Rollins' Evening School Awarded ACS Grant for Blended Learning

The Hamilton Holt School, Rollins’ evening school for working adults and other part-time students, has been awarded a $7,000 grant from the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS) to help faculty develop blended learning courses.

“This is the first of many steps the Hamilton Holt School will be taking toward increasing the use of technology and experiential learning in the classroom,” Hamilton Holt School Dean David Richard said. “This grant will help us train a core group of faculty members in blended learning technologies and begin the migration of some of our current face-to-face curricula to a blended format.”

Blended learning courses use technology to create virtual teaching environments where faculty and students can collaborate in meaningful ways. Online, students work with instructors to solve problems, gather information, and become fully engaged in their own learning. Class time is spent discussing lessons learned in the virtual environment.

A 2008 meta-analytic study by the U.S. Department of Education found that adult learners in a blended learning format had better learning outcomes (e.g., better retention of material and higher grades) than students in the more traditional lecture format.

“There is some irony in the observation that technology will allow us to fulfill the educational goals espoused by Hamilton Holt, Rollins' renowned eighth president, several decades ago. Namely, we will be able to create student-faculty relationships that are truly collaborative and characterized by a mentoring rather than lecturing model,” Richard said. “The truth of the matter is that technology will allow us to do more of what we do best at Rollins.”

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