VIRTUAL: Learning. Life. Work.

Abstract

The term “blended” education is frequently used to describe hybrid learning, which is characterised by multiple inquiry techniques. This study explores a relationist perspective that views hybrid learning as a long-term, cross-disciplinary strategy. In this perspective, learning and teaching involve blurred boundaries in a context of radical uncertainty. The research focuses on different methods and mindsets of inquiry through interdisciplinary collaboration in search of transdisciplinary knowledge through studio and practice learning. The research is explored through several key approaches and alternative models of thought, such as research-led teaching, international educational context, future-proofing learning, and vertical and horizontal teaching curriculum transformations. Inclusiveness within vertical and horizontal teaching, outreach for external collaboration beyond interdisciplinary collaboration, and working with communities, industry, and professional bodies remain important within the future hybrid teaching realm. The paper presents a qualitative study of ongoing cross-level teaching at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. It addresses the complexity of distributed learning in post-pandemic hybrid spaces, generating imaginative pedagogies using cross-disciplinary teaching while also nurturing ontological aspects of the teaching profession, creating space for imagination in teaching, and facing up to the dynamic opportunity in higher education. The learning mindset remains central to the success of future teaching and remains important to ensure we do not live in an entirely sealed-off world that can raise the risk of losing educational perspective. The paper will reveal the numerous ways education morphs and blurs and the future hybridities of teaching to better serve how students learn today.