For performing arts education, Sage on the stage and Learn from the Masters were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and so did everything else. All lectures, tutorials and other face-to-face skill-based training sections were cancelled and were replaced by the online model. Such a model was only seen as one of the supplementary components for performing arts education in the past. From January 2020, this online pedagogy was inevitably placed to surmount the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The social distancing measures demanded the blended pedagogy into a new online approach, in which the traditional face-to-face teaching to be replaced by synchronous online learning (facilitated by technologies such as Zoom, Cisco Webex, Google Class, Panopto etc.). Meanwhile, to offer opportunities for cognitive participation which allows students to process the learning and be reflective, webinar and innovative performance projects were launched from the concept of ‘flipped classroom and outcome-based education.’ This mixed approach (blended learning, flipped classroom, and outcome-based education) is described as ‘hybrid learning’ in this study.The ‘hybrid learning’ pedagogy is implemented at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) for all teaching activities in the 2nd semester 2020/2021 to overcome the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire survey about how it affected the performing arts education, and how the new pedagogy was implemented took place in July 2020. The survey results from both the teachers (76) and students (163) share lessons, insights, and new understandings on teaching and learning online. Hybrid learning has been widely investigated and researched, yet study on hybrid learning in performing arts such as creative art, theatre art and music, remains insufficient. This study fills the research gap. Copyright © 2021 Springer Nature B.V.

This paper reports on a research project about the emerging hybrid or blended learning and teaching environments. These new environments result from the introduction of new technologies (e.g. 'Blackboard' learning and teaching systems) into the educational setting. The new technologies, rendered as innovative tools in the education sector, have helped integrate the classroom and online learning environments into a variety of "productive spaces" referred to by researchers as "the third space" [1]. This research project has explored the major issues arising in this "third space" in a higher education institute in Hong Kong. These issues include 1) the relationship between the traditional knowledge transmission and the current technology-enhanced knowledge generation in education; 2) the changing relationship between the teachers and the students in the new learning and teaching environments; 3) the discourse nature of interactions through differing modes, e.g. face-to-face (FTF), and interactive electronic media. In addition, this project has also addressed, through a case study of two courses offered in the blended mode, the issues concerning the context and content of the two courses, and the opinions of the participants of these two courses towards the new learning and teaching mode.