During the COVID-19 pandemic, blended and hybrid learning have become significantly more relevant in everyday school settings (Lampert et al., 2021). It is still unclear whether this shift towards blended and hybrid learning forms is just an episode or if it is the starting point of an even more accelerated development towards digitalisation in education. It appears inevitable that educational research accompanies this shift towards blended and hybrid learning forms. However, the literature shows a lack of consensus as to what blended and hybrid learning mean (Hrastinski, 2019), resulting in difficulties concerning its examination.

In a few cases blended and hybrid learning can be clearly distinguished from each other. While Gil et al. (2022) describe hybrid learning as "face-to-face learning with access to online learning tools" (p. 13), according to Graham (2006) blended learning is defined as the combination of face-to-face instruction with computer-mediated instruction. But in most cases, these terms are used synonymously (Graham 2009; Watson 2008). The use of digital media not only plays a crucial role in the definition of these terms, but also in the organisation of different blended learning approaches as seen in the commonly used classification by Staker and Horn (2012). They distinguish between four models of blended learning depending on when and where phases of online learning are embedded in the instruction (rotation model, flex model, self-blend model and enriched-virtual model). These descriptions of what is referred to as "new traditional" (e.g. Ross & Gage, 2006, p. 167) draw a clear line between learning with and without digital tools. At the same time, researchers argue that such a separation along the above-mentioned lines is based on the simple use of (digital) technologies and should be overcome. Especially taking the evaluation of effects on learning outcomes into regard, they argue that it is not the use of digital technologies per se that should be considered decisive rather than the thoughtful prepared and practical carried out as well as theoretically founded instructional design should be focussed – despite whether and which technologies are used (Fawns, 2019).

While we agree that the differentiation between digital and non-digital forms of learning seems to be obsolete, considering that digital media is used frequently in everyday school, we think it is important to take a closer look at the structural changes they made possible. It is now clear that digital media and tools can significantly broaden the scope of spatial and temporal structures in learning as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students no longer have to learn at the same time in the same place. Synchronous and asynchronous learning phases can be more easily combined using digital tools to meet the individual needs of the students. Therefore, in this paper, we present and discuss an enhanced model of blended and hybrid learning, that considers the digitally driven expansion of the learning time and space.

Based on the data of a Berlin school project, that assesses and evaluates the extension of legal possibilities concerning spatial and temporal restrictions in 18 compulsory schools, core elements for a category system should be identified. Drawing on their work and experience with learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, each school is developing and testing an individual, hands-on learning concept that considers the new legal possibilities as well as spatial, organisational, and technical requirements of their own school. Structured interviews (n = 75) were conducted at each school between May and July 2022 with school principal, project management, teachers, and students. These interviews are analysed according to the learning concepts using content analysis, based on a combination of a deductive and inductive approach (Mayring, 2015).

Three essential independent dimensions can be identified: learning time, learning space and learning subject matter. In combination with the characteristics "synchronous", "asynchronous" and "hybrid" (according to Wiepcke, 2006), these proved to be sufficient during the working process to allow a mapping and differentiation of the described learning settings. A dimension of lesson structure is classified as “synchronous”, if there is a uniformity for all students in a particular learning situation (e.g. the whole class is in the classroom). “Asynchronous” describes a dimension of a learning situation that is characterised by a diversity in the design of the individual dimensions while remaining independent of the others (e.g. every student attends classes via video conferencing from home). "Hybrid" comprises the combination of both characteristics, i.e. a learning situation in which one subgroup is offered synchronous learning in relation to one dimension and another subgroup is offered asynchronous learning in relation to the same dimension. The learning settings that emerged from our data can be sufficiently mapped and differentiated in the above described taxonomy that allowes us to categorise the settings in a more differentiated way than previous taxonomies of blended and hybrid learning. For each combination of dimension and characteristic, at least one example for realisation can be found in our data. Furthermore, these results show that it can be useful to draw attention away from the medium and its assessment when it comes to course design and learning outcomes (Fawns, 2019). At this point this is a proposition for a framework and further discussions and research is needed, e.g. examination of possible instructional design options for different combinations of setting characteristics. Further evaluation should examine which requirements the different learning settings bring along and which learning methods are suitable for which learning setting to consider content-related, motivational and didactical aspects adequately.

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