Upgrading higher education teachers’ and students’ hybrid learning competences

The Hyb-IT-up project aimed to enhance the quality of higher education by equipping teachers and students with the skills needed for effective hybrid teaching and learning. Our goal was to develop...

The Hyb-IT-up project aimed to enhance the quality of higher education by equipping teachers and students with the skills needed for effective hybrid teaching and learning. Our goal was to develop research-based, reusable, and transferable solutions that address the pedagogical and technological challenges of hybrid education. Our main objectives were to: 1) achieve research-based evidence of HE teachers' and students' digital competencies, 2) increase HE teachers’ and students' knowledge and skills for hybrid teaching and learning and 3) establish a new teaching collaboration network. Based on these objectives, we designed work five packages: WP1 Project management WP2 Assessing the HE teachers’ and students’ readiness for hybrid teaching and learning WP3 Upgrading HE teachers’ hybrid teaching skills WP4 Upgrading HE students’ hybrid learning skills WP5 Dissemination and promotion

To achieve the aforementioned objectives, we sought to create validated measurement tools to assess HE teachers’ and students’ digital competencies and readiness for hybrid learning (WP2), produce open-access interactive guidebooks and design micro courses for HE teachers (WP3) and for HE students (WP4) and disseminate the project concepts and results to the wider audience to encourage implementing hybrid learning approaches via a project website, social media, and events and conferences (WP5). In addition to delivering the planned project outputs, we transformed our activities into publications: scientific articles and a book on hybrid learning design. The publication process not only deepened our collaboration and refined the project outcomes but also broadened our network by engaging external contributors. Altogether, this experience enriched our perspectives on hybrid learning.

The project has produced several outputs, namely, the validated measurement tool for higher education teachers and students (WP2), interactive guidebooks and open micro-courses for HE teachers and students (WP3 and WP4) and dissemination platforms/materials including a website, social media channels, blog posts and a Zotero open library (WP5). We also organised several co-design workshops and the final hybrid conference to involve targeted stakeholders in the project. Lastly, we produced two scientific publications (under review) and a book which introduce the findings of the project and examples of hybrid learning implementation.