How to Create Blended Learning in your Open edX E-Learning Instance

January 6, 2025

Online learning offers comfort and convenience to students who don’t want to pursue traditional classroom learning approaches. 

In recent times, we have seen a tangible surge in online eLearning platforms that offer comprehensive courses, from programming language courses to AI tool mastering courses to personality development courses. 

Students and professionals can register on eLearning platforms and study at their convenience. Most of these courses have study materials in PDFs, videos, questions, and supportive document formats.

What if some students want to learn specific topics live? They want topic explanations beyond mere videos and documents to hone their craft. 

As a course owner or instructor, you are responsible for facilitating your students with live sessions for specific course content. This is called blended learning, where online and live sessions are combined to offer students an engaging and fulfilling learning experience. 

What is Blended Learning?

Blended learning is a combination of online and live classes, where some course content is taught to the students in live sessions on Zoom or other video conference tools. 

The main aim of the blended learning approach is to clearly understand some complex concepts for which online material is not enough. 

What is Open edX?

Open edX is a free, open-source online learning platform developed by edX and maintained by the open-source developer community, facilitating users to create and deliver online courses. 

The platform has carved a niche by offering highly advanced features to develop future-ready online courses. Some of the features of Open edX are:

• Course authoring 
• Scalability 
• Customization 
• Advanced analytics 
• Mobile support 
• Community-driven ecosystem 
• Detailed reporting
• Third-party integrations 

When it comes to blended learning in Open edX, the procedure is effortless and straightforward. This blog will discuss how you can design, implement, and optimize a blended learning experience in your Open edX e-learning instance. 

What Are the Benefits of the Blended Learning Model? 

A blended e-learning model, also known as a hybrid e-learning model, offers many benefits to learners and course owners. 

Flexibility and Accessibility 

Learners can have access to learning materials anytime with convenience. They can study at their own pace and comfort. 

Personalized Touch 

With the right blend of synchronous and asynchronous course components, learners can understand key concepts through live sessions with a personalized touch to deepen their learning. 

Enhanced Engagement 

We can increase student engagement and motivation with the right mix of course materials, interactive content, gamified elements, and live course sessions. 

Improved Collaboration 

With blended learning in Open edX, collaboration between students and instructors improves through live sessions, group projects, and interactive forums. 

Blended Learning with Open edX

The main aim of offering a blended learning experience to students is to provide a balanced learning approach. 

Some course materials will be available in PDF or video formats, and some will be taught live by instructors through LTI tools (Learning Tool Interoperability). 

Step 1: Plan Your Blended Learning Pedagogy 

Determining the course’s pedagogy is crucial as it will help identify which course components must be kept live or synchronous and which are asynchronous. 

Furthermore, you need to determine how to deliver your synchronous course components. Do you want to hold an in-person session or deliver webinars via Zoom or other LTI tools? 

• Map out your course content and identify synchronous and asynchronous components. 
• Add flexibility to your course structure by balancing synchronous (live sessions) and asynchronous (self-paced) components. 

Step 2: Organize and Develop Your Course in Open edX

Now that you have structured your course components for synchronous and asynchronous mode, the next step is to organize and develop your course in Open edX. Creating an Open edX Blended Learning Model is simple. 

• Leverage the Studio Authoring tool of Open edX to structure content into courses, sections, subsections, and units. Such an approach helps you update materials regularly, create content reusability across courses, and personalize learning pathways. 
• To maximize engagement, leverage Open edX’s support for videos, interactive simulations, gamified elements, discussion forums, and virtual labs. 
• Now, to facilitate blended e-learning with Open edX, use LTIs to embed tools like Zoom or BigBlueButton into your course for specific synchronous content components. 

Step 3: Leverage Pacing and Scheduling Features of Open edX 

You can structure your course into self-paced and instructor-paced approaches. 

Self-Paced: Students progress at their own pace and convenience.

Instructor-Paced: Schedule and release course content that aligns with live session dates and deadlines. 

• Go to the “Schedule and Details” of your course page. 
• Set course start and end dates, live session reminders, and assignment deadlines. 

Learners now plan their timelines per the deadlines already depicted in the course. 

Step 4: Monitor, Analyze, and Fine-Tune Your Course Structure 

Open edX offers various data analytics tools that can provide a detailed overview of learner engagement, course progress, and outcomes. 

• Monitor your course engagement, identify risks, and address those issues. 
• Keep optimizing your course content based on feedback and suggestions from learners. 
• Fine-tune synchronous and asynchronous content components based on actionable insights you receive from data analytics tools. 

Conclusion 

That was it. Incorporating blended learning in Open edX is quite simple. As discussed in the blog, it will not take less than a day to blend your online course; with the Open edX features available, you can offer highly engaging, interactive, and comprehensive online courses that help students grasp concepts deeply and engage with instructors in case of any doubts or concerns. 

If you want to build an Open edX Blended Learning Model for your students, choosing DRC Systems, an official Open edX partner, can be wise. Our expertise in developing e-learning solutions and the Open edX ecosystem allows us to create highly interactive, engaging, and learner-friendly online courses. 

We have a team of eLearning experts and course-authoring professionals who will go the extra mile to design and implement interactive courses for you. Let’s connect now to incorporate blended learning in the Open edX platform.