Blended Learning in Higher Education | Webinar Day

Overview

Join educators and researchers from across Europe for a half-day of practice-informed sessions on blended learning design. Organised by the EMBED+ project (embedplus.eu), this webinar brings together concrete frameworks and reflections — from deeper learning principles to programme-level strategy and structured redesign methodologies — that you can bring back to your own teaching context.

SESSION 1 | 10.00H

Deeper learning design principles in blended education

Sanna Ruhalahti — TAMK University of Applied Sciences

This session introduces a set of research-informed deeper learning design principles for blended education, developed through extensive pedagogical practice and research. It focuses on how to design learning environments that scaffold dialogical knowledge construction, support learner agency, and foster deeper learning processes across online and face-to-face settings. Participants will engage with concrete design examples and reflect on how to apply these principles to create meaningful, community-based and future-oriented learning experiences.

SESSION 2 | 10.30H

Multicampus Programmes as a Catalyst for Blended Design: Early Institutional Learning Beyond Campus Boundaries

Z. Panchenko, F. Van de Plas & A. Galhenage — KU Leuven

This workshop session explores how blended education can support programme-level decision making in contexts where learning is distributed across place and time. Building on two KU Leuven pilot programmes, the session introduces the EMBED+ model as a practical analytical lens connecting course-level design choices with programme-level and institutional conditions. The session highlights why moving from campus-centred designs to blended programme strategies requires not only pedagogical redesign, but also targeted institutional and policy support.

SESSION 3 | 11.00H

DARE to blend: create blended learning experiences that work

Wiebe Dijkstra — Delft University of Technology

How can you make blended learning experiences that actually work? In this session you will experience the Delft Approach for (Re)designing Education (DARE) — an iterative, team-based approach that guides teaching teams through the entire design process in a structured manner. The methodology is designed to be used both as an integrated whole and as individual modules.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Sanna Ruhalahti, Ph.D., is a Principal Lecturer at TAMK UAS (Pedagogical Innovations and Culture) with 20 years of experience as a teacher educator and educational developer. Her expertise covers pedagogical learning design, deeper learning, dialogical knowledge construction, and teaching in digital environments. Her doctoral thesis on redesigning a pedagogical model for scaffolded dialogical and deep learning was published in 2019.

Zhanna Panchenko focuses on educational innovation, blended learning, and future-oriented teaching practices in higher education. She works on the EMBED+ project and with UNA Europa, contributing to international collaboration and educational dissemination.

Frederik Van de Plas is an educational developer at KU Leuven's Teaching and Learning Service, specialising in synchronous and asynchronous teaching, learning spaces, educational multimedia, and curriculum design. He supports the EMBED+ project including the EMBED+Hub and dissemination activities.

Amalsha Galhenage Galvão works at the intersection of higher education, professional learning, and research-based development. She is a voluntary research associate at KU Leuven and Programme Director for the PhD for Executives at Antwerp Management School.

Wiebe Dijkstra is an educational advisor and trainer on blended learning at Delft University of Technology, with deep expertise in designing, developing, and implementing blended learning courses in higher education.

not applicable

not applicable.