Abstract:

Technology adoption in higher education institutions worldwide sped up when all teaching activities were suddenly moved online caused by the massive restrictions at the start of and during the COVID-19 pandemic period. During this period, instructors used several educational and communication platforms to address diverse needs and teaching requirements. In consequence, a high inconsistency in teaching provision across undergraduate courses has been observed since the pandemic started in late 2019.

Research studies on the impact of the pandemic on education have reported that students benefited from flexibility in attendance and on-demand access to educational materials. Furthermore, it is more likely that those elements will remain present in higher education after the pandemic. Meeting restrictions during the autumn term 2021 allowed teachers to decide whether the lectures were online or on-site at the university premises. Similarly, the university allowed students to attend the lectures in person if the option was available or stay at home if they preferred. The teaching modalities encountered during the autumn term 2021 can be summarised in blended, hybrid, and fully online teaching.

In this paper, we describe the design and initial implementation of an institutional programme based on one platform available for all teachers at the university. Among its features, this platform can live-stream, pre-record and facilitate lectures and educational material.

The goals of the programme are:
(1) provide the teachers with personalised support and tutorials on the best usage of the platform to fit their needs and help them to use all the features available;
(2) improve the students learning experience after the pandemic with more consistency among the platforms used for teaching and easier access to leaning material;
(3) facilitate data collection, as well as the quantity and quality of data, among years and university departments for future learning analytics research.

In this programme, which started at the beginning of the 2021 autumn term, the teachers taking part received a set of tutorials and recommendations about this platform based on the modality they selected for teaching. Afterwards, each week from the start of the course, they received a set of infographics and tutorials highlighting the features and benefits of using the platform at its full potential. A final interview with the teachers, about the strengths and weaknesses of the program, and the usefulness of the supporting material provided will be used to improve the programme implementation for the next term spring 2022 .

Keywords:

Blended learning, hybrid learning, online learning, educational platform, teaching modality.