Development and Implementation of a "Blended" Teaching Course Environment

Traditional classroom delivery has experienced a complete overhaul with the advent of Web 2.0 techniques for delivering course material. The Socratic method of teaching can now be effectively accomplished in an online discussion forum, a synchronous chat session, virtual environments, or in a wiki format. All of these innovative technologies are part of an instructor’s teaching toolkit, and his or her arsenal for transforming course delivery. In this manuscript, the development and implementation of a “blended teaching” course is described. Blended teaching is an attempt to coalesce all of the best elements of online and on-ground instruction into a “super-hybrid” of sorts, one that delivers a rich skill set and a valuable educational experience to students.