Hybrid teaching at the university allows for flexible international experiences

I vividly remember the rush of emotions that overwhelmed me on September 24th. I had just started as part of a university internationalization program at the Complutense University in Madrid and I knew it would be at least 4 years before I returned to my country, Colombia.

That was the average time then to complete a doctorate, in my case, in constitutional law. Big time, of course, and that meant that right next to great joy and happiness, a quiet sadness and soft fear settled in, as I watched the sunset from that plane that took me from Bogotá to Madrid .

Internationalization: how and for how long?

Even today, when we talk about the “internationalization” of universities, we usually refer to the implementation of this type of medium- or long-term physical mobility programs for university actors. (students, teachers, researchers or supervisors). That is, students, teachers, researchers and even university managers spend time in other universities in other cities and countries.

But there is another broader and more flexible meaning in the internationalization of universities. It is about establishing more flexible pedagogical models that combine face-to-face training with online teaching.

The distributed and virtual movement

Since the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 led to an urgent and extensive development of digital format in essentially face-to-face universities around the world, universities have been able to see how which virtual training and internationalization were expressed in an academic format. Also virtual is still interesting in a non-pandemic context.

Read more:
The joy of studying abroad: tips for achieving it from high school

Both had proven themselves well inclusive benefitswhich led higher education institutions to maintain and increase the offer of hybrid or combined training and international transfer programs (with face-to-face and virtual teaching).

Hybrid training and hybrid international mobility involve a combination of in-person educational experiences with online educational experiences. Both complement and provide access to the best learning process and the internationalization of students, teachers, researchers and university management.

possess UNESCO It is considered that this is the best form that guarantees the flexibility that the various actors of the university want at the moment.

Read more:
Being a teacher abroad: an experience of professional and personal growth

Integrated intensive programs

A relevant example of the introduction of a hybrid international transfer movement in the university world can be found in the recent implementation of the so-called Integrated Intensive Programs (BIPs).

The BIPs are programs that, within the European framework of the Erasmus+ program, promote collaboration between partner universities working in a network. The aim is to create an educational project that combines virtual collaborative teaching with a period of short-term personal mobility, opening up the possibility of internationalizing the curriculum of students who, for any reason, cannot , or don’t want to do it. long term movement.

But introducing this form of hybrid international mobility is no longer a monopoly of face-to-face universities and within the European space. Other universities whose training was just virtual, and in other places such as Latin America, have been included. This has opened for the first time an opportunity for an online undergraduate or postgraduate student to complete their studies or supplement them with short and intensive periods of face-to-face training in an Ibero-American country .

Undoubtedly, hybrid international transfer programs have become catalysts for academic and social innovation after the pandemic. Its format increases, through diversity, the inclusion of many more university actors, allowing them to enjoy the undoubted benefits of internationalization.

Diversity is a mixture of cultures and knowledge, and hybrid international mobility allows it.