Handbook for leaders in higher education: Developing and designing institutional policies for digitally enhanced (hybrid/blended) teaching and learning
Keywords:
higher education, høyere utdanning, digitally enhanced learning, blended learning, higher education policies, hybrid learning, COVID-19Synopsis
The enactment of higher education policies has followed an unprecedented sequence of innovation around blended and hybrid learning because of the gradual dissemination of pedagogical and technological developments. These include quality assurance, qualification frameworks, employability programs, international mobility of students and teachers, and pedagogical training for higher education teachers. However, in early 2020 all universities across the world were compelled to shift abruptly to online teaching at a short notice, thus introducing online pedagogies that employ video conferencing software (such as Zoom, Teams, Meet and many others), learning management systems (such as Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, and others) and online examination systems (such as Inspera). Today, many teachers have used these digital tools and virtual suites to reshape course designs, delivery, and evaluation. Although these tools were previously available, few had foreseen that they would be adopted at such a wide, global scale.
In this handbook, we explore how higher education institutions have used blended and hybrid learning to respond to the Covid-19 lockdown, particularly how institutional leaders and some teachers perceived that type of emergency education, and to what extent the whole process is changing the paradigm. To this end, the authors interviewed thirty-nine leaders and teachers who were involved in the management of this transition in six universities located in France, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Spain.
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