The aim of the Erasmus + project “XL project: Extended Learning for Higher Education teachers and trainers” is to test new blended learning strategies to better manage online and in presence students. The goal is to respond to the needs emerged during the COVID 19 pandemic period by focusing on teacher training in extended learning methodologies and tools, in the belief that their knowledge and use can make students’ learning easier and more effective.
The two main results of the project are the creation of two documents with the aim to facilitate teachers’ job to create effective blended courses:
- Toolbox of practices of extended learning
- The teacher practical handbook to extended learning
Those two documents are the results of 3 experimentations conducted by all partners in their courses. In order to design the experimentation carried out in the courses of each partner involved in the project it was chosen the “Smart Learning Design” methodological approach. It is an instructional design approach designed to manage this new complexity in teaching-learning process. In SLD method the “learning events” represent the main elements of the model and constitute recognizable units recurring in time and space that can be traced back to events related to the acquisition of knowledge (frontal content collection, interactive content collection), to the application and manipulation of knowledge (content transformation, discussion, practice/experience, production/investigation), and to the consolidation of knowledge (retrieval, reflection and metacognition). All those elements have been tested in the forms of different class activities by all partners.
