Un modello Blended Learning per l’Higher Education

[Autom. eng. transl.] Didactic innovation, also in high education, is linked to the assessment of the crisis of classic course models (Ardizzone, Rivoltella, 2003). The integrated use of technologies in training courses is configured as an opportunity to rethink the teaching and learning processes, redefining both spatial and temporal coordinates thanks to the adoption of flexible teaching methods (Garrison, Vaughan, 2008). The will of the Faculty of Economics of the Catholic University of Milan to design an innovative degree course, aimed primarily at a target of workers, provided the opportunity to develop a blended degree course model. The project was born from the collaboration with ILAB (Center for innovation and development of teaching and technological activities of the University) and CREMIT (Research Center on Media, Information and Technology Education). The Master's Degree Course in "Business Management and Consulting" (DECA), active from the academic year 2016/17, constitutes an experimentation operation in the field of teaching innovation that has no precedent in the Catholic University, except for the distance-learning degree course provided in distance learning in the Culture and Development Centers in the early 2000s. on that occasion, the Faculty of Economics was at the forefront (Belloli, Ferrari, Rizzi, 2004). To develop the blended learning model, we have adopted the definition provided by Graham, Allen and Ure (2005), according to which the introduction of technologies in teaching allows a differentiation of supports to offer information and content, of teaching strategies, of online and presidential moments. The program of the degree course, whose activities run over 13 weeks per semester, provides that 50% of the courses - currently activated - are delivered in attendance, during the weekends, and for the remaining 50% online in the format of tutorial webinars and live feed-back, delivered in the evening, and video lessons. The evaluation of the courses includes 4 ongoing activities that allow, for those who intend to use them, not only to mature 70% of their grade progressively, but to receive qualitative feedback on the tests. The degree course is constantly monitored. Here we will return some data collected with qualitative methods at the end of the first year of experimentation. A sample of students was met in focus groups to investigate their level of satisfaction with the teaching model and the impact in terms of learning; Faculty members were interviewed individually, in order to collect perceptions about the change in teaching practices in relation to the adoption of the blended model.