Modelling blended solutions for higher education: teaching, learning and assessment in the network and mobile technology era

The aim of the article is to highlight the role of network and mobile technologies in enhancing the particular characteristics of blended solutions with a view to (a) potentiating/enriching the teaching/learning processes, (b) exploiting the varied opportunities it offers for their observability, and hence for their monitoring and formative and summative assessment. The article will emphasise how this potential can only be captured by solidly integrating the process of instructional design with that of monitoring and assessment. The first part of the article will present a proposed conception of blended solutions, giving examples. This preamble is considered necessary because, although there is apparent general agreement on the definition of blended solutions, differences are often evident in the conception of its details and application. The second part of the article discusses a possible breakdown of blended solutions into its various components (onsite, online, individual and above all collaborative learning), so as to understand how their respective characteristics can be used to enrich/potentiate both the teaching/learning and the assessment processes. The role of network and mobile technologies in supporting and fully exploiting the special features of blended solutions will be explored using concrete examples. The third part of the article will address the question of how to combine and/or use singly the various components of blended solutions, adapting them to the specific goals of the instructional path and to the activities, which are functional to the achievement of these goals. In other words, there will be a discussion of instructional design and of the planning of the monitoring system to be used in the formative and/or summative assessment of the teaching/learning process. To conclude, implications for the implementation of blended solutions will be discussed, pointing out the need for a richer understanding of their key aspects and modalities in order to adapt them to emerging contexts and evolutionary models such as Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), as well as to adapt them to university students' needs and current learning practices.