Author: Andreas Florian Reinhardt

The new semester has just begun. The pandemic situation allows to start the semester in attendance and most students and teaching staff are looking forward to it. And spring is coming! It also seems to be a good moment to reflect further on teaching concepts faculty might have adopted or developed based on experiences in the remote teaching phase and from the autumn semester 2021.

So, what’s up with hybrid teaching at ETH Zurich?

We use the term ‘hybrid’ to refer to the simultaneous delivery of face-to-face and online teaching, i.e., some students are on-site while other simultaneously are online. In conversations with the educational developers at the different ETH departments, it became clearer that this approach can pose many challenges. Handling the technical infrastructure is complex, and the cognitive load for instructors to manage both student bodies simultaneously is high. Some students participating online report that they feel like “second class citizens” in a hybrid teaching scenario. Interaction is generally challenging, and there might be substantial additional investment required to cater to both learning experiences equally and simultaneously – not just in terms of technology, but also in terms of development of didactic strategies. This is not to say that there have not already been successful experiences with hybrid teaching in small groups or special instructional scenarios – however, hybrid teaching was pretty quickly discarded as a general option for post-pandemic teaching at ETH.

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New work asks for more flexible learning

The pandemic has accelerated implementations of new work concepts, such as working remotely in home office and collaborating in hybrid teams. Working environments have changed fundamentally and will continue to evolve. These concepts will also change the demands on learning and teaching environments in higher education; greater flexibility will be expected.

In an internal survey at ETH during the remote teaching phase, students stated that they would like to have on average two days per week of remote learning; hybrid teaching is not the only option to make this happen, there are asynchronous strategies we can follow to blend on-site and online learning. In addition, ETH is expecting increased student growth in the next few years without an increase in physical teaching space, and in particular laboratory space might be our most precious commodity. A range of innovative teaching and learning concepts will be needed, which scale under these circumstances and enable all members of our academic community to cope and thrive with more flexibility – without compromising on the quality of student learning.

Hybrid teaching is part of a strategic effort

In a recent workshop on “Hybrid Teaching and Learning in higher education,” organised by the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, colleagues discussed whether hybrid teaching will remain a responsive solution or become an innovative alternative to current practice. Of course, the answer is not binary and the discussion around tips and tricks, technical implementation strategies, and pedagogical aspects was very comprehensive and diverse (recordings available here). An interesting observation is that the idea of hybrid teaching in a classroom is often just one element of a strategic initiative on program-level that focusses on pedagogic change. An example is the Connected Learning at Scale (CLaS) at the business school of the University of Sydney, which builds on three principles

1. Information engagement: students both individually and collectively engage with discipline knowledge as opposed to having it broadcast at them in a lecture.
2. Connected participation and active learning: face-to-face teaching time, student learning activities and technology are leveraged to build connections and networks to address, debate and solve critical global and local challenges though innovative teaching approaches
3. Relevant and authentic assessment and feed-forward: learning is applied and tested through relevant assessments supported by opportunities to receive and share feedback from academics and peers.

“Hybrid learning isn’t simply the experience in the classroom as it happens”, says Peter Bryant, Associate Dean of Education of the business school in his keynote in the workshop, “it is about the way the curriculum is designed.” It includes the design of assessments, physical and virtual spaces, student experience and the community that is formed.

It seems that the journey of hybrid teaching and its variants at ETH might not be over yet, especially if it is discussed ongoingly with all stakeholders in the context of pedagogic change.

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Posted on 16/08/2022 by Andreas Florian Reinhardt

If you teach at ETH and think about innovating your teaching, Innovedum is just around the corner. Dr. Erik Jentges, educational developer at the department of management, technolgy, and economics, has been involved in several reviews and writings for Innovedum projects. You might want to check out his 10 tips when applying for an Innovedum project:

• Identify the correct grant scheme
• State your idea clearly
• Give us your context
• Feature the voice of learners
• Demonstrate that you talked to educators and didactic experts
• Present a realistic project plan
• Assume supportive reviewers
• Put your didactic innovations front and center
• Think beyond your project
• Share your learnings

In addition to the last point, a coherent evaluation plan should be part of the propoal. This will help project leaders in the discussion and dissemination of project results.

More information on evaluation criteria and the process at Innovedum can be found here. The next deadline for Innovedum project submissions is 1 October 2021.

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Posted on 03/09/2021 by Andreas Florian Reinhardt

For more than 18 years, ETH has consistently been fostering Teaching and Learning (T&L) innovation through funding provided by Innovedum*. The funded projects have helped to transform teaching practices sustainably both in individual courses and curricula. But what else have we learned from it?

To find answers the Innovation management group at LET has reflected on how this innovation process has evolved. We evaluated 15 years of data and arrived at two key findings. The first is that community building activities (such as our lunchtime seminars and the Learning and Teaching Fair) have become the basis for fostering T&L innovation at ETH. These activities bring together project leaders, faculty members, educational developers and policymakers and provide a platform for teaching staff to share information and insights gleaned from their projects. These events are driven by the concept of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) which aims for systematic reflections on how individual teaching interventions and innovation projects improve student learning. We will continue on this path.

The second finding is that involving students in the innovation cycle has remained a major challenge. Innovedum has experimented with different approaches (e.g. Student Innovedum), but the adoption of students’ ideas within the university has proven to be difficult. So we have started a new project with the teaching commission, an advisory body of the Executive Board, looking at ways that students can be better integrated in the process. First results are expected to be implemented in the Innovedum project cycle in Spring 2020.

For a closer look, please check out the paper which was presented at the EdMedia conference in Amsterdam in July 2019.

Also, if you are an ETH faculty member, we invite you to the Refresh Teaching series, one of the community building activities mentioned above.

*Innovedum is a brand established by the Rector including project funding and community building activities open to all stakeholders of T&L. www.innovedum.ethz.ch

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Posted on 09/10/2023 by Andreas Florian Reinhardt

This year the first Learning and Teaching Fair took place at ETH Zurich on Wednesday, 14 November 2018. The Learning and Teaching Fair 2018 was the most comprehensive internal event on learning and teaching at ETH so far and the hard work and creative teaching of lecturers was placed firmly in the spotlight. By building on the previous successes of the annual Innovedum events, a wide community of around 180 engaged individuals were able to come together for discussion, feedback and inspiration on the topic of student learning.

Participants, presenters and exhibition stands

In total 25 different posters featuring innovative teaching and learning projects were exhibited. The topics of the posters were wide-ranging but all of them featured innovative approaches to teaching and learning. Some of the projects included a Hololens or Virtual Reality demonstration. Others focused on specific didactic techniques, such as flipped classroom and peer-review. (A full list of the posters can be found in the exhibition guide.) Many of the projects featured were made possible with grants made through the Innovedum fund, a special fund which the Rector, Dr. Sarah Springman, presides over. Prof. Andreas Vaterlaus, Vice-Rector for Curriculum Development, provided insight and advice into how teaching staff can access this funding for innovative projects.

The Proceedings of the Learning & Teaching Fair were published in the special edition and first issue of the ETH Learning & Teaching Journal. The Proceedings contain summaries of the projects exhibited at the Fair and for selected projects, details concerning their implementation at ETH and analyses in view of promoting student learning. The ETH Learning & Teaching journal is also available as an open online journal at www.learningteaching.ethz.ch. It will release two issues a year and extend calls for contributions to all persons involved in learning and teaching at ETH.

Food for thought

The guest keynote speaker, Prof. Jörn Loviscach, Professor of Technical Mathematics and Computer Engineering at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences provided a critical overview of the impact that digital technology can have in the classroom. He recommended staying flexible and introducing promising learning technology thoughtfully. Prof. Sarah Springman echoed this theme by reminding the audience of the importance to continuously adapt education. In a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, (what she referred to as the VUCA world) teaching staff need to be able to prepare students for the unknowable. Without ongoing innovation, education runs the risk of teaching outdated concepts using outdated methods.

Student powered innovation

A group of students were invited to present their own ideas for innovation related to teaching and learning. Their ideas were developed using a human-centered, rapid-prototyping method. A strong theme that emerged from their ideas, was the need not only to increase interdisciplinarity, but to make it easier to do so. (A summary of the students’ projects can be found on the Student Innovedum webpage.)

The purpose of the event was not only to present different approaches to learning and teaching, but also to provide an environment where reflection on the effectiveness of those approaches is most welcome. This attracted teaching staff, students and educational developers from all the departments at ETH. By bringing together people who are passionate about innovative and effective teaching, important conversations were sparked and the event organisers were able to feel proud of a job well done.

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Posted on 05/12/2018 by Andreas Florian Reinhardt