Online higher education teaching practices

Abstract

In the last years, the number of online courses offered by the Italian Universities has increased significantly and it has reached overall 100 courses and 77.000 students enrolled. Many academics have thus experienced the design of online courses delivered by means of Virtual Learning Environments. The aim of the research reported in the present contribute is to investigate this scenario with respect to the Italian Universities. We assumed that a reconceptualization of the models for University's online teaching activities has triggered the born of new communities of practices (CoPs), that emerged to animate the search for more effective and sustainable online teaching models. The survey focused on the presence and the key features of CoPs for online teaching. The results of the survey confirm the presence of informal learning dynamics within the University's organizations: a common repertoire, a sense of community and active interactions toward common objectives were identified and described by the interviewees.