Quality of Online and Blended Learning

Week 5 Blog #BlendKit2015 update As we’ve taken our journey through our creation of our blended course, we need to ensure the quality of the course. We need to determine the best combination of online and F2F learning experiences. There are many blended and online course standards. The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Blended Course Review Rubric is a popular “best practices”. Another option is the Hybrid Redesign Evaluation Checklist developed by the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s Learning Technology Center. The course that I am taking also has the Blended Course self-Assessment/Peer Review Form. Other examples of online course standards includes: Quality Matters Blackboards’ Exemplary Course Program Monterey Institute’s Online course Evaluation Project CSU Chico’s Rubric for Online Instruction Michigan Virtual University’s Guidelines and Model Review Process for Online Courses Texas Virtual School Network’s Scoring Rubric for Online Courses Illinois Online Network Quality Online Course Initiative Rubric University of Southern Mississippi’s Online Course Development Guide and Rubric Florida Gulf Coast University’s Principles of Online Design All of these standards have some limitations. The limitations have to do with the “prescriptiveness, credibility, scope and automism of such standards groupings” In addition to creating a good course, you must also focus on teaching effectiveness. This is how to measure the instructor’s ability to affect student. This can includes how organized the course, knowledge level of the instructor, communication with students, timely feedback and other criteria. One suggestion for a teaching is to write an online teaching journal that allows instructors to track thoughts and actions including personal teaching goals. Teachers can also check to see how things are going at any point including reviewing the effectiveness of a specific assignment or resource. Feedback is a critical part of course success and improvement

Learning activities in a blendeding learning environment

Week 4 #BlendKit2015 update This was a very interesting lesson. It gave an example of learning activities for holistic, active learning. As with many assessment, there are direct and indirect methods. For a direct assessment, you would either do or observe something (experience) or you would write a reflective journal or have a dialogue. For indirect, you could use case studies, gaming, simulations, role playing and stories (all experience). For online, a teacher can assign a student to directly experience ___ or engage in indirect kinds of experience3s online. Online students can also write a reflection and complete dialogue online with others. In blended learning, you could have several learning activities including: assimilative, adaptive, communicative, productive and experiential. Assimilative is processing narrative media such as lectures, DVDs or texts. This could include concept mapping, buzzwords, crosswords, etc. Adaptive3 is an environment that changes according to learning input. This includes simulations and games. Communicative is discussing. This can be done asynchronous or synchronous, discussions, chats or text messages. Productive is when learners are producing something. This includes creating, producing, writing, drawing, composing, synthesizing, remixing, and mashups. Experiential includes interactive activities that focus on problem solving. This includes practicing, applying, mimicking, experiencing, exploring, investigating, and performing.