Week 05: Quality assurance in blended learning

Quality in a  blended learning (BL)  environment is still something to define in precise terms. We have some standards or criteria for F2F and also  online courses, but not something specific for BL. Questions here are: ¿How to assess each part of course? (F2F and online). ¿How do we assess integration of both parts?.

Article says  online course evaluation criteria provide good guidance to BL courses. That is a good point. But some differences arise.By example, in an online course, communication is based on electronic media. In BL, communication is online  but also F2F.

 Article also discusess pertinence of standard based BL course evaluation. Main focus of these criteria is on course design but not on results. It could be that a course is very well designed but not producing good or desired results. Standards can lead also to a mechanistic view of teaching, to a check list approach. As article says,  standards are rarely linked to supporting theory.

A list of very useful links are provided in article, with diverse approaches to BL course quality evaluation. They provide a good starting point for teaching practice. Also, more research is needed. As an emerging field, much work is still to be done in BL.