The changing demographics of the student population, the current economic climate,

global and societal trends dictate that universities the world over increase access to
their products and services through distance and online learning. The UWI in The UWI
Triple A Strategic Plan 2017 – 2022: Revitalizing Caribbean Development sets out as its
strategic goals Access, Alignment and Agility. In order to operationalize the Triple A
Strategy relative to Access, The UWI Cave Hill campus has formulated strategic
initiatives that are underpinned by the notions of a SMART Campus capitalizing on
advances in IT, towards improving educational delivery and pedagogy; and harnessing
these developments with the view to making the Cave Hill campus the campus of
choice for students, rather than a campus of convenience. As such it is imperative that
these processes are driven by the renewal, design, redesign and delivery of efficacious
curricula for blended and online learning. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that
there is the perception among faculty that a traditional course can be converted to a
blended course simply by adding technological tools. Therefore efficient training in the
principles of blended course design and delivery is warranted. Opportunities for training
include:
 Improved course designs
 Improved pedagogical practices resulting in increased student satisfaction and
enrolment.

Therefore this project aims to equip faculty with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and
tools necessary to develop and deliver quality learner-centered blended courses. The
target audience comprises primarily full time and adjunct faculty, but may also include
research and administrative assistants, each with at least an undergraduate degree,
and at least one year employment in the higher education arena. Moreover, participants
will have varying experiences with course design and delivery, ranging from no
experience to training in course design and actual development and delivery of courses;
varying experiences with Moodle, the learning management system (LMS) utilized by
the university; as well as varying levels of pedagogical training and technological
proficiency. A blended approach will be utilized for the delivery of the instruction. This
modality was chosen because of the flexibility that it will afford faculty members who will
carry their usual workloads, research and community service responsibilities. In
addition, they will engage in experiential learning as they experience a blended course
from the learner’s perspective. This should enable them to be empathetic with their own
students when they actually deliver their blended courses. Furthermore, this modality
will allow for the modelling of best practices in blended design and delivery.