Rapid digitalisation of higher education: leadership of teaching and learning in times of crises.

Since 2020, the academic community in higher education has been rapidly shifted into online environments due to the pandemic COVID-19. In Sweden, this has had several impacts on health care and teacher education, programs that traditionally (mainly) were delivered face-to-face before the pandemic. The overall aim of the project is to investigate how educational leadership practices are being reshaped/are reshaping teaching and learning practices in Swedish HE and with what academic and social consequences at a time of crisis and rapid digital transformation. The research design is framed by practice theory, which treats practices as the primary subject of analysis in the study of human relations. An early phase of the project involved interviews with academic leaders and teaching staff in one Swedish University at the beginning of the pandemic, and a review of literature related to leading teaching and learning in higher education. This will be followed up with interactive shadowing of leaders in their daily interactions with university teachers, students, and other stakeholders in three Swedish Universities. The study will document leadership practices as they happen and particularly how they affect and are affected by teaching practices and what students experience, do, and learn. Student and educator focus-group interviews will also be conducted to capture teacher and student perspectives. Analysis will be informed by the theory of practice architectures.

Analysis of findings from the initial phase has highlighted three main themes which have important implications for leadership practices related to teaching and learning in the fields of teacher education and health care education, but also possibly other professional education fields. They concern the ways in which the shift to online education has affected possibilities for, and highlighted the importance of, spontaneity, authentic relationships, and embodied interactions. Meanwhile, the findings of the literature review have highlighted how much is assumed, but how little is actually known about, the relationship between what leaders do in their everyday work and student experiences. These findings point to the importance of future studies that empirically explore, at an everyday practice level, the complexities and challenges for leadership of working in online environments, and whether and how what leaders do and do not do concretely affects student learning and the student experience.