A blended learning model to achieve academic excellence in preparing post graduate engineering students to become University teachers

Blended learning approach has proved to have great potential to support deep and meaningful learning. This paper presents a case study of the transformative potential of blended learning in the context of the challenge facing higher education across the globe - designing learning instructions for inculcating research oriented teaching in future technical teachers. The need to inculcate research at all levels of University education has been long felt and should be addressed by designing the learning instruction in such a way that research becomes an integral part of the culture of teaching. This paper describes the approach to do so in the case study presented here. Some important leadership, administrative, implementation and scalability issues are addressed. Outlines of action plan using cloud based technologies to support blended learning models are also presented. It was observed that by using the described approach, the usual advantages of traditional model were encashed while the learning experience of students was enhanced using on-line approach.