This article provides an overview of peer instruction and flipped learning, two active learning approaches, in the context of learning and teaching in higher education and illustrates their relevance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Peer instruction and flipped learning should be considered when designing for flexible learning. These approaches can stimulate learning and create seamless active engagement in fully online and blended settings even when switching between these modes becomes necessary due to developments in this pandemic. This transitioning between fully online and blended, as and when required, is something that is of high importance during these challenging times, especially for campus-based universities as they are keen to secure the smooth running of their programmes under difficult circumstances. This article provides practical advice for course designers, module and programme leaders on how they can utilise peer instruction or flipped learning to maximise student engagement and learning.

This paper reports findings relating to boundary-crossing experiences from a phenomenographic study which explored collaborative open learning in two cross-institutional academic development courses. Four of the 11 categories of description and their qualitatively different variations emerged through the analysis and provide new insights into how learners experienced boundary crossing, through modes of participation; time, places and space; culture and language; and diverse professional contexts. Implications and opportunities for academic development linked to boundary crossing are highlighted in this paper, which might also be of use, and relevant to, in other professional areas and disciplines in higher education.

This paper presents and analyses solutions where open education and open science were utilised to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education. The COVID-19 outbreak and associated lockdowns created huge challenges in school and higher education, demanding sudden responses which aimed to sustain pedagogical quality. Responses have varied from conservative to radically innovative. Universally, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted and shocked societies worldwide, and education systems were on the front line. The lockdowns largely stopped face-to-face and formal education in almost all countries, and in most cases, distance learning soon became the ‘new normal’. A central challenge concerned sustaining educational visions and ideals in such circumstances. To better understand the state of the art in the educational landscape, we collected case studies from 13 countries during the first year of the pandemic starting on 11 March 2020 (when the World Health Organization declared a pandemic). This paper presents summaries of the full country reports that were collected and describe lessons learned. Our overall aim was to identify good practices and recommendations from the collected case studies that can be taken forward in the future. We categorised the responses on the three generic educational levels (macro, meso and micro) and identified seven key aspects and trends that are valid for all or most countries: (1) formal education at a distance for first time; (2) similar approaches for formal education; (3) missing infrastructure and sharing open educational resources; (4) diverse teaching and learning methods and practices; (5) open education and access to open educational resources; (6) urgent need for professional development and training for teachers and (7) assessing and monitoring learning environments, teachers and students. Finally, we identified key recommendations on how open education and open science can benefit formal education in schools and universities in the future, namely, improved awareness of open educational practices, provision of ICT infrastructure, embracing and sustaining the practice of open access publications and OERs, capacity building for stakeholders and finally encouraging research and development in the area of open education and open science. We found significant evidence for the proposition that open education and open science can support both traditional face-to-face and distance learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated shifts in how higher education provision is offered. In one UK institution block teaching was introduced. This way of teaching and learning has brought new challenges and opportunities for staff and students. To date, little research or theoretical discussion has investigated how this hybrid approach or differences between tutors and student can arise in the use of online teaching spaces (OTS) within a block-teaching format. The present paper focuses on the institution-wide implementation of an online block-teaching model at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom. With a specific emphasis on observations and reflections on the experiences of undergraduate students’ and staff by one of the authors from the Department of Psychology who employed an online block teaching approach (6 weeks) from the beginning of block 1 during the academic year 2020/21. We provide a novel methodological advancement of Lefebvre’s (1991) Trialectic of Space to discuss how students and tutors jointly produce and experience learning and teaching within an online block teaching approach. Pre-existing behavioural, cognitive and emotional experiences of using online spaces, contribute to the curriculum, student-tutor and student-student dialogue. We also highlight the importance of community within an online block teaching approach. Applications of the Lefebvrian model (1991) to present pedagogical approaches along with avenues of future research are considered.

In this paper we describe the use of LEGO® models within assessment of the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) offered at the University of Salford. Within the context of the PGCAP, we model innovative and contextualised assessment strategies for and of learning. We challenge our students, who are teachers in higher education (HE), to think and rethink the assessment they are using with their own students. We help them develop a deeper understanding and experience of good assessment and feedback practice in a wider context while they are assessed as students on the PGCAP. We report on an evaluation of how the LEGO® model activity was used with a cohort of students in the context of the professional discussion assessment. We share the impact it had on reflection and the assessment experience and make recommendations for good practice.

Within this reflective practice paper, a LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) intervention will be shared that has been used at a UK higher education institution to evaluate an undergraduate unit during the academic year 2013/14 using a specific tutorial group. Authentic voices and perspectives linked to the LSP experience of the LSP facilitator, the unit tutor and a student linked to the workshop have been included. These have been gathered to provide an insight into the workshop experience and illustrate the value of this approach from three different perspectives for unit evaluation as well as personal and professional development. Within the context of this reflective analysis, LSP enabled opening up, sharing and reflection of the individual and collective student experience and provided a rich insight into the lived student experience. It also had positive side effects for students and the tutor as it helped them get to know each other and strengthen their learning relationship as well as foster community and belonging.Could play and ‘learning by making’ or constructionism (Papert & Harel, 1991) help students reflect on their learning experience and articulate this using their own metaphors that would be of value for the tutor to gain insight for evaluation and renewal of practice? The authors of this paper have put this to the test and share their reflective analysis, which might be of interest to the wider academic community.

This paper reports some of the findings linked to a small scale phenomenographic study in which it was explored how LEGO ® SERIOUS PLAY ® (LSP) is experienced by coaches working in higher education as supervisors of doctoral students, are involved in doctoral researchers' development or doctoral supervisors' development. Data was gathered through five individual semi-structured interviews. Through the iterative phenomenographic analysis three categories of description emerged, 'LSP as a relational experience', 'LSP as an affective experience' and 'LSP as a facilitative experience' and their limited qualitatively different variations. The findings in relation to 'LSP as an affective experience' created tensions relating to participation, expression and the material itself as well as new freedoms that were invigorating such as opening-up, engaging in playful explorations and combining more than one method.

Flexible, Distance and Online Learning (FDOL) is an open online course offered as an informal cross-institutional collaboration based on a postgraduate module in the context of teacher education in higher education. The second iteration, FDOL132, was offered in 2013 using a problem-based learning (PBL) design (FISh) to foster collaborative learning. How this was experienced by participants and how it affected learning within facilitated small groups are explored in this paper. Findings show that authentic learning in groups can be applied directly to practice, and greater flexibility and a focus on the process of collaborative learning has the potential to increase engagement and learning.