(Translated from Spanish)
Educating, teaching, and learning through digital systems is not the same as doing it in face-to-face formats.Face-to-facee interaction is not the same as another through mail, forums, chat, or videoconference. The teaching methodologies and strategies are different. The structure of the message, its possibility of permanence, revision, pause in the response… have to be considered”. The clarification of Lorenzo García Aretio, professor emeritus at the UNED, director of the RIED (Ibero-American Journal of Distance Education ) and holder of the UNESCO chair of Distance Education, is important in view of what happened during the pandemic when the emergency led to simply replicating the physical class in an online environment. The teacher-student relationship was one of the aspects that most suffered with this translation. It is urgent to reflect on how to improve it since the covid hangover has brought a greater weight to hybrid formats, which combine face-to-face with virtuality.
“The teacher-student relationship is affected in the different formats of education; the University must optimize the learning experience in each of them, adapting in each case the pedagogy and the design of the class ”, writes by email Nick van Dam, chief learning officer of IE University and director of the IE Center for Corporate Learning and Talent Management. At that intermediate point between 100% face-to-face and 100% virtual education in which the hybrid format transits, offline alternates with online, and the same class can be attended by some students in person and by others from home; around the world in person in one subject and remotely in the next. The vice-rector for Strategy and Digital Education of the Carlos III University (UC3M), Carlos Delgado Kloos, calls it "grey scale" and advocates that each university find the tone that best suits its needs.
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