Higher Education Re-engineering through Active learning for Growth Erasmus Project

Project Title

Higher Education Re-engineering through Active learning for Growth

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Context:
Today’s young generation will be called to address urgent challenges such as sustainable growth, quality in education, responsible natural resource management, mitigating climate change, addressing natural risks, fighting poverty, informing global health, and more. The challenges that our global society faces are daunting and the need for introducing solutions towards well-being and equity is pressing. Viable interventions often stem from a combination of engineering and economics practices as scientists are called to introduce effective socio-technical interventions within specific budgets.
Solutions to modern challenges do not stem from the deployment of knowledge from a specific area; they require the integration of knowledge from diverse fields. Education needs to be re-engineered in order to build the knowledge, skills, and mindsets that young adults need to become leaders and innovators in designing integrated, effective, and equitable solutions that ensure quality of life and social cohesion.
Engineering technology and business process innovation are on the cutting edge, evolving at a past pace; solutions that are considered groundbreaking at a point in time may become obsolete only a few years after their introduction as the result of their replacement by more powerful, flexible, and suitable approaches. The biggest challenge facing HE today is not simply building the foundational knowledge of young professionals; it needs to shape young adults that are problem solvers, high level and critical thinkers, innovators in the face of rapid evolution of technology and business processes, effective collaborators in multiple social contexts and large groups, and capable of learning independently throughout their lives in order to remain at the forefront of their fields.
Objectives:
HERA addresses the interdisciplinary needs of HE in the fields of engineering and economics on making available modern educational offerings that help build the required high order problem solving skills for addressing emerging societal and industry challenges through innovative technology and business processes. HERA deploys active to expose HE students to complex challenges the solution to which requires the integration of interdisciplinary knowledge in engineering and economics in a manner that emulates real world problem solving processes. Furthermore, the project aims to build high order thinking skills such as non-routine problem-solving, communication, independent learning capacity, entrepreneurial thinking, ability to evaluate information, ability to integrate diverse knowledge, ability to present solutions, and more.
Methodology and activities:
HERA explores problem and project-based digitally-enabled educational design for re-engineering HE towards building young adults that have the potential to be innovators. This will be pursued through active, gamified learning that will challenge learners to collaborate, think entrepreneurially, and weave diverse knowledge towards introducing solutions to non-trivial problems inspired by 21st century needs. Digitally enabling the problem-solving process will effectively increase class communication, knowledge exchange, peer learning, and collective skill building, contributing to the development of desirable transversal skills. Gamifying the problem solving process will promote active student engagement in learning through a sense of mission, a sense of affiliation, healthy competition, rewards, and social recognition by peers among other mechanisms. Furthermore, HERA aims to empower educators to integrate the proposed active, game-based learn interventions into classrooms through good practice guidelines thus enriching existing practices and promoting career satisfaction. The proposed digitally enabled active learning framework will be designed, implemented, and validated with contribution by HE organizations in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Estonia, and Denmark ensuring that the result will have a European dimension.
Results:
– An active, problem-based learning methodology for promoting modernization of multidisciplinary skills in engineering and economics
– A gamified virtual learning environment that applies in practice problem-based learning
– Educator support for facilitating the integration of outcomes into existing HE educational practices
– Good practice guidelines stemming from the validation of the proposed methodologies and tools with students
Impact:
HERA promotes the modernization of higher education through the deployment of emerging problem-based pedagogical design that contributes to the alignment of skills to industry needs. It promotes bringing HE in the digital era through the design and implementation of innovative digital services for active learning. It promotes the development of instructor careers and the enrichment of instructor skills. And it promotes civic participation of young professionals through their engagement in industry and society

Project Website

http://heraproject.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 257360 Eur

Project Coordinator

PANEPISTIMIO THESSALIAS & Country: EL

Project Partners

• TALLINN UNIVERSITY
• VIRTUAL CAMPUS LDA
• UNIVERSIDAD DE VIGO
• AALBORG UNIVERSITET