Shifting from the Discrete to the Continuum: How Are Italian Universities Facing the Challenge?

The latest innovation in technology, its pervasive influence in the field of education and the recent experience of emergency remote teaching in higher education institutions during the Pandemic have stimulated the need to rethink Faculty Development (FD). In addition, the even more recent forms of human-computer interaction, such as extended reality, seem to blur the distinction between in presence and online modes of teaching and learning completely, giving rise to unprecedented approaches of teacher-student-environment interaction. Prior experience has taught us that unless faculty members are adequately prepared to take on the challenge posed in this new era of digitalization, the risk is that the affordances of these digital artefacts remain unexplored and unexploited. In light of these considerations and drawing on the lessons learned especially during the Pandemic, the paper proposes a reflection on possible future scenarios for the adoption of innovative methodological approaches apt to promote holistic change through systematic FD processes to facilitate this shift from the discrete to the continuum.