What is Blended Learning?
What is Blended Learning?
Blended learning combines online study with scheduled classes on campus. You work through video lectures and activities in your own time during the week, join live webinars online, and come in for face to face classes roughly one Saturday a month.
Griffith College has been running blended programmes since 2014, across undergraduate law and business, postgraduate education diplomas and professional accountancy. It suits people who need flexibility but still want to be part of a class.
Ready to Apply?
Applications for blended courses are made online. If you have a question about a specific programme, our Admissions team is available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm.
How to Apply
Applications for blended and online courses are made directly to Griffith College through our online application form. There is no CAO route for these programmes, so you can apply at any point in the year. Most applications take around 20 minutes once you have your documents to hand.
What to have ready
- Your qualification transcripts or certificates
- Photo ID, either a passport or driving licence
- A CV, if you're applying on the basis of work experience
- Proof of English language proficiency, if English is not your first language
The steps
- Find your course. Check the entry requirements, fees and start date on the course page before you begin. Not every programme runs in blended mode.
- Open the online application form. You can save a part-completed application and come back to it.
- Select Blended or Online as your study mode. This is the step people most often get wrong, and the wrong mode assigns you to a different study mode.
- Fill in your personal and academic details.
- Upload your documents.
- Submit. You'll get an email confirming we've received it.
What happens next
Our Admissions team reviews your application and comes back to you by email. If you're successful, you'll get an offer setting out how to accept and secure your place. Before your course starts you'll be invited to a live induction day, where you'll meet your programme director and lecturers and get set up on Moodle and Zoom with our Digital Learning team.
Questions about a specific course?
Contact admissions for the specific campus below:
Dublin +353 1 415 0400: admissions@griffith.ie
Cork +353 21 450 7027: admissions.gcc@griffith.ie
Limerick +353 61 310 031: admissions.gcl@griffith.ie
How Blended Learning Works at Griffith College
Courses vary, but a blended programme is generally built from three parts:
- Weekly online lectures and activities. Video lectures, tasks and quizzes you complete in your own time, wherever you are.
- Monthly live webinars. One hour tutorials with your lecturer and classmates over Zoom, with recordings on Moodle if you cannot make the live session. Q&A, breakout rooms and screen sharing are all part of it.
- On-campus classes. Usually one Saturday a month, for workshops and discussion with your class group.
Every programme starts with a live induction day where you meet your lecturers and programme director, and get set up on Moodle and Zoom with our Digital Learning team.
We recommend committing at least ten hours a week to get the same experience as a student on campus.
Blended, Online or Part-Time: What's the Difference?
| Blended | Fully online | Part-time on campus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campus attendance | Around one Saturday a month | None | Weekly, usually evenings |
| Study schedule | You set your own weekly pace | You set your own weekly pace | Fixed timetable |
| Live contact | Monthly webinars plus on-campus days | Online only | Every class |
| Best if | You want flexibility but also want to know your class | You cannot travel to campus at all | You can commit to a set evening each week |
The qualification is the same either way. Content and assessment in a blended programme are fully comparable to the full-time and part-time versions of the same course. Only the delivery differs.
Why Study a Blended Course?
Flexibility. No daily commute and no fixed weekday timetable. If you are working, raising a family or living outside Dublin, Cork or Limerick, you can fit study around the rest of your life rather than the other way round.
A real class group. Because you are on campus once a month and in webinars in between, you get to know your lecturers and the people you study with. That is the part most fully online courses cannot give you.
Support throughout. Our eLearning team is available round the clock, alongside IT support, the library and everything else on campus. Blended students have the same access to facilities, resources and extracurricular activities as full-time and part-time students.
Recognition. Griffith College won Best Online Learning Experience at the Education Awards in 2019, after being shortlisted in 2018, and was a finalist for Best Use of Educational Technology in 2020.
Is Blended Learning Right for Me?
Blended learning leans on self-directed study, so a few things make a difference to how well you get on.
You can commit the time. Around ten hours a week. Some students study in the morning, some in the evening, some on their lunch break. What matters is picking a schedule and sticking to it.
You value flexibility. If being able to choose where and when you study is the thing that makes a course possible for you, blended is built for that.
You work well on your own. You will be managing your own week for the most part, so being able to motivate yourself matters.
You are organised. There is a lot to keep track of between webinars, assignments and campus days. You will have lecturers, classmates and the eLearning team behind you, but the diary is yours.
You are open to a different way of learning. Learning does not only happen in a classroom, and blended programmes use a wide range of tools and approaches to get you there.
What You'll Use to Study
You will study through Moodle, our virtual learning environment. It holds your lecture videos, module materials, reading, assignments, discussion forums and announcements, and it is where you will find recordings of every webinar.
Live sessions run on Zoom. You will need a reasonably current computer, a stable internet connection, a webcam and a headset.
Some activity is synchronous, meaning everyone is online together in real time. Some is asynchronous, meaning you take part when it suits you within a set window. Most courses use both.
Blended courses at Griffith College
We offer blended and online programmes across several faculties, including:
View our Blended Courses at Griffith College.
What Our Students Say
The blended nature of the course gave me the best of both worlds. The flexibility of the online material allowed me to balance my studies with working and raising a family, while the small class size in on-campus tutorials fostered a real sense of familiarity with my fellow students and lecturers.
It's the only way I could have earned a degree while still progressing in my career. By the time I finish, I'll have a level 8 Bachelors in Business and years of experience in a global marketing company. It would have taken me seven years to achieve what I've gotten in four.
Blended Learning FAQs
Blended learning combines online study with scheduled in-person classes. At Griffith College you complete weekly video lectures and activities in your own time, join monthly live webinars, and attend campus around one Saturday a month.
We recommend a minimum of ten hours a week. That gives you the same experience as a student studying full-time or part-time on campus.
Yes. Most blended courses include on-campus classes, generally one Saturday a month, though this varies by programme. Check your course page for details.
Fully online learning requires no campus attendance at all. Blended combines online study with regular face to face classes, so you get the flexibility of studying online along with the interaction of a classroom.
Moodle for your course materials, lectures and assignments, and Zoom for live webinars and tutorials.
Yes. Blended learning is designed for people balancing study with work and family commitments. Lectures are completed in your own time and on-campus days are usually at weekends.
Yes. Blended students have the same access to the library, IT services, careers support, the Students' Union and extracurricular activities as full-time and part-time students.
No. Blended and online courses are applied for directly through Griffith College, not through the CAO. You can apply at any point in the year depending on the current intake options available.
Your qualification transcripts or certificates, photo ID, and proof of English language proficiency if English is not your first language. A CV if you're applying on the basis of work experience. Some courses ask for extra documents, listed on the course page.
Ready to Apply?
Applications for blended courses are made online. If you have a question about a specific programme, our Admissions team is available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm.