Blended, or hybrid, courses have often been touted as the ideal way to facilitate learning as they allow learners to interact in both face-to-face and online settings, thereby experiencing the “best of both worlds.” In practice, that ideal learning setting is more difficult to achieve. While blended courses have the potential to integrate the most beneficial aspects of each modality, such course design requires diligence to successfully navigate a balance and ensure the optimal delivery mode is considered for each learning scenario. In this article, the authors share the most current research on blended learning for adults, including benefits and drawbacks, various blended models, the results of an empirical study comparing two blended designs, and conclude with a practitioner tool to guide decision-making and achieve the appropriate balance of online and face-to-face and ultimately realize the best of both worlds for adult learners.

Graduate students at a distance require an advising approach that allows them to connect to their peers, faculty, and the University as a whole. In addition, they need to be empowered to develop transferable skills and self‐directed behaviors from the advising process just as they are through the learning process. Faculty from the adult education and training specialization at Colorado State University conceptualized and built a self‐directed advising model to achieve these goals. A framework drawing from previous advising and adult learning theories, such as the integrated lens of adult development (Baumgartner, 2001), self‐directed learning, and the integrative advising approach in conjunction with the program's teaching philosophy applies the conceptual model to achieve the aforementioned goals.

Ascorbic acid is frequently determined by titration with 2,6-dichlorophenolindophenol. The determination is rapid, but the method is neither specific for ascorbic acid nor very sensitive. The coloring matter in the assay solution interferes with the visual endpoint, and iron(ll), copper(l), sulfite, and sulfhydryl substances such as cysteine and glutathione interfere with the color reaction. Sample cleanup by solid-phase extraction with C18 bonded silica was developed to remove the coloring matter. Extraction sorbent impregnated with 2,2′-bipyridyl, 2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline (neocuproine) and Jv-ethylmaleimide removes Fe(ll), Cu(l), and sulfhydryl compounds, respectively. The procedure was applied to highly colored multivitamin pharmaceuticals, soft drinks, and fruit and vegetable juices. In contrast to the results from the original method, which is not applicable to such samples, the results obtained by the method incorporating cleanup were accurate and selective for ascorbic acid. The sample cleanup also permitted determination of dehydroascorbic acid by reducing it to ascorbic acid with cysteine and titrating the ascorbic acid formed with indophenol. As little as 3 μg ascorbic acid was determined by the method incorporating cleanup.

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