Lesson 9 - Quality Teaching in a Digital Age

2.3. Consistency in Applying Quality Standards

There are plenty of evidence-based guidelines for ensuring quality in teaching, both face-to-face and online. The main challenge then is to ensure that teachers and instructors are aware of these best practices and that institutions have processes in place to ensure that guidelines for quality teaching are implemented and followed.

Quality assurance methods are valuable for agencies concerned about rogue private providers, or institutions using online learning to cut corners or reduce costs without maintaining standards (for instance, by hiring untrained adjuncts, and giving them an unacceptably high teacher-student ratio to manage). QA methods can be useful for providing instructors new to teaching with technology, or struggling with its use, with models of best practice to follow. But for any reputable state university or college, the same quality assurance standards should apply equally to face-to-face and online teaching, even if slightly adjusted for the difference in the delivery method.