Using Blended Learning to Ensure Consistency and Quality in Multiple Course Sections

The purpose of this paper is to provide stakeholders (academic administrators, instructional designers, instructors, and students) with one university’s experience with managing multiple sections of the same course, by using a series of instructional techniques that ensures consistent, high-quality, blended courses. Many universities are tasked with teaching multiple sections of foundational courses to large numbers of students. How do administrators and instructors ensure that each stakeholder’s needs and requirements are being met satisfactorily? This paper addresses the issues that arise when trying to satisfying the needs of all stakeholders, the role that blended learning plays, and the strengths and challenges of utilizing blended learning and future considerations. It develops a model that uses five strategies for ensuring course consistency, including personnel structure, communication, course design and consistency, assessment and evaluation, and technological and professional development support. Finally, this paper includes a just-in-time tool (Appendix A) that can be used by administrators to address the challenges of incorporating blended learning.