The current article in the online journal “Ludwigsburger Beiträge zur Medienpädagogik [Ludwigsburg Contributions to Media Education] (Issue 21; ISSN 2190-4790) with the focus topic "Teaching in the Age of Corona – Reflection, Evaluation, and Documentation" (editors: Thomas Knaus, Thorsten Junge, and Olga Merz) presents our innovative course design for “Educational Science I,” which is based on the concept of seamless learning and was used during the last (and also this) Corona semesters.

Heiser, J. C., Lessky, F., & Weiß, S. (2021). Seamless learning in a master's seminar in educational science: Concept and implementation. Ludwigsburg Contributions to Media Education, 21, 1–11.

From the abstract:

Seamless learning aims to create a learning environment in which separate contexts (offline/online; formal/informal; individual/socially integrated) are bridged and networked to ensure continuous learning. Especially in the context of the pandemic, it has become essential for university teaching to respond to digitization processes in its didactic design; Seamless learning appears to be an adequate way of designing these processes in a versatile manner. A design is presented that was conceived as part of a course on the fundamentals of educational science.

In this course, master's students of business education at the Vienna University of Economics and Business deal with the central humanities and cultural-historical foundations of educational science. The course design presented applies a methodological and didactic mix of online phases, synchronous and asynchronous individual and group assignments, reflective and experimental tasks, and diverse forms of communication. This is intended to ensure learning takes place and, in the spirit of critical educational work, to highlight current issues and identify areas of tension.

The article illustrates the course design and discusses its implementation in the context of the conditions, restrictions, and possibilities of hybrid and distance learning. Furthermore, the dimension of social and cooperative learning is problematized. The article serves as a pedagogical and didactic shift in perspective in the context of pandemic remote teaching and can be understood as a source of inspiration, a pool of ideas, and a guide for action for teachers in a university context.

Keywords: Seamless learning, higher education, educational science, distance learning, asynchronous/synchronous, lecture cast, online phases, assignments, social learning, cooperative learning

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