at the University of St. Thomas shares this great explanation by Francine Glazer in her book Blended Learning: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy of the differences between flipped and blended learning that I wanted to share in its entirety:

“A flipped or inverted class is a form of blended learning. Whereas a flipped course doesn’t reduce the number of face-to-face classes or the amount of time the class meets in person, a blended course typically has fewer in person classes. In a blended course more of the course is taught online and students often have more control over the pace and time as they work though the course. The differentiating aspect of blended learning is that a significant portion of the course occurs in two areas: online and in person. Blended course design involves re-thinking the course activities so that there is a “seamless” transition between the online and in person classes — the blending of the in person and online activities reinforce each other to create a single, cohesive course.”

Flipped Classroom Resources from UT Austin

flipped flow model
The Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at Austin has developed some outstanding resources for faculty interesting in “flipping” their classroom instruction.

What is a flipped class?

This 1 minute video introduces the flipped classroom model of instruction.


What is a flipped class? from UT Austin CTL on Vimeo.

A flipped class is one that inverts the typical cycle of content acquisition and application so that

  • students gain necessary knowledge before class, and
  • instructors guide students to actively and interactively clarify and apply that knowledge during class.

What is flipped? Table comparison

Flipped Classroom Quick Start Guide

Flipped Classroom Quick Start Guide

How to Flip a Class

The videos and recommendations with guiding questions on the UTAustin CTL website, walk you through the steps of flipping a single class; the process is scalable for flipping portions of each unit or an entire course.

Thank you to the UT Austin CTL for developing and sharing such a comprehensive set of flipped classroom resources!

TOPcast: Teaching Online Podcast

TOPcastThe Center for Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida has launched the Teaching Online Podcast (TOPcast) hosted by Dr. Thomas Cavanagh and Dr. Kelvin Thompson, a monthly podcast for online and blended learning professionals. Tom and Kelvin are rockstars of the online and blended learning world with decades of experience growing and learning blended and online programs. In their podcast they discuss current issues in online and blended learning relevant to leaders and practitioners. Any online instructor, instructional designer, or aspiring online learning leader will find benefit from the insights shared. You might also learn something new about different coffee blends in the process 🙂

You can share with the hosts your thoughts on past episodes or ideas for new episodes via email (topcast@ucf.edu), follow on Twitter at @topcastnow, or join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #topcastnow. Subscribe (via iTunes or RSS) to never miss an episode.