Learning Styles and Blended Learning: Challenges and Opportunities in Distance Education Environment

Abstract

Blended learning that facilitates variety of learning and teaching styles has a very important role in distance education environment. Distance education presents opportunities and challenges for the blended learning, and before developing combinations of different delivery modes we should learn more about learning styles of distance education students. Athabasca University has been primarily using printed materials as means of delivery, but recently it has been switching to on-line delivery mode. The change presents opportunity to develop different ways of presenting materials in blended way for different learning styles. Before we develop materials in blended ways, we have to know who our students are, and how they learn, in other words what their learning styles are. This paper addresses the way to go about learning styles of distance learning students and how to develop blended teaching materials to accommodate different learning styles in distance education environment.