Online and blended education is part of the educational landscape of the GSLS. The design of online and blended education can vary: from fully online courses with support of the lecturer to small modules to be followed independently. It offers plenty of opportunities for scalable and flexible solutions.

For more information about designing, developing and teaching online or blended education you can contact:
Biomedical Sciences: CourseinformationGSLS@umcutrecht.nl
Biosciences: CourseinformationGSLS@uu.nl

Blended education

Blended education offers a mix of online and face-to-face learning approaches. In a blended learning design, the acquisition of knowledge can be offered online in e-learning activities (e.g. knowledge clips, e-modules, interactive exercises, formative quizzes), whilst the application of knowledge is suitable for face-to-face education (e.g. seminar learning groups, discussions with experts, challenge-based learning).

Online education

Education can also be offered fully online. All learning activities are conducted in an online learning environment, with activities such as reading texts, watching videos, doing exercises, performing assignments, collaborating with peers, giving and getting feedback, discussing and working in groups.

Why online education?

Online education offers flexibility and a wider range of courses. This supports students in making their own timetable, e.g. students can take an online course during their research project or simultaneously with a face-to-face course.

In addition, it creates opportunities to increase capacity: by making use of peer-feedback and learning activities with automated feedback, the teacher can mainly focus on student progress and assessments of assignments. Moreover, it is possible to work on a small scale within online education by creating small groups that work together during the course.

For online and blended education the most used online learning environments at the UU and UMCU are ULearning and Blackboard.