Whereas different aspects of teaching and learning in Higher Education are often discussed within an academic community, teaching the EU seems to receive less attention. Especially in recent years we testimony the decreasing interest to EU studies in universities, including some signs of disappearing from educational curricula. Even more sad is the state of teaching the EU in economic faculties and other disciplinary areas. Teaching the EU is not always considered as an important and necessary part of these curricula. At the same time, in the still remaining studies of the EU, mainly situated in studies of politics or international relations, there is a tendency, with a few exemptions, to stick to a rather traditional approach of teaching the EU that does not change for years, no matter what the developments in the world are. In this paper I plea for the change of the existent paradigm in teaching the EU. The new global realities, such as a developing climate crisis and EU green economic transition, war in Europe and changing global security landscape, (still) continuing migration crisis and growing poverty worldwide, radicalization of political systems and intensifying populism, require to change the way the EU subject has been taught in universities. The scholars teaching the EU subject have to rethink the existent answers to the main educational questions, such as what, why, how and who is being taught about the EU. I propose a different approach to teaching the EU that not only redesigns the existent teaching practices of the EU, but also makes the introduction of EU studies in other than political science or international relations curricula, such as economic, business, environmental or many other interdisciplinary studies, possible and indispensable.
DOCUMENT
Over the past few decades, education systems, especially in higher education, have been redefined. Such reforms inevitably require reconsideration of operational notions and definitions of quality, along with a number of related concepts. This reconsideration aligns with the core of higher education reforms: improving efficacy and compatibility with emerging social demands while adapting to competitiveness and accountability trends. As primary players in the teaching and learning process, online tutors have a protagonistic role and, therefore, must be equipped with a suitable set of competencies and attributes in addition to content knowledge. This quantitative research aims to analyze the perceptions of 250 online tutors working in European higher education institutions, distributed in 5 knowledge areas: Business, Education, Humanities, Sciences and Health. This descriptive and exploratory nonexperimental study reveals the technological and pedagogical skills and competencies that online tutors consider fundamental for effective online teaching and proposes professional development actions to ensure quality online teaching.
DOCUMENT
MULTIFILE
The Education Assembly for a Sustainable Europe (EASE) project trains teachers in teaching sustainable development by designing and evaluating pre-service and in-service teacher training courses (EASE courses). These courses equip primary school teachers and pre-service teachers with the knowledge and skills required to teach lessons addressing Education for European Sustainable Development. The EASE courses intend to support teachers to gain the necessary general science knowledge about climate change and biodiversity, teaching skills to foster students’ arguing and ability to take in different perspectives and collaboratively search for solutions. This e-book reports on examining opportunities to educate and empower teachers to implement education for sustainable development goals in the context of European Grean Deal (EGD) issues. Chapter 1 delves into the educational principles underpinning the group problem solving approach. Chapters 2 and 3 detail the development, implementation, evaluation, and improvement of courses focused on education for sustainable development goals in the context of EGD for pre-service and in-service teachers. The final chapter offers concluding insights into how teachers can be better equipped to deliver high-quality education about the EGD.
MULTIFILE
Conclusie : Vertaald naar het nu kan gesteld worden dat het Europese erfgoed in het spirituele en culturele “Europese DNA” zit en dus niet aan actualiteit heeft ingeboet. Zo zijn de Griekse en Romeinse traditie en de Joods‐Christelijke wortels voor altijd terug te vinden in de oorsprong en ontwikkeling van ons onderwijs‐, rechts‐ en zorgsysteem. Schuman zag dit als de raison d’être28 van de Europese eenwording. Effectieve solidariteit tussen burgers en staten, een solidariteit geuit in concrete realiteiten was het motto van de eenwording en zou dit vanwege het blijvende karanter van het erfgoed ook nu nog zijn. Het actualiseren van het effectieve solidariteitsprincipe volgens Schuman zou niet ophouden bij Europa, maar zich uitstrekken tot buiten de Europese grenzen, omdat de menselijke waardigheid, kernbegrip van het spirituele erfgoed, aan het hele project ten grondslag ligt. Dit betekent het meewerken aan de opbouw van staten ook buiten Europa die het nodig hebben en in de mate dat ze het nodig hebben overeenkomstig het subsidiariteits‐ en solidariteitsprincipe om een menswaardig bestaan mogelijk te maken en te bestendigen, onrecht en armoede, de oorzaken van geweld, uit de wereld te helpen. Het zal in meer of mindere mate het openbreken van bestaande economische, politieke en culturele structuren met zich meebrengen, zoals de Schuman Verklaring dat indertijd heeft gedaan voor het Europese continent. Iets soortgelijks lijkt in zijn visie nu op wereldschaal nodig te zijn. De EU zou bij het volgen van Schumans denktrant, zich langzaam maar zeker open moeten stellen en in moeten zetten voor een steeds rechtvaardiger structuur van de boven‐continentale oftewel supra‐continentale, internationale orde die steeds meer vrede en veiligheid zal waarborgen, om niet te vervallen in een EU egocentrisme dat op den duur zowel de EU als de landen en continenten buiten Europa niet langer verdragen. In die zin zijn de huidige crises alarmsignalen die aangeven dat er een fundamentele paradigmashift gemaakt moet worden waarin de mens als persoon weer centraal komt te staan en solidariteit vandaaruit doordringt in economische, politieke en sociale structuren. Het globaliseren van de “sacraliteit van de menselijke waardigheid”. Tegelijkertijd blijft de rol van de mens, gemeente, regio en staat van essentieel belang, evenals die van het continent, zoals ook blijkt uit de volgende afsluitende citaten van Schuman: “Volgens onze opvatting is het Europese beleid totaal niet in strijd met het vaderlandslievend ideaal dat we allen delen [...] de natie vervult een belangrijke rol voor zijn eigen burgers , maar heeft ook, en in even grote mate, een rol tegenover de andere landen. Het kan zich daarom niet in de eerste van deze twee rollen terugtrekken. [...]
DOCUMENT
Across the globe, linguistically heterogeneous populations increasingly define school systems at the same time that developing the ability to communicate cross-culturally is becoming essential for internationalized economies. While these trends seem complimentary, they often appear in paradoxical opposition as represented in the content and execution of nationwide education policies. Given the differing geopolitical contexts within which school systems function, wide variation exists with regard to how policymakers address the challenges of providing language education, including how they frame goals and design programs to align with those goals. Here we present a cross-continental examination of this variation, which reveals parallel tensions among aims for integrating immigrant populations, closing historic achievement gaps, fostering intercultural understanding, and developing multilingual competencies. To consider implications of such paradoxes and parallels in policy foundations, we compare language education in the US and in the EU, focusing on the Netherlands as an illustrative case study.
LINK
Even though classroom discussion is considered an essential element of citizenship education, research indicates that pre-vocational students have fewer opportunities to practice with these discussions than their pre-academic peers. To provide more insight into pre-vocational teaching strategies to facilitate citizenship-related classroom discussions that allow for variation in familiarity with discussion, we analyzed observations of plenary discussion moments during 26 lessons at three Dutch secondary schools. Classrooms less familiar with discussion seem to benefit from a focus on structural aspects of discussion and avoiding strict content regulation, whereas classrooms more familiar with discussion profit from reflection on both process and content.
DOCUMENT
The European Open Platform for Prescribing Education (EurOP2 E) seeks to improve and harmonize European clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) education by facilitating international collaboration and sharing problem-based, online, open educational resources. The COVID-19 pandemic forced teachers to switch to virtual modalities, highlighting the need for high-quality online teaching materials. The goal of this study was to establish the online problem-based teaching resources needed to sustain prescribing education during the pandemic and thereafter. A nominal group technique study was conducted with prescribing teachers from 15 European countries. Results were analyzed through thematic analysis. In four meetings, 20 teachers from 15 countries proposed and ranked 35 teaching materials. According to the participants, the most necessary problem-based-online teaching materials related to three overarching themes. Related to learning outcomes for CPT, participants proposed creating prescription scenarios, including materials focusing on background knowledge and resources on personalized medicine and topical/ethical issues such as the prescription’s impact on planetary health. Second, related to teaching, they proposed online case discussions, gamification and decision support systems. Finally, in relation to faculty development, they recommend teacher courses, a repository of reusable exam questions and harmonized formularies. Future work will aim to collaboratively produce such materials.
DOCUMENT
This paper addresses an approach to teaching embedded systems programming through a challenge-based competition involving robots. This pedagogical project distinguishes itself by incorporating international students from three international institutions through the Blended Intensive Program (BIP). The research findings indicate that this approach yields excellent results regarding student engagement and learning outcomes. The challenge-based program effectively promotes students' creative problem-solving abilities by combining theoretical instruction with hands-on experience in a competitive setting.
DOCUMENT
The in-depth assessment of the situation of the European textile and clothing sector is composed by six independent reports with a close focus on key aspects useful to understand the dynamics and the development of the textile and clothing industry, drivers of change – most notably the impact of the financial crisis – and identification of policy responses and best practices. This has been done in six specific tasks leading to the six reports: Task 1 Survey on the situation of the EU textile and clothing sector Task 2 Report on research and development Task 3 Report on SME situation Task 4 Report on restructuring Task 5 Report on training and Education Task 6 Report on innovation practices This present report of task 5 provides an in-depth analysis of what has been done in terms of VET developments over the last decade in three key TC regions in Europe. It investigates industry ‘s attitudes and practices, education and training changes, and eventually tries to identify how mismatches between skills supply and demand have been addressed there and could possibly be addressed in the future in other regions of Europe.
MULTIFILE
