Title:	EVALUATION PRACTICES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING IN PORTUGUESE HIGHER EDUCATION BLENDED LEARNING MODULES
Author(s):	Lúcia Pombo, António Moreira
ISBN:	978-972-8939-17-5
Editors:	Miguel Baptista Nunes and Maggie McPherson
Year:	2010
Edition:	Vol. I
Keywords:	Evaluation, blended learning, Higher Education
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	267
Last Page:	274
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	The new environment in which Higher Education (HE) in Portugal is being developing has made the quality of modules one of the main concerns and objectives. Institutional, national and global pressures demand that universities address issues of quality in teaching and learning. Universities are challenged to adapt their role to a new reality where two of the main concepts in this context are lifelong learning and mobility, which underlie the commitment of several European HE institutions following the Bologna Process. The purpose of this article is to examine the evaluation practices of teaching and learning in Portuguese Higher Education blended learning modules. Questions like who evaluates, how to evaluate, what is evaluated and what evaluation is for and also what should be implemented in order to improve course quality were put to the directors of the courses under scrutiny. The study was conducted with 18 of a total of 19 bLearning course directors in 11 Portuguese HE institutions. Results revealed that students, teachers and directors are the main performers of modules evaluation, although external agents are also seen as very relevant for this purpose in the near future. The main instruments used for evaluation are reports about the course and questionnaires to students. As to the objects of evaluation that are being selected in Portuguese institutions all directors mentioned the communication tools used, the quality of didactic materials and the pertinence of the learning tasks proposed, all of them also seen as most pertinent for the purposes of evaluation. The main goals of evaluation are the improvement of the curricular plans and the adequacy of the teaching strategies. Some recommendations of new methodologies for evaluation are put forward with the aim of improving HE teaching quality.
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