Eco/logical Learning and Simulation Environments in Higher Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Eco/logical Learning and Simulation Environments in Higher Education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

CONTEXT: The EHEA is invested with the fundamental role outlined in the EU Commission document “Supporting growth and jobs – an agenda for the modernisation of Europe’s higher education systems”, a role dramatically reiterated by the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic on education worldwide. ELSE was inspired by the challenges of university massification and the need of developing XXI century competencies in students and their lecturers. Before the COVID-19 crisis it was clear that much had been achieved in the single countries and in the harmonisation of the general European model after Bologna. Yet, two fundamental objectives remained unrealised: 1. students continued to be peripheral to the process of co-construction of knowledge; and 2. the potential for true pedagogical innovation through new technologies remained underexplored. The forced implementation of remote learning in times of emergency showed how training teachers in digital pedagogies and technologies at all levels of education, including tertiary, was inescapable and how ELSE was absolutely timely.

MAIN OBJECTIVE: To realise the goal of redesigning HE in Europe, the partners recognised that the main objective was to fill the gap in the andragogical-pedagogical training of most academic staff, a critical area, which is only recently receiving attention from national educational policies. Thus, ELSE specific objectives were: enhancing staff awareness of the changes in the stakeholders’ sensorium and learning styles, engendered by the digital era; experimenting innovative pedagogies at university level; introducing Higher Order Thinking ICTs in everyday teaching and providing appropriate and easy training to make this transformation possible.

OUTPUTS: After a preliminary survey of the progress of the EHEA and of the current best practices in academic teacher training in each of the eight participating countries, the partner team members behaved as a multi-competence Community of Practice, composed of academic teaching and technological staff. All experimented competence teaching and learner-centred approaches in their own courses while piloting the ELSE digital tools created in cooperation with the consortium’s technological components. The ELSE project envisaged six specific digital outputs, which were all finalised and uploaded onto the project website (www.elseproject.eu) with dedicated tutorials:
IO1: a hypertext collecting good practices and innovative pedagogies in HE, accessible to open consultation;
IO2: EVOLI, a video tagging tool to facilitate flipped learning;
IO3: ECORE, an editor enabling instructional designers to create Serious Games based on problem-solving strategies and gamification;
IO4: EDASH, an e-assessment tool inspired by personalization and context-awareness;
all four of these IOs are original and created on purpose in the ELSE framework;
IO5: the university teacher’s manual;
IO6: the university student’s self-reflection guidelines.

ACTIVITIES/PARTICIPANTS: Dissemination actions are reckoned to have reached 70.800 people in the timespan of the project.
Ab. 100 professors and technicians were involved in training initiatives and engaged in experiencing ELSE method and tools in all the partner institutions but also outside. We reckon an average of 500 students per partner were involved in ELSE learning environments.
Two pivotal international activities were:
1. an Intensive Study Programme, with plenaries, workshops and feedback sessions (held in-person, just before the global lockdown) which involved 40 lecturers and learning technologists as the partners’ guests + 26 external participants from all over Europe, besides organizers and trainers.
2. a Multiplier Event (held online at the end of the project) where ab. 340 university instructors, learning technologists, schoolteachers and principals, university Rectors and delegates, and representatives from Boards of Education were introduced to the project and invited to put their hands on its tools.
Both events were evaluated by the internal evaluator team.

OUTCOMES: Other relevant outcomes and longer-term results were:
1. strengthening of partnership connections in view of further cooperation and internationalization initiatives;
2. elaboration of two very detailed and customised plans for the dissemination and the internal evaluation actions, worth reusing in future projects;
3. a relevant number of scientific publications (31 articles) and 14 research projects dealing with several aspects of ELSE, testifying the entity of its impact and guaranteeing long-term dissemination;
4. collateral technological effects, i.e., improvements to Moodle resources and activities (the three learning tools were all integrated or operated through Moodle; a digital way of collecting the project timesheets was implemented as a Moodle extension, called Ti.Re.D.);
5. a great amount of multimedia illustrative materials worth developing into training courses and/or a MOOC.

Project Website

http://www.elseproject.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 351080 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DELLA TUSCIA & Country: IT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITATEA DE VEST DIN TIMISOARA
• INSTITUTO POLITECNICO DO PORTO
• UNIVERSIDAD DE CADIZ
• UNIVERSITATEA PETRU MAIOR DIN TARGU MURES
• UNIWERSYTET IM. ADAMA MICKIEWICZA W POZNANIU
• THE MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
• UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS