Designing online learning environments in higher education: Building capacity of lecturers to design and facilitate blended e-pedagogy for mature students

Abstract

Amidst the spread of COVID-19, higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa were compelled to offer academic programmes through online learning by utilising digital information and communication technologies (ICT) that were specifically designed to deliver content to mature students who used technology in their learning. This chapter focuses on the effective design of blended-learning environments and building the capacity of lecturers to design and facilitate interactive, blended e-pedagogy for mature students. We use the adapted ADDIE model to illustrate how lecturers can design and facilitate blended e-pedagogy for mature students. In fact, the COVID-19 crisis catapulted blended e-pedagogy to centre stage in higher education and created the need for: e-pedagogy training; the refining of e-tools; collaborative e-tools; and online assessment e-tools.