Transitions and Perspectives for the Adoption of the Blended Approach in Higher Education.

The pandemic emergency has unpredictably disrupted traditional university teaching and learning practices, depriving faculty members of the possibility of accurately planning at whatever level– personal, collegial, institutionalthe transition to online learning. Starting from the analysis of the results of a national survey lead by the University of Turin on higher education initiatives and learning practices performed during the current crisis, this contribution is aimed at identifying a set of drivers that, according to asocio-constructivist perspective, could transform and innovate, through blended approaches, academic teaching and learning. Each emerging driver is faced and discussed in the light of the survey results which highlight the attitudes of teachers in the transition from one period to another (normality, emergency, new normality), taking into account also the most prominent literature on online education. Hence each driver can be considered a sort of quality criterion that, integrated with the other ones, can promote more effective and challenging higher education practices, while inspiring new faculty training initiatives.