Digital technology in higher education is often implemented and used uncritically, leading to false ideas about the positive effects of digital technology (Tsui & Tavares, 2021). The Hacking Innovative Pedagogies - Digital Education Rewilded (HIP) project aims to transform higher education through a focus on fair and equitable teaching methods and the use of digital bottom-up tools. The notion of care is central to the project, to ensure that working methods and outcomes are sustainable, responsible and responsive to the needs of the communities we work with. The project utilises a "rewilding" approach to pedagogy, meaning to rethink old, tried and tested teaching and learning methods in order to improve learning. Our attention is focused on the problems that can arise when higher education teachers use digital technology. The Erasmus+ project runs from 2022 to 2025 and is carried out in partnership between the University of Graz, Austria, Aalborg University, Denmark and Dublin City University, Ireland. The nature of partnership in this project is based on a "cooperation organised around a central dilemma", which is like "the glue that shapes the identity of the partnership" and gives us "focus and direction" (Otrel-Cass, Laing & Wolf, 2022, p.4). Reconnecting and paying attention to the nested needs of our teaching and learning communities is central to our ambition, thus we apply the aforementioned partnership concept to the work with our participants.

As a result of a series of activities, we developed a pedagogical framework (Lyngdorf et al., 2023) and a MOOC (https://rise.articulate.com/share/aFvg4Xu0XqerhGvMg8yg_eiVZ4z9phYq#/), designed to support teachers to reflect on their practice to address the diversity and needs of their learners, to adopt caring attitudes in their teaching and to think about providing an inclusive learning environment. In this presentation we will share the pedagogical model, called the “entangled flow model” and the results from three workshops where we not only shared the model and philosophy behind it, but generated and shared activities as inspirational rewilding examples.

We present the analysis of ethnographic accounts (fieldnotes, photographs and digital artifacts) (Ardévol, E., & Gómez-Cruz, 2014) from three 2,5 hours workshops, where participants (n= 40) annotated and reflected on the pedagogical model and developed their own teaching activities. The idea was to rethink pedagogy with digital tools and environments to explore more inclusive, creative and caring approaches. The activities had to align with attributes we developed in the pedagogical model. Additionally, we collected activities that would also exemplify these attributes and introduced them to the workshop participants. We conducted this fieldwork three times, for the first two times in 2024 and then in 2025. We are presenting the analysis of the material products our participants produced, both analog and in digital formats.

The participants in the three workshops were from seven different countries and institutions, different teaching programmes and included university teachers with different responsibilities and roles. The three workshops were conducted face-to-face and online but followed a similar format: we explained the aims of the project, introduced the “entangled flow model” and provided resources for the participants to review and rethink current approaches. We asked participants to think about digital rewilding and digital degrowth and used tools that added some playfulness and reflection (storytelling, spin-the-wheel activities, educational superpower cards) (Otrel-Cass, Costello, Lyngdorf & Mendel, 2024). We observed that the participants generally preferred to stay in institutional groups or country groups, if that was possible. Further, our observation was, when group processes were taking place in institutional groups it seemed to help their joint reflection process on institutional cultures and practices. We found that attributes (e.g., empowerment, entanglement, playfulness) of the entangled flow model started conversations amongst the participants. Some of the attributes puzzled the participants at first, (for instance “non-doing”), however this initial wonderment helped to think about what this could mean in one’s own teaching. In those cases, it was helpful to use activity examples to illustrate the idea behind the attribute. We found that participants either came up with adaptations to existing practices, or they reflected on the strengths of existing pedagogical approaches, unpacking new or deeper facets. We observed our participants develop „a community feeling“ that „emerges through feelings of nearness in space, time, or relationship (proximity)“ (Beskorsa et al., 2023, p.24). We will share examples of the rewilded pedagogy ideas of our participants.

Ardévol, E., & Gómez-Cruz, E. (2014). Digital ethnography and media practices. The international encyclopedia of media studies: Research methods in media studies, 7, 498-518. Beskorsa, O.; Mendel, I; Fasching, M.; Otrel-Cass, K; Costello, E; Lyngdorf, N.E.R. & Brown, M. (2023): Hacking Innovative Pedagogy: Innovation and Digitisation to Rewild Higher Education. A Commented Atlas. University of Graz. Lyngdorf, N. E., Ruggaard, S. T., Otrel-Cass, K., & Costello, E. (2023). The Hacking Innovative Pedagogies (HIP) framework: -Rewilding the digital learning ecology. Aalborg University. https://doi.org/10.54337/aau602808725 Otrel-Cass, K., Costello, E., Lyngdorf, N. E. R., & Mendel, I. (2024). Methods for dreaming about and reimagining digital education. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 21(1), 31. Otrel-Cass, K., Laing, K., & Wolf, J. (2022). On Promises and Perils: Thinking About the Risks and Rewards of Partnerships in Education. In Partnerships in Education: Risks in Transdisciplinary Educational Research (pp. 3-12). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Tsui, A. B., & Tavares, N. J. (2021). The technology cart and the pedagogy horse in online teaching. English Teaching & Learning, 45(1), 109.