Emergence of the Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) Learning Wave in the Post-COVID-19 Era: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the need for new innovative methods to effectively maintain education in times of crisis and uncertainty. This study first presents the Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) learning approach, a way of learning that caters to the new needs of students and teachers in the post-COVID-19 era. OMO learning utilizes a hybrid infrastructure that combines Open Educational Practices and real-time learning spaces, both online and offline. This study then discusses the early results of a pilot experiment investigating OMO learning in China for three months from three dimensions: space design requirements, technological considerations, and pedagogical considerations. A qualitative, two-stage study focused on content analysis and a multiple-case study were carried out in the context of courses about English language learning with 30 teachers and students. The obtained findings showed that, although both teachers and students had a positive attitude towards OMO learning, they mentioned that a comprehensive set of core and functional competencies are needed—including the use of online platforms, communication skills, class management, and the effective use of resources. Additionally, the findings showed that more effort should be paid to classroom design, such as infrastructure, to efficiently support OMO learning. This study exemplifies a new approach toward the future of education to ensure sustainable education in this complex and uncertain world.

A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews on Blended Learning: Trends, Gaps and Future Directions

“…Specifically, international universities and schools worldwide had to take several actions with respect to health regulations, such as reducing classroom sizes. 16 Therefore, they combined online and offline learning to maintain their courses for both on-campus and off-campus experiences. 16 For instance, as a response to the effort made by the government of Indonesia to carry out physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, in all domains including education, some elementary schools used BL with Moodle platform to ensure the continuity of learning.…”

“… 16 Therefore, they combined online and offline learning to maintain their courses for both on-campus and off-campus experiences. 16 For instance, as a response to the effort made by the government of Indonesia to carry out physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, in all domains including education, some elementary schools used BL with Moodle platform to ensure the continuity of learning. 17 In this context, several teachers raised concerns about implementing BL experiences, such as the lack of infrastructure and competencies to do so, calling for further investigation in this regard.…”

Prioritising teaching modalities by extending TOPSIS to single-valued neutrosophic environment

“…Blended learning is described by Huang et al ( 2021 ) as merging two teaching modalities i.e. face-to-face instruction and technology-mediated instruction to capitalize on the benefits of both.…”

Influence of Online Merging Offline Method on University Students’ Active Learning Through Learning Satisfaction

“…After the COVID-19 situation improved, the school reopened, teachers and students returned to school, and the OMO teaching mode was gradually accepted by most teachers (Huang et al, 2021) OMO mode advocates student-centered learning, where students' learning space expands from physical classroom to online classroom, and provides students with flexible learning resources and methods, supporting students' personalized learning (Yang et al, 2019(Yang et al, , 2021. Compared with the lack of preparation at the beginning of the COVID-19, the characteristics of students' online active learning in the OMO mode should be different from the online mode.…”