Title: The eco-friendly flexible teaching Model (EFFTMod). A survey of existing experiences for the creation of a good practice network

Duration: 24 months

Keywords: flexible digital teaching, good practices, literatures, languages, university network,digital humanities

This project stems from insights and evidence acquired during the last couple of years when well-rooted teaching practices had been challenged by an unprecedented event: the pandemic. Higher education institutions had to reorganize their activities with reduced, if not any, time for conscious planning. Besides, what was thought of as a temporary solution turned into a more stable resolution, hence affecting Universities’ course organization and design more in-depth. Alongside the more urgent attention to teaching, other good practices experienced change. More specifically, exchanges of ideas, systematic contact among institutions, awareness of research projects, and experiences developed within national and international boundaries, let alone chances of meeting and debating, were extremely limited if not absent. Universities had to cope with daily difficulties to maintain their role and care for their students. The pandemic also forced universities to react and endorse new teaching modes, which triggered renewed reflections upon present-day teaching and the role it has in the acquisition of knowledge and also towards wider goals such as the ecological and the digital ones. Rolling out towards more digitised and flexible models seems possible without entailing a drop in educational standards or the end of in-person teaching. A combination of models educational institutions are trending towards at an international level. The aim of this project is twofold and chronologically organized into three different periods. 

The first period will be devoted to three actions WP1, WP2, WP3: 

• Working Package 1 Carrying out a survey to collect data on the appreciation and perception of digital learning on behalf of the Italian Universities 

• Working Package 2 Mapping what research projects or trials took place during the pandemic in Europe and Italy 

• Working Package 3 Re-establishing the stimulating university network that allows the strengthening of connections between Italian universities, considering the teaching staff as intra- and inter-university anchors who facilitate the constitution of a knowledge transfer network related to good digital and flexible teaching practices.

 The three research units will be involved in these activities jointly. 

During the second period, two different activities will be carried out WP4, WP5.

• Working Package 4 Analysis of the survey data. The outcomes of the analysis will be spread across respondent Universities. Then, the three units will assemble differently into three groups to start working on some course prototypes in compliance with the feedback the involved Italian universities offer. The different grouping of the research units proves consistent with the subdivision of knowledge and competencies in the three areas: languages, literatures, and digital humanities, presented in the project. 

• Working Package 5 The third period will be devoted to the piloting of the course prototypes and the dissemination of results.