Creative Strategies to Engage in Teaching a Blended Course

IBlended learning is a need of the time especially for those who have to work and study as well. This unique blend of face to face and online component help students to continue with their job life and at the same time can study without quitting the work place. The idea of blended learning also brought in to our field of nursing education; for this purpose many of the faculties from the school of nursing of a tertiary care hospital based university, were enrolled to learn this new concept. The course was design in a manner that it also contains major part of online and two weeks of face to face component. This paper would draw the attention towards faculty development process experiences for blended learning. It will highlight creative strategies and ways to engage in this new concept of enhancing learning for faculties and for students. Preparedness developed faculty who is teaching BL (blended learning) but also helped to prepare and takes risks about many strategies in course development. Another important arena is practicing the skills on a regular basis even after the face to face component. The concept of trial and error can be utilized wisely. One is not perfect in everything but trying it out is very important. Formation of community of practice, or grouping like-minded people; are the ways to provide faculties to learn from each other. We started to share our learning experiences inside the group and intra group too. Therefore, buddying is another strategy to be applied for blended training. Learn from experts is another creative way to get ready for blended learning. This process helps to build cognitive skills because we would be learning from the knowledge and experiences of others. Such strategies will help a faculty to build her/his skills of blended learning in an ongoing basis.