TEACHING & LEARNING

Integrate your Blended Mobility course into your local curriculum   

Blended mobility courses combine online learning with an on-site phase where the students and teachers meet in person. As such, they are important means of fostering international and intercultural learning for students across the ENLIGHT network. 

The most prominent ENLIGHT blended mobility format refers to the Erasmus+ funding line “Blended Intensive Programme (BIP)” that will help you acquire funding for this type of courses. Thus, the programme requirements will impact the process of designing the course. Due to the relevance of E+ BIPs in the ENLIGHT network, we primarily refer to this format. Of course, seasonal schools can also be run in a blended format. 

If you are interested in creating a blended mobility/BIP for students, we recommend not to treat it as a one-off learning opportunity. In some cases, it might be helpful to discuss with your co-teachers, whether the course can be iterated in the future (with an alternating host). To achieve this goal, a BIP should be integrated into the study programme at each contributing university.  

How to initiate the integration of blended mobility as a part of the curriculum? 

If you are taking first steps, you might want to choose between  

1. adjusting the design of an existing course so that a blended mobility can be included  

2. developing a new blended mobility course within your study programme    

While both approaches take time and effort, the possibility of an Erasmus+ budget can be of use to support both the development and the implementation of the course.   

Please consider that it is necessary to develop an ENLIGHT BIP in close collaboration with at least two partner academics. 

With your co-teachers, you can decide whether the course is continuously offered at your institution, or whether it rotates annually so that partners take turns in hosting and organising the on-site component. The former will lead to a more regular routine when it comes to organising and implementing the BIP within your institution. In this case, all students of your study programme can benefit from an international experience over time. The latter means, that each year, students from different universities can be mobile.

For example, you might start out by hosting the blended mobility course at your university during the first iteration. Your students will not travel, but exchange intensively with your partners’ students “at home,” on your campus. In subsequent iterations, your co-teachers take over the responsibility of hosting the course and you and your students have the possibility of traveling for the on-site phase. Such a rotation scheme can help you divide the workload, internationalise the curriculum at home for your students – especially for students who cannot travel – and sustain this learning offer.  

Where to integrate Blended Mobility into the curriculum?  

Ideally, opportunities for blended mobility are integrated into the curriculum, i.e. as one of the regular course offerings that your students can choose. This will help you to integrate blended mobility into your regular teaching load. As the student intake is limited and mobility is part of this type of course, they cannot be a mandatory part of the study programme. However, you should avoid “adding-on” blended mobility courses to the curriculum with little connections to students’ study paths. Instead, you can situate your blended mobility course in modules or study phases where students will be able to value intensive intercultural exchange and immersion into your course topic and joint approach.   

Please also think about how the blended mobility in this course can help your students achieve the learning outcomes for their study programme. We recommend that you develop the learning outcomes in collaboration with your co-teachers as they need to be aligned with their curricula as well

Shaping students’ learning pathway   

For some of your students, this might be the first international experience in their study programme and they might be inspired to continue an international orientation with other “Stepping Stones” in the ENLIGHT network.

Considerations for Curriculum Development  

The following overview illustrates potential corner stones of blended mobility formats. Not all of them can be implemented in a single course or immediately in the first trial run of a blended mobility course, but they can serve as source of inspiration:   

• Cross-curricular approach: a BIP fosters the engagement, so that you can follow your teaching interests together with at least two other colleagues from different institutions and/or disciplines. With a shared theme and specific learning outcomes in mind, you jointly create a course that allows your students to explore a topic from diverse perspectives, often mirroring the complexity and interconnected nature when working on real-world challenges.  
  
  
• Exchange opportunities: A BIP can offer a low-threshold and more inclusive opportunity for students to participate in a short-term exchange when a full semester exchange might not be feasible. 
  
  
• Action orientation: Blended Intensive Programmes lend itself to work on real-life challenges together with your students. Collaborative work, joit student projects or the integration of external actors allows them to understand the impact of diverse local/national/global perspectives and develop a sense of responsibility towards solving challenges of the 21st century as part of an interconnected world. During the on-site phase, students often get the chance to interact directly with local stakeholders.   

Course Design

A blended mobility course is often collaboratively designed by a team of lecturers from different institutions, especially in the case of an E+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP). Together they plan the online and physical component of the course.  

Co-create with your partners  

Include all participating lecturers and speakers in the course design process. This collaboration helps the team better understand the course's objectives, resulting in greater overall efficiency and effectiveness. Consider planning an in-person meeting with all participating lecturers during the design process, e.g. using the organisational E+ funding or ENLIGHT+ funding. In this case, it is important to check with your home university/Eramus+ coordinator or International Office. 

If non-academic stakeholders are involved, provide regular moments of interaction between stakeholders and students to ensure they are well connected to students’ progress and students receive regular feedback.  

The responsible lecturers in a blended mobility course often take up the task of project manager, next to their teaching role, as this type of course typically requires more coordination than a regular course.  

Consider your target audience  

Together with the partner teachers, think about the discipline and level of students that will participate in the course and establish the starting competencies or eligibility criteria required (such as for language or for disciplinary background). Some BIP’s are interdisciplinary and involve students from various fields, while others have a clear disciplinary focus.    

There is a high potential variability in students’ backgrounds, prior knowledge, language skills, and digital competencies. Together with the partner teachers, plan how to address any gaps in prior knowledge and skills. Additionally, identify the strengths of different student groups and consider how their diverse perspectives can enhance the course.   

Local students can be encouraged to take part in a BIP. Sometimes, the involvement of local students ensures that a course continues to exist in a university’s course offering.  

Emphasise generic competences in learning outcomes  

Define what students should know, be able to do, and value by the end of the course. Blended mobility offers an excellent opportunity to emphasise understanding of international contexts, intercultural communication, diversity awareness and digital skills. The ENLIGHT Competence Framework can be consulted for inspiration. Make outcomes inclusive, ensuring they are relevant and achievable for students from different contexts.  

Incorporate innovative teaching methods and connect with the local context  

 The BIP format provides an excellent opportunity to implement innovative teaching methods that implement real-world challenges and local contexts, such as challenge-based learning, experiential learning and community-based research, among others.   

The physical component of the programme offers a valuable chance to relate the course content to the regional context of the host city or country. Consider implementing excursions, fieldwork and engaging with local stakeholders and community members to enrich the learning experience and deepen students' understanding of regional challenges.  

Organise summative and formative assessment  

Teaching 

Online learning often has high drop-out rates. To counter this, it's crucial to keep students engaged during the online component. The physical component is often highly anticipated by students and ideal for active learning.  

Physical component  

• Appoint a contact person for logistics  
  Appoint a contact person for students, e.g. an on-site week coordinator, for logistical and administrative questions. Give students a clear schedule for the physical component, travel and accommodation recommendations and practical information on the location of the physical mobility (as would be provided for any other international event).  

• Activate students  
  Reduce the number of theoretical sessions, as these are often delivered in a passive learning format. Instead, incorporate intermediary assignments throughout the course. This approach promotes active learning and encourages students to reflect on each thematic area in relation to their personal, local, territorial, and cultural experiences. In ENLIGHT, we focus on the active learning method of Challenge-Based Education.  

• Invite involved lecturers  
  Encourage and facilitate participating lecturers' attendance during the physical component. By engaging with students and understanding their interests and disciplinary backgrounds, lecturers can design their content more effectively to meet students' needs. If possible, it is also interesting for teachers to interact with the students before the course begins.   

Additionally, attending the immersive week allows lecturers to collaborate with colleagues from the alliance and identify common areas of interest.  

Tools for the online component  

Since students are enrolled in the host institution, they should have access to all institutional tools. You can use your institutions’ learning management system for asynchronous work. Alternatively, you can work in a shared workspace such as Microsoft SharePoint, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox... For synchronous lessons, some institutions have online meeting software embedded in the learning management system. Otherwise, consider Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or others.  

Clarify to your students which tools will be used and how they can expect to be contacted.  

There are many digital tools to support interactions, such as polling, quizzes, wordclouds, whiteboards, posting boards... Some of the most widely used tools are Mentimeter, Padlet, Miro and Wooclap.  

Tip! Ensure the accessibility of your tools and content for different students. For example, add subtitles to videos for students less fluent in the language.   

The following guidelines help you consider administrative aspects of organising the virtual and physical component which are part of Blended Mobility.

Contacting your International Office  

Blended Mobility, particularly the BIP format, requires substantial administrative support.  Contact your International Office in the early stages of planning your BIP, both when you want to organise a BIP yourself and when you participate in a BIP by a partner institution. Both local and ENLIGHT regulations may apply. There are specific deadlines for application and administrative requirements for participation and funding. More details of these aspects are given below.   

Finding partners

In a BIP course, collaboration between partners is essential. There must be one coordinating partner (hosting face-to-face part of the BIP) and at least two partner universities (for delivering the BIP together).     
As a (prospective) BIP coordinator,    

1. involve at least one additional partner, as some universities may drop out and finding new partners later is complicated;    

2. orchestrate the partner finding, so that all partners commit to teaching and sending students to the BIP;   

3. plan for more mobile student participants than the required 10 (not counting your own students) to avoid not getting the Erasmus grant when fewer students attend on site;   

4. look ahead and discuss with partners next iterations for continuity.    

Getting funding to design your course  

Erasmus+ offers regular funding to cover the costs of designing your BIP course.  You do not need to design a brand new course, but remodelling the existing one to meet the BIP course requirements is also allowed and to be considered.  

The BIP organisation support grant is to cover the preparation, design, development and implementation costs of the BIP course. This is a one-time grant funded by Erasmus+ programme with 4000 Euros for the group of 10 mobile students, 6000 euros for the group of 15 or 8000 Euros for the group of 20 or more mobile students (400 euros per student) in the BIP. It is not meant to fund students' and usually not staff mobilities, meaning travel costs. Contact your mobility office as early as possible to find out when and how you could apply. The funding is applied by the host/coordinating university and money is not to be distributed to other universities teaching in the BIP.  For covering student and staff mobility in BIPs, see below.   

Getting funding for student and staff mobility  

There is financial support both for mobile students and staff to cover their travel costs to another country where the on-site part of the BIP is taking place. 

• Students can usually apply for Erasmus + funding at the same time as applying to the BIP at their home university or independently a bit later.  

• Teachers can apply for Erasmus+ staff mobility grant. 

In both cases, terms and amounts of this financial support probably differ across universities. Definitely ask your partners co-teaching in the BIP and planning to send their students to check their mobility office and find out whether there are funds in a particular university to provide grants to their students and staff to attend the BIP hosted in your university.    

Describing your course   

BIPs are communicated via the ENLIGHT website at https://enlight-eu.org/index.php/students/courses. 

As a combined format of teaching, the course description needs to indicate the dates for the physical component (duration from 5 to 30 days), and the virtual component. Students need to know the schedule of these two parts of the BIP at the time of applying!  

There is no minimum or maximum duration of the virtual component. Also add the BIP to your university’s learning management system considering local deadlines. In the course description, students know that BIP is all about diverse and engaged students’ community.  

Technology contact  

Assigning credits  

Credits for completing a BIP are awarded by the host university. The combined virtual and physical components in the BIP course must award a minimum of 3 ECTS credits.  

The maximum volume of the credits for the course depends on each university’s internal relevant rules like for any other regular course. It is important to keep in mind that the total time spent by the learner in the learning process must be taken into account: reading instructions and materials, watching video lectures, participating in discussions, completing individual and group assignments and contact teaching (synchronous learning).    

At the planning phase, discuss with your partners the ECTS value of the BIP to be delivered as in some universities students can only take courses with a fixed ECTS value to have these counted towards their electives. 

Course Delivery 

Course completion  

Assessing students and awarding credits  

Assessment is formally carried out by the host university, meaning the grades and credits are awarded by the host university and registered in their learning management system. However, all teachers teaching in the BIP can contribute to the students’ evaluation process.   

It is essential in a course description to explain your grading system including all course policies such as attendance in classroom and in real time sessions, deadlines, and make-up work

Transcript of Records or other certificate  

The Transcript of Records (ToR) is to be issued by a host university following the same procedure as with regular mobility. Universities are expected to issue ToR’s within 4 weeks after the BIP has ended.   

Ask your university’s administrative staff responsible for coordinating students’ enrolment process to inform students prior taking a course when they could expect ToR or have it stated in your course description. It might be a decisive matter to take the course or not for the students graduating soon after completing of a course as they need their grades and credits fast.  

Whom to contact   

Administrative procedures may differ considerably between ENLIGHT universities. The first person to contact with further questions is the ENLIGHT coordinator of your university.  

The list of contacts can be found here.