Literature shows a correlation between teachers’ teaching approaches, learning environments and students’ engagement in their learning activities. Indeed, student-centered teaching approaches encourage students’ active and deep learning. Several researchers highlighted that the technical aspects of blended learning can enhance student-centered learning activities (Peraya et al., 2014; Ibrahim et al., 2017). Others have also found that the openness of a blended learning course may encourage students’ self-direction (Vaughan et al., 2013; Peraya et al., 2014; Lam, 2014). However, teachers’ teaching strategies may also have an impact on students’ behavior and approach to learn (Sadhuwong et al., 2016). Our contribution to this perspective is meant to provide more insights on how lecturers teach in a blended learning environment, to study the type of blended learning course they offer to students and to understand its impacts on students’ personal development, especially on the development of their self-direction in learning in this particular context. Our main hypothesis is that student-centered teaching approaches in an interactive blended learning setting have a positive impact on students' self-direction. This work, performed at the University of Strasbourg, involves lecturers who were chosen among those who teach at the undergraduate level in diverse subjects. First, teachers were invited to declare their teaching approaches and the type of their blended learning course by completing a questionnaire. Then, some observations of their face-to-face sessions and online platform helped to identify their real teaching approach and the pedagogical design of their online environment. This method pointed out a difference between declared and observed teaching approaches. A pre-post questionnaire, which aimed to measure participants' progress on self-direction, was completed by the students of these teachers. By then, the aim was to show if there is a relationship between identified teaching strategies and students' self-direction. According to data collected from observations, students whose lecturers practice student-centered teaching approaches and provide an online communication tool or implement a flipped classroom scenario in their blended learning environment developed their self-direction in learning. However, the difference identified between the declared and the observed lecturers’ teaching approaches, as well as the type of their blended learning environment might show a lack of understanding of their own teaching strategies.