Using a blended approach to enrich MOOCs on Finnish education

Abstract

Blended education embraces various combinations of face-to-face and online teaching. It has become a normal part of higher education degree programmes. Since the late 1990s, the Open University of the University of Jyväskylä (JYUOpen) has been offering online and blended education for its rapidly growing number of students. For many years now, Finnish education has ranked high in PISA research. Furthermore, the University of Jyväskylä has been successful in global rankings, especially in the field of education (Shanghai Ranking: 36, QS World University Rankings: 51–100 and Times Higher Education: 67). In order to present the success factors of the Finnish education system, we offered our first MOOC in the autumn semester of 2016 and the blended model of it in the autumn semester of 2017. By utilising our MOOCs and offering face-to-face teaching on campus, we can enhance deeper understanding of different education topics and organise collaboration opportunities for our exchange and degree students. In the autumn semester of 2020, we offered this blended course fully online by utilising synchronous online meetings. In this article, we presentstudent feedback and teacher experiences of our blended model. Based on the preliminary analysis, student feedback on the blended model is constructive and positive. Student feedback has been an essential part of the development of the MOOC courses.