The reorientation to remote teaching due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions proved to be both challenging and compromising, particularly in the context of delivering practice-based design education. Central to the challenges faced by many design tutors was the loss of the design studio as a focal point for engagement and learning. However, delivering teaching remotely through a period of enforced separation also proved that through adversity comes new insights, with the accelerated use of emergent technologies to support distributed working revealing new behaviours and opportunities for learning to take place. In response to COVID-19 restrictions, Miro, the digital whiteboard platform was widely adopted within the UK creative industries and universities alike to facilitate remote engagement. Following a return to campus-based delivery through the Autumn/Fall of 2021, it became evident that some of the pragmatic approaches adopted through necessity had the potential to hold lasting value beyond crisis modes of teaching. This position paper presents a series of reflective studies gathered over three academic years with the aim of (1) understanding the impacts of remote learning as experienced by design students (2) establish clear benefits for the application of online platforms within a blended campus-based delivery and (3) identify emergent characteristics in students’ navigation of the post-COVID design studio.

Clinicians who are interested in becoming principal investigators struggle to find and complete training that adequately prepares them to conduct safe, well-designed clinical and translational research. Degree programs covering these skills require a significant time investment, while online trainings lack engagement and may not be specific to local research contexts. Staff at Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute sought to fill the gap in junior investigator training by designing an eight-module, noncredit certificate program to teach aspiring clinician-investigators about good clinical practice, clinical research processes, and federal and local regulatory requirements. The first iteration of this program was evaluated using pre- and posttest questionnaires and by gathering clinician learner feedback in a focus group. Based on the pre- and posttest questionnaires, learners experienced an increase in self-efficacy and confidence related to clinical research competencies. Feedback from learners also highlighted important program strengths, including an engaging program format, a manageable time commitment, and an emphasis on identifying crucial research resources. This article describes one approach to creating a meaningful and efficient clinical trial training program for clinicians.

If the past two years have proven anything, it is that students today hold a tremendous capacity to adapt to incredibly difficult learning environments. This paper explores student learning experiences in one such learning environment, the period of online learning that occurred between January and March 2021 due to COVID-19-related school closures. Investigating the effectiveness of the digital learning platform Padlet in terms of student engagement with the Latin curriculum and its cultivation of Latin comprehension skills, this case study of Year 8 students in a state-maintained girls’ grammar school demonstrates the value of collaborative, discussion-based approaches to remote teaching. The value of digital learning platforms in our post-pandemic educational environment is demonstrated in its potential to bridge the communicative gap felt by many students when taught online, simulating the lively classroom climate which so often generates exciting and effective learning opportunities for each student. As this paper demonstrates, digital learning platforms hold the potential not only to assist educators in coping with the challenges of remote learning, but also to extend student learning in ways once considered unimaginable beyond the realms of the physical classroom. As a result, this paper argues that the position of such platforms in the post-pandemic classroom must be advocated and supported further.

A key role in the successful implementation of any learning approach is played by teachers, so how well blended learning works will depend largely on how well teachers make the transition from their traditional face-to-face classroom roles to the wider more complex role that blended learning requires. The additional skills and the forging of a new professional identity might not come easily to all practitioners.

This paper evaluates the impact that the introduction of blended learning in a distance language learning course has had on teachers. It presents and discusses findings from a small-scale evaluation study which compared quantitative and qualitative data gathered through a survey and a small number of interviews with participant observations from the researcher and the institutional end-of-course debriefing report.

The paper argues that whilst technological challenges and the sheer amount of change that teachers were faced with were largely responsible for some of the negative attitudes reflected in teachers’ opinions about the course, a less obvious, broader explanation for the difficulties that teachers encountered might be found in the way that learning, teaching and training are conceptualised by both teachers and the institution.

It is proposed that a transmission of knowledge approach to training fails to acknowledge and properly support the transformation of teachers’ identity that results from moving from traditional classroom-based teaching to online teaching. The shift goes beyond the acquisition of ICT skills and requires a pedagogical understanding of the affordances of the new medium and an acceptance by the teacher of his or her new role and identity.

This paper deals with the implementation of an “online pedagogical assistant” in a blended learning device for English for Special Purposes (ESP) students in a French university (UPMC, Paris VI). As it is now, it comprises a customized website designed to serve as a guide through the development of the students’ work.

The architecture of this website and the way it is meant to be used are parameters derived from the conclusions of action research carried out in 2007–2008 in another French university (Perpignan) amongst B1/B2 ESP students.1 The perspective of that study was to examine their needs when performing off site aural and written tasks. The data collected showed that the problems encountered were always the same – outlining a typology – and that most obstacles derived from A2/B1 elements they had already been through during their secondary education.

This application has been named an “online pedagogical assistant” because, by targeting the problems from the typology, it aims at leading students take care of their needs by themselves before emailing their productions to their tutor(s), particularly by pushing them into reflecting on a certain number of aspects they are already acquainted with but which they nonetheless tend to forget when working on their own.

From the typology of problems, a system of semi-automatic correction meant to help students proceed to self-corrections – notably through online references to relevant online help and exercises – has also been developed. In the correction phase of the students’ tasks, the purpose is therefore no longer for the tutor to correct their productions but to help them do it themselves.

Action research is in progress to evaluate the potential of those adjusted online tutorial practices in terms of second language (L2) acquisition.

As Japanese uses three writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and the ideograms known as kanji), and as materials in the target language include all three, it is a major challenge to learn to read and write quickly. This paper focuses on interactive multi-media methods of teaching Japanese reading which foster learner autonomy.

As little has been published on interactive multi-media methods of teaching Japanese reading, it seems likely that traditional resources are generally used for this activity. The courseware includes sound files showing the pronunciation of each kana as well as simultaneous animation showing how to write each character. This paper investigates whether interactive courseware, used independently of classroom interaction, results in measurably greater recognition of the hiragana syllabary than more traditional methods. After briefly situating the study in the context of research on the teaching of Japanese reading and learner autonomy, the paper will present the courseware as well as an empirical study comparing the results of the use of the courseware by learners at beginners’ level: one group using the courseware, and the other using paper-based materials. This is followed by an account of learner diaries written by zero-beginner level learners of Japanese using the courseware.

The study indicates that acquisition of a recognition-level knowledge of hiragana is approximately twice as fast using the courseware as using paper-based materials. Learners also learned to write the hiragana without explicit instruction.

This study investigates the impact of an online workbook on the attitudes of 245 second language (L2) Spanish learners toward this pedagogical tool over two consecutive semesters. The treatment consisted of four hours of classroom instruction and one set of online homework per week, during two consecutive semesters. Students' attitudes toward the electronic workbook were measured by means of a survey administered after eight months of exposure to the workbook. The qualitative data of the survey was compared to quantitative data from two different language assessment tests. The results of these tests indicated a significant increase in grammar scores. These results are consonant with the positive findings of student perceptions about the online workbook obtained in this and previous studies, emphasizing its benefits in terms of accessibility to the material, user-friendliness, and instant error feedback. More importantly, most students praised the usefulness of the online workbook for language learning, particularly in the areas of grammar and vocabulary acquisition. Despite participants' mostly positive attitudes, the survey also revealed some negative aspects of the use of the online workbook, such as the amount of time needed to complete the online exercises. This paper addresses these issues, and provides suggestions to overcome this type of problem.