UA faculty members, Dr. Cynthia Saba, assistant professor at the Faculty of Public Health (FPH), and Ms. Alia El Khatib, lecturer at the Antonine School of Business (ASB), participated in a 5-day intensive training on Instructional Design for Blended Learning (IDEL-Leb), which took place at the Coral Beach Hotel in Beirut, from November 14 to 18, 2022.

IDEL-Leb is a capacity-building workshop organized by the Universities Association of Lebanon (UAOLB) with the support of the Connected Learning in Crisis Consortium (CLCC). It is coordinated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in collaboration with the Directorate General of Higher Education (DGHE) at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the United Nations Education and Culture Organization (UNESCO), Beirut office.

IDEL-Leb aimed to support Lebanese higher education institutions in implementing blended learning in the higher education ecosystem by developing the skills of their faculty to create a student-centered learning experience using digital pedagogy.

Fifty participants, representing twenty-two higher education institutions, attended IDEL-Leb. On one hand, the workshop activities focused on the learner-centered experience by exploring different techniques such as the knowledge map, student persona map, and North Star technique. On the other hand, the workshops also focused on mapping knowledge to outcomes by introducing universal design learning, identifying the level of knowledge, aligning learning outcomes and assessments, and creating rubrics and multimedia learning theory based on Mayer’s theory.

In addition, with the support of UNESCO, a plenary session was held to address The Legal Framework of Digital Blended Learning in Higher Education in Lebanon, with the participation of various stakeholders in the higher education ecosystem, including delegates of university presidents, members of the council of higher education’s technical committee, international organizations working in higher education, and national and international experts in the field of higher education. The session was notably attended by Dr. Anasse Bouhlal, UNESCO representative; Dr. Mazen El Khatib, Director General of Higher Education; Rev. Paul Haidostian, Haigazian University President and representative of UAOLB President; and Dr. Cindy Bonfini-Hotlosz from the CLCC. The panel session was moderated by Dr. Rony Darazi, UA’s Vice Rector for Cooperation and Internationalization (VRCI) and a member of the UAOLB executive board.