Reimagining and re-designing the post-COVID-19 higher education organizations to address new challenges and responses for safe and effective teaching activities

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 emergency has created several issues for professors and students, forcing them to quickly learn the various methods for carrying out distance learning, a skill that is not obvious especially for professors with difficulties in using new multimedia technologies. Considering the current global health situation, it is needed for European and USA Universities to discuss, learn and exchange experiences on adapting teaching activities to new learning situations in order to recover and thrive in a post COVID-19 educational world. To tackle these challenges, only a few meetings between expert groups on virtual and student mobilities was held to explore the opportunities of blended learning for the coming academic year. As continuously required in the last months several people in the academic environment are asking a support to manage and reduce the adverse effects of COVID-19 on the University lessons, exams, thesis dissertations, live laboratories, etc. We would like to focus on some opportunities that this global shock is leaving us trying to find a light at the end of the tunnel, but also to the fact that there is already a wide debate going on precisely the lack of adequate perception of the risks determined by COVID-19 in terms of teaching and digital innovation. © 2020 Fondazione Gerardo Capriglione Onlus. All rights reserved.