HEDS is designed as an open, collaborative and inquiry-oriented learning environment. Problem-based learning (PBL) provides the main structure for the learning process, while several complementary pedagogical frameworks help us understand and support what happens within and across the learning groups.
We view learning as a constructive, collaborative, self-directed and contextual process. Participants bring experiences from different disciplines, institutions and countries and use these differences as resources for inquiry. Rather than following a predetermined path towards a single correct answer, PBL groups identify questions that matter to them, investigate these questions and develop meaning together.
The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework helps us pay attention to three interrelated dimensions of collaborative online learning: social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence. In HEDS this means creating conditions where participants can build trust and engage openly with one another, explore questions and construct meaning together, and receive enough structure and facilitation for the learning process to develop.
The course also draws on networked learning, with an emphasis on relationships, openness, learner agency and learning across institutional and disciplinary boundaries.
To support the inquiry process, HEDS uses FISh – Focus, Investigate, Share as a simple and flexible structure. Groups identify what they want to explore, investigate individually and collaboratively, and share emerging insights with each other and, where appropriate, with the wider HEDS community.
A short introduction to the pedagogical thinking behind HEDS
In this video, Erik introduces some of the pedagogical models and ideas that have informed the design of the course.
Learning from HEDS
HEDS is continuously developed through participant experience, facilitator reflection and collaborative course development. Previous participants also contribute to research and educational development emerging from their experience of the course.
One example is The grateful eight: perspectives on higher education affordances and tensions and didactics role in enhancing learning experiences towards sustainability, developed by eight participants who formed a multidisciplinary PBL group during HEDS. The article explores disciplinary differences, affordances and tensions encountered when working with sustainability across higher education contexts.
Nordén, B., Ulvenblad, P., Mäenpää, A., Vogopoulou, A., Dourado, A., Merkisz-Guranowska, A., Lundberg, A. L. V., & Schiöth, H. B. (2026). The grateful eight: perspectives on higher education affordances and tensions and didactics role in enhancing learning experiences towards sustainability. Frontiers in Education, 11, 1783112. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1783112
Key readings and resources
The following resources are particularly relevant to the pedagogical thinking and design of HEDS.
Problem-based learning
Dolmans, D. H. J. M., De Grave, W., Wolfhagen, I. H. A. P., & van der Vleuten, C. P. M. (2005). Problem-based learning: future challenges for educational practice and research. Medical Education, 39(7), 732–741.
This article provides an important foundation for the HEDS view of learning as constructive, collaborative, self-directed and contextual.
Problem-based learning in international online groups
Creelman, A., Kvarnström, M., Pareigis, J., Uhlin, L., & Åbjörnsson, L. (2021). Problem-based learning in international online groups. In S. Hrastinski (Ed.), Designing Courses with Digital Technologies: Insights and Examples from Higher Education. Routledge.
This chapter is particularly relevant to HEDS because it explores PBL in international and online learning groups.
Community of Inquiry
Vaughan, N. D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Athabasca University Press.
The Community of Inquiry framework helps us understand the interplay between social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence in collaborative learning.
Open and networked learning
Pareigis, J., Kvarnström, M., Cefa, B., Bai, J. Y. H., Zawacki-Richter, O., Uhlin, L., Jakobsson, N., & Theilmeier, G. (2024). Open networked learning – a course, a community, an approach. International Journal for Academic Development, 29(2), 169–184.
HEDS has been influenced by the Open Networked Learning tradition, particularly its emphasis on PBL, openness, learner agency, community and international online collaboration.
Cross-institutional PBL
Nerantzi, C. (2012). A Case of Problem Based Learning for Cross-Institutional Collaboration. Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 10(3), 306–314.
This article offers an example of cross-institutional PBL and is relevant to the collaborative inquiry approach used in HEDS
Further reading
The resources below provide additional perspectives on PBL, collaborative learning and learning communities. They are included for readers who want to explore the pedagogical background of HEDS in greater depth.
Barrett, T., & Cashman, D. (Eds.) (2010). A Practitioner’s Guide to Enquiry and Problem-based Learning: Case Studies from University College Dublin. UCD Teaching and Learning.
Hmelo-Silver, C. E. (2012). International Perspectives on Problem-based Learning: Contexts, Cultures, Challenges, and Adaptations. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 6(1).
Kamp, R. J. A., Dolmans, D. H. J. M., van Berkel, H. J. M., & Schmidt, H. G. (2012). The relationship between students’ small group activities, time spent on self-study, and achievement. Higher Education, 64, 385–397.
Kek, M. Y. C. A., & Huijser, H. (2015/2016). 21st century skills: problem based learning and the university of the future. Conference paper, Third 21st Century Academic Forum Conference, Harvard University, Boston.
McConnell, D. (2006). E-Learning Groups and Communities. Open University Press.
Savin-Baden, M. (2014). Using Problem-based Learning: New Constellations for the 21st Century. The Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3&4), 197–219.
Additional PBL resources
Maastricht University provides a useful series of short introductory resources on PBL and its four underlying learning principles: constructive, contextual, collaborative and self-directed learning.
Problem-Based Learning and the four core principles – Maastricht University