Staff Training ECOLHE Project

In this period, the Erasmus + ECOLHE project carried out project Staff Training with particular attention to the challenges posed by Covid-19.

The activity was carried out by LAUREA, University of Applied Sciences (Finland) which organized a series of online seminars and workshops lasting a total of three days between April and June 2021 for the ECOLHE project partners.

The activity involved a diverse group in terms of training and skills and this represented a great resource. Indeed, each participant benefited from the sharing of experiences and best practices.

The Staff Training was organized and coordinated by the LAUREA team (Finland) under the guidance of Pasi Kämppi and Paresh Rathod and in close collaboration with the project Applicant, the DITES Research Center of the Link Campus University.

The first day of the seminar focused on the key theme of the development of the ECOLHE project “Towards Onlife Education”. It began with the welcome and presentation of the lines of action of LAUREA (UAS) and continued with Paresh Rathod and Pasi Kämppi, who presented a keynote on how higher education has been developed since traditional classroom teaching to “onlife” learning, in which a student is considered a collaborative actor rather than a passive receiver.

Pasi Kämppi explained how LEAN principles are applied to education and cybersecurity within his University (Bachelor). The presented presentation was based on the scientific work and publication of Pasi Kämppi and Paresh Rathod.

We continued with a workshop on the topic of academic integrity in distance learning. Participants in this phase had the opportunity to reflect and focus on the critical issues to observe to mitigate academic fraud, unethical behavior and unfair practices in the online environment.

The second day focused on pedagogical practices, study offers and the student support system. The day began with the case study on the degree course in Business Information Technology presented by Pasi Kämppi. Among the topics addressed in this presentation is also that of student dropouts.

Next, Mari Koski and Sanna Eronen, heads of student affairs, focused on how Covid-19 has affected the risks of technology addiction and how they have mitigated the problem.

Probably the most interesting presentation for the staff was given by student psychologist Manne Pyykkö who shared examples and best practices on how students can manage stress, loneliness, loss of motivation or depression in difficult times such as Covid -19.

The fourth presentation covered best practices for online tutoring. The speaker, Senior Lecturer Lassi Virtanen, showed how tools such as Microsoft Teams and Calendly have been implemented for online tutoring.

Finally, Jyri Rajamäki together with Paresh Rathod, shared interesting real-life examples on integrating teaching, learning, research and innovation in international H2020 projects. The day ended with project updates.

During the last day of Staff Training we focused on tools, techniques and technologies in online education. The first session was planned and delivered by Development Manager Mikael Uusi-Mäkelä and LAUREA Principal Anssi Mattila, responsible for pedagogical and technical support for teachers. In particular, they illustrated how LAUREA has digitized education with theoretical and practical aspects. Finally, as a case study, Anssi Mattila presented how the ABC method was applied in LAUREA for pedagogical development during the new LMS (Canvas) launch.

The afternoon began with the presentation of the second project output by Marc Romero of the University of Catalonia. The last two presentations were given by the Project Coordinator Stefania Capogna and the Professional Coach Christopher Evatt.

Stefania Capogna shared project updates and Christopher Evatt gave a presentation with many practical examples on how teachers can guide learning processes for individual students and larger groups of students.

The Staff Training planned for the ECOLHE project covered a wide variety of topics and all presentation materials were made available also through the online collaboration environment provided by the Applicant to support the entire project.

There was great satisfaction with this opportunity for exchange between different research groups; everyone found useful ideas and stimuli from the topics covered in this international perspective. The presentations given by student psychologist Manne Pyykkö and professional coach Christopher Evatt were particularly appreciated.

The organizers, Pasi Kämppi and Paresh Rathod, were also pleased to see how the collaborative effort creates value for the entire academic community internationally. What mainly emerged was the importance and change in the role of the educator in higher education in the digital age.

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