For some years now, NABA has been progressively adopting distance learning tools. In fact, in the spring of 2020, when the arrival of Covid-19 in Italy forced schools of all levels to close down, NABA's faculty and staff were not unprepared for the emergency and the need to instantly change the way teaching was delivered, and teaching was not interrupted or substantially discontinued.

In the months following the first lockdown, the experience of distance learning brought opportunities and problems into focus, leading to a series of progressive updates and improvements to the system of digital tools, procedures and educational practices.

Further complexity has emerged since the autumn of 2020, the start of the 2020-21 academic year, when NABA - which has never wished to renounce the centrality of face-to-face teaching and the laboratory experience - has experimented with multiple strategies of synthesis between face-to-face and distance learning, in the face of the variability of national and regional regulatory restrictions from which the possibilities of mobility on the territory and the conditions of access to the campus by students and faculty derived.

NABA has issued a Guide to Hybrid Learning Tools with a collection of instructions for the use of distance learning tools currently in use at NABA, and the related procedures to be adopted for the conduct of lessons, examinations, theses and for the management of other situations that may arise in the relationship between students and faculty. Since the adoption of these tools is constantly evolving, students and faculty are advised to always have the latest version of this guide in their possession. Starting from academic year 2022-23, NABA supplies the courses in this way:

• project-based courses --> in campus

• theorical courses --> online learning

• hybrid learning: canceled

“Online learning" (or "distance learning" or "remote learning") is a system whereby learning activities are carried out exclusively by means of digital tools, with individual isolation of the participants. In online learning, students and faculty are required to connect to the same platform for the transmission of lessons or examination and Degree sessions.

Online learning allows for the regular running of the learning programmes in the event of total closure of the campus, with the sole exception of manual and/or laboratory activities, which can hardly be effectively replaced without direct, in-person experience. In these cases, the need to adopt forms of distance learning requires a partial revision of the didactic objectives of the courses, or alternative forms of transmission of training content.

Online learning also allows for the smooth running of learning programmes in case a specific class of students has to observe a period of temporary isolation due to the detection of one or more potential carriers of infection.

The transmission of a learning activity via a digital platform allows the automatic recording of the event and the creation of an archive of all the lessons of each course. This is a very important tool for students, who have the possibility of catching up on a lesson they missed, or of reviewing certain passages of the lessons even after a long time.

Online learning, as well as remote working in general, have become an extremely common practice globally in recent months. It is therefore considered implicit that every student, faculty or staff member is now sufficiently familiar with these relational practices.

“Hybrid learning” is a system whereby learning activities are carried out in a way in which part of the participants are present on campus and part are connected remotely. In other words, the learning activities carried out in presence are simultaneously transmitted at a distance through the appropriate digital tools.

In the case of lectures, this means a situation in which part of the students in a class are present in the classroom and the other part follows the lecture in simultaneous connection. In the case of examination or Degree sessions, it means a situation in which some students or faculty members who are part of the committee participate in a remote connection.

Hybrid learning allows for the smooth running of learning programmes regardless of the number of students who, by choice or due to force majeure, i.e. for reasons beyond NABA's control, cannot attend classes in person. The effective functioning of the hybrid learning system is extremely important for the continuity of the courses and for the quality of the education that NABA offers its students.

Managing and directing a hybrid learning lesson can pose considerable difficulties, both in comparison to face-to-face and fully remote lessons. This is particularly true for laboratory lessons, or those requiring practical or performing activities to be carried out in the classroom. In these cases, in fact, the framing space of the webcam on the lecturer's computer may not be sufficient to transfer the entire learning experience of a lesson to the students connected remotely.

In addition, hybrid learning is confronted with an entirely new kind of problem: remotely connected students may be in parts of the world where the time difference with Italy is so great that they are forced to attend lessons at unconventional times - late evening, late at night, early in the morning - when their level of attention and concentration may be significantly different from that of their classmates who are physically present.

However, it is important to be able to consider the methods and difficulties of hybrid learning not only as a problem or obstacle, but as an opportunity to invent and develop new forms of teaching. The Guide to Hybrid Learning Tools also aims to collect a series of practical indications and/or suggestions, provided by NABA faculty members themselves, for the delivery of different types of learning content in hybrid mode and with elements of experimentation, innovation and originality.