Teacher design teams: Building capacity for flexible and learner-centred course development

Linglingay McDermott
University of the Philippines Open University
Manila, the Philippines

Blended learning, a mix of face-to-face learning and online learning, has been growing in popularity in universities as a means of introducing distance e-learning to its students and faculty staff. It is also a way to promote innovative instructional approaches and accommodate various learning styles. By fostering learner-centred course design that includes a wide variety of learning activities (such as classroom instruction, virtual meetings, online books, mentoring, self-paced study, simulations and assessments), Schools can utilize learning resources more efficiently, while allowing students more learning flexibility. Thus, there is now a need to train the faculty staff on how to design their course for blended learning. The University of the East used teacher design teams to ensure high-quality course design and provide support for the course developers/faculty. This paper explores the techniques and processes employed by the University to ensure that our blended learning courses are learner-centred and flexible, and are aligned with the output-based educational goals. Instructional designers and educational technologists were employed to help the course developer/faculty to design their courses. A quality assurance team was also put together for each course in order to ensure that all aspects of the course (content, instructional design, technology and language) were of the highest quality. The results show that employing teacher design teams produces quality courses and creates a positive perception of e-learning from both the students and faculty.