BlendLAC 2015 was a great success!

The fourth annual Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts Conference, hosted at Bryn Mawr College from May 20 to May 21, included a keynote address, panel discussions and various workshops.

It brought together more than 165 professionals from 65 different colleges, universities and institutions to focus on topics of interest related to blended learning in the liberal arts. Bryn Mawr College, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, FIPSE First in the World Program, and the Association of American Colleges & Universities TIDES Initiative supported the conference.

The conference began with opening remarks from Jennifer Spohrer, Coordinator for Academic Technology Initiatives at Bryn Mawr College, followed by a keynote address from Richard Baraniuk, the Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, and Founding Director of OpenStax CNX on “Scaling Up Quality Education.”

In his talk, Baraniuk focused on making education accessible to all students, especially in regards to the rising cost of textbooks. He also mentioned various open educational resources and machine learning algorithms for personalized learning, to help reduce the costs of high-quality education.

The conference continued with three concurrent sessions and panel discussions from over 50 speakers who discussed blended learning initiatives that they implemented at their colleges and universities using a wide array of programs from Omeka to Python. The conference also featured several workshops. “Workshop on Teaching to Increase Diversity and Equity: Scholarship and Practice”, was facilitated by Bryn Mawr’s own Professor of Physics and Associate Provost Elizabeth McCormack, Jennifer Spohrer, plus 2014 alumnae, Esther Chiang and Jancy Munguia, who also work in the Office of the Provost.

Over the course of two days, people from across the country came together to network, discuss, and plan for the future of blended learning in the liberal arts. It was an exciting and inspiring event for all involved.

Conference materials and session recordings will be posted on Bryn Mawr College’s Digital Commons Repository site in the near future.

Photo credit: Jennifer Orr ‘18