Designing Hybrid Learning Spaces in Higher Education

Abstract

As Hybrid Learning Spaces move beyond distinctions between online and offline spaces, they challenge divisions between teacher/student roles, formal/informal contexts and analogue/digital communication and media. This article presents the concept of hybridity in higher education through a concrete example of a trans-national hybrid course collaboration between three teachers and thirty students at Aarhus University, Denmark and Åbo Akademi University, Finland. The course design is examined through theories on hybrid pedagogy, learning spaces and media ecology to suggest five design principles for Hybrid Learning Spaces. The paper argues that higher education has the potential of inviting students to learn in the world, with the world and for the world, in a way that cuts across traditional dichotomies and barriers.