Reflection, dialogue, and hybrid learnings spaces: European Conference on Reflective Practice based Learning 2021

This paper presents a metanalysis of three studies of designs for structuring the time between lessons in four university college programmes. The metastudy seeks to qualifyhomework activities. The aim is to establish virtual connections between lessons andhomework. The studies suggest that while designing a course the lecturers could benefitfrom acknowledging that the virtual representation of the course in the learning management system could be given more attention in new learning designs. The traditional learning designs, that this paper investigates, focus the pedagogical attention on the physicallesson in the university classroom and it relies on traditional approaches to teaching andlearning in a physical and simultaneous meeting. The paper promotes experience-basedlearning designs that seek to establish an equilibrium between the virtual (homework) andthe physical (classroom) aspects of a course. This shifts the lecturer’s workload from predominantly being spending time on preparing the lesson, to paying equal attention to theactivities and interactions with the students between lessons. The paper presents pedagogical designs that, potentially, create good conditions for reflection and dialogue between the lesson that also serves as the fulcrum for the lesson, thereby, defining the circumstances for both virtual learning space and lessons. In the investigated cases, the mediational means are discussion fora utilised to connect the activities between lessonsand the lesson. When the lesson and homework-time are connected by an online discussion it, potentially, frees the lecturers time to take part in the interactions between the lessons. Thus, we suggest a change in the way lecturers approach the distribution of theirworkload leading towards a new equilibrium between ‘virtual learning space’ and ‘physicallearning space’.