3D: digital, diverse, different (2021–2024)

In polyphonic discussion settings involving experts, lecturers, students and further staff members of the FHNW, the research team of the Chair of Adult and Continuing Education focused on the exploration of difference and diversity orientation in hybrid teaching and learning at the university.

Background and aim of the project

“3D: digital diverse different” is a sub-project of the two-year research project Hybrid Education Community (hec) at the FHNW. Two previous projects of the Chair of Adult and Continuing Education served as a starting points and foundation for the various research movements:  

1. The research and development project Doing Diversity in University Teaching, which aims to strengthen diversity skills in university teaching and to develop FHNW-wide sensitization as an element of the FHNW culture.

2. The development project FHNW Goes Public which uses podcasts to explore new ways of communicating science and aims to make research accessible to the wider public.

In a first step – after reviewing the theory – conversation situations were created with experts involved in differing Schools of the FHNW who provided feedback about their experiences with teaching in hybrid settings.

These conversations provided impulses and inspired a first podcast which was created by the research team. In this episode, they explained the theoretical framework, providing selected research references and reflected about the potential of hybrid education.
This podcast sequence served as entry point for a workshop named “3D café” choreographed in a hybrid way with participants from various FHNW Schools. Key findings from this workshop, enriched by follow-up conversations with participants were compiled, serving as reference material for the second podcast episode. In this episode, the research team discussed insights from the workshop and sketched pathways how hybrid education could be further explored in contexts of difference orientation and diversity at university.

The podcasts are available on the website Lagerfeuerwissenschaft.ch, an online platform which, as part of “FHNW Goes Public”, also contains all the podcast episodes published to date by the Chair of Adult and Continuing Education.

The aim of the project was to use new, agile and multimedia teaching and learning spaces to make a contribution to the discourse on hybrid education with a focus on difference orientation and diversity. The findings should also serve as a source of inspiration for those wishing to be involved in hybrid education settings and as reference material for a critical examination of hybrid education’s promising horizon of inclusion and diversity.