A new model for evaluating teaching quality in virtual environments

The parameterization of quality in virtual training activity

Quality criteria in virtual universities

Criteria regarding organization and technology

Criteria regarding the creation of knowledge

The virtual teacher has been characterized by creating new learning practices, where knowledge arises through interaction, accompaniment, as well as the feedback of the activities and resources integrated in the virtual training for the achievement of the proposed objectives.

What is the role of the teacher in virtual educational environments?
The figure of the new virtual teacher

Its main functions will be to guide, stimulate and collaborate with the student in their learning process, in addition to evaluating the results obtained, in relation to a specific subject or specific knowledge.

The role of the teacher is not only to provide information and control discipline, but to be a mediator between the student and the environment. Stopping being the protagonist of learning to become the student's guide or companion.

What is the virtual teacher?

In virtual education, the tutor and the content author must bear in mind that technologies present competitive alternatives in communication, the delivery of educational content, and in the retrieval of information that is complementary to learning.

What are the skills that a virtual teacher should have? What skills and attitudes must be possessed to deliver online training?

Teachers who make careers in the field of virtual education or e-learning must take into account two significant changes in the world of teaching:

1. Your Role,
2. The Methodology.
   
   

Conducting class sessions is no longer their main objective, as their role has changed to that of facilitator. This implies the development of learning spaces co-built together with the students, in which everyone contributes.

It is clear that the teaching professional already has the knowledge and pedagogy to teach a class. But you must ensure the development of those skills that allow you to successfully carry out a virtual session.

As has already been commented in a previous post about what is required to be an e-Learning training teacher, the technological advance that society has experienced since the end of the 20th century and which has triggered an increasing need to develop cannot be denied. digital skills.

This involves the challenge of overcoming the barrier and fear of interacting with computers or mobile devices, or helping others to do so.

The implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), allows support to education in the facilitation of tasks and content for didactic purposes, but teachers must have certain skills to interact with them and encourage others to also use them in favor of your learning process.

In this way, a virtual teacher must ensure that they have skills with reference to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
It is important to note that we are talking about skills, understood as clear objectives and competencies to teach, and not so much about tools.

How to be a successful virtual teacher?

1. From Digital Immigrant to Virtual Teacher. Get started with planning your course. Know the Technology. Do not forget the Pedagogy. Clear Communication is essential. Socialization is very important.
2. Conclusion.
3. Glossary of Terms for Virtual Teachers.

In recent years, quality assessment systems have become widespread in the university environment. Its objective is to guarantee the effectiveness of the services provided by the different university institutions.

The idea behind these systems is that a university, like any other service provider, must be oriented towards satisfying the needs of its clients. In these items, attention is paid to a specific and especially relevant dimension of the university reality: teaching activity.

Specifically, a model is proposed that allows evaluating the quality of the teaching activity carried out in a specific framework: virtual learning environments (e-learning).

The peculiar characteristics of this new educational paradigm make an equally novel performance evaluation model essential, based on three pillars: the internal analysis of the processes, the external analysis of the client-students and the analysis of the results of the teaching activity.

The ultimate objective of the model is that any university that operates in a virtual learning environment can have information on the level of quality that the people in charge of daily contact with students are actually providing, thereby making it possible to implement a system of continuous improvement of training processes.

Quality management requires that the design of any product or service starts from a deep understanding of the needs, preferences, values ​​and purchasing criteria of customers.

The problem is that meeting customer needs is a complex process.

Experience indicates that the intuitions of managers or entrepreneurs about what are the attributes of their most valued products or services do not have to coincide, and in fact they usually do not, with their actual preferences.

Evaluating the quality of virtual education implies having a set of determining dimensions to define said quality. Quality models emerge to propose, describe and establish how to assess these dimensions.

The objective of the present items is to carry out a comparative analysis of some models designed for the evaluation of the quality of virtual education, focusing on proposed dimensions to evaluate said quality and establish which are the relevant or frequent dimensions considered by the selected models.

The models analyzed have been developed, among others, by researchers, universities, accreditation organizations; and they have been proposed to universities to improve the quality of the virtual education they teach.

The results of the analysis show that the large dimensions that describe the quality of virtual education according to the models analyzed are: the institutional context, the technological infrastructure, the students, the teacher, the pedagogical aspects and the dimensions focused on the evaluation of the life cycle of a virtual course: the design, development and results of the course.

There is no single universally accepted definition of the quality of virtual education. Some authors, when they mention such quality, refer to user-student satisfaction, while others refer to standards or the academic and learning results obtained by students.

There are also authors (Ajmera and Dharamdasani, 2014; Ehlers, 2013; Jung, Wong and Belawati (2013); Rushby and Surry, 2016) who return to Harvey and Green (1993) to describe the quality of virtual education.

What is required to obtain a quality virtual education?

It is necessary to develop indicators and criteria that allow evaluating the degree of quality, equity and relevance of a distance and virtual education system, and the way in which these dimensions are mutually reinforcing in a synergistic way.

The quality of distance higher education has now reached a relevant importance that has led various organizations, institutions and agencies interested in this modality, to seek the joint definition of the philosophical, pedagogical, technical, content and administrative characteristics, Translated into criteria and quality standards, they become guiding instruments to evaluate the consistency of educational proposals and determine their quality with the international recognition that this qualification brings.

Universities and institutes of higher education, interested in the subject, must promote within themselves, changes in their structure and organization, to open specific spaces to specialists and researchers of the modality.

The results will serve to determine the necessary modifications in its structure, as well as the strategic actions to be carried out to consolidate the proposals and extend their applications to other educational organizations that require them, ensuring their relevance, effectiveness and quality.

The training offer aimed at adults is very wide and diverse, ranging from literacy processes and the achievement of basic education to training aimed at access to work or leisure activities.

This offer is made up of different courses and programs, offered by the educational, labor and local administrations.

What are the technological criteria?

The technical criteria take into account aspects such as mastery of technology, stimulation for the organization's own research and development, based on the possible impact of the technology that is selected, compliance with quality requirements, rational management of raw materials and technologies, etc.

How can you evaluate technology?

The qualitative evaluation of a technology must be focused on determining both the impacts that the technology will have on the internal environment of the company and those that the external environment, due to its conditions, will have on the performance of said technology in the company.

What must we take into account to know when it is an appropriate technology?

Appropriate technology (AT), also known as appropriate or intermediate technology, is that technology that is designed with special attention to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social and economic aspects of the community to which it is directed.

What is or are the selection criteria for materials?

The criteria for selecting materials are mainly based on their properties:

• When selecting a material, take into account its availability, the abundance of the material, and the proximity to where it is needed.

What criteria should a teacher have?

• Vocation: Feel the profession from the depths.
• Dedication: Spend all the time available.
• Kindness: Without falling into collegiality.
• Generosity: Put all your knowledge on the students.
• Responsibility: Understood as the ability to respond.
• Empathy: Knowing how to put in the place of the student.

What is the basis for the creation of knowledge?

Knowledge is created when there is a transformation of the tacit knowledge of individuals into explicit at the group and organizational level (Nonaka, 1991 and 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995), and each one of the members of such collectives internalize it, making it new in unspoken.

What is the way to build knowledge?

Knowledge is acquired through a plurality of cognitive processes: perception, memory, experience (attempts followed by success or failure), reasoning, teaching-learning, third-party testimony, etc. These processes are the object of study of cognitive science.

What is the importance of knowledge creation?

The knowledge generated, shared and maintained within the company turns into productivity, more human perspectives and increasingly better processes. Consumers, clients, partners and society in general come to see the company as a differentiated organization. That is, its internal value gains prominence.

Who builds knowledge?

The subject builds knowledge from his interaction with the physical and social environment but the product will depend on the development of his cognitive abilities. Reality is actively constructed through the application and readjustment of the subject's cognitive schemes to the environment.

What are the criteria for the validity of the knowledge?

The validity of knowledge admits various forms and criteria according to the fields or areas in which it manifests its validity: we could then speak of sociological, ethnic-cultural, religious, magical validity, etc. each one with its forms and criteria of acceptance and recognition.