The TEMPUS project Innovating Teaching and Learning European Studies

07.07.2014

The TEMPUS project Innovating Teaching and Learning European Studies (INOTLES) has moved to its second substantive work package, which tackles the training needs of European Studies professors in all partner universities. This work package is led by IES and it is in this context that on 18-21 June we hosted a four-day event to kick-start the training activities. The event was attended by 50 professors from the INOTLES partner universities and was organized in two parts. The 18th of June was dedicated to disseminating the results of the previous work package (consisting in a literature review and survey of teaching methods in European Studies and a needs analysis in all partner universities) to a larger audience. The public event brought together representatives of Higher Education institutions and associations, as well as various other stakeholders and the lively debate touched upon issues such as implementing interdisciplinarity in European Studies programmes as well as the link between academia and the labour market (see programme link here: http://www.ies.be/other/what%C2%B4s-next-learning-and-teaching-european-studies).

The programme of the following three days focused on practical workshops on teaching methods and how they can be applied in European Studies, complemented by visits to the European institutions. The methods discussed were problem-based learning PBL (trainer: Heidi Maurer, FASOS, UM) simulation games (trainer: Simon Usherwood, US) and e-learning/ blended learning (trainers: Alexandra Mihai & Silviu Piros, IES, VUB and Natalia Timus, MGSOG, UM).

The video recordings of INOTLES dissemination event and the following pedagogical trainings can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcIRg7XW9v4xnir2axZSyWlDlHXDdtqDF

The INOTLES team has been actively tweeting the project presentations and discussions of the four days event, for more information you can access the INOTLES page:https://storify.com/Usherwood/inotles-brussels/

In the following six months, the training will continue online, via the IES e-learning platform, in three parallel groups, each following in-depth one of the three mentioned-above pedagogical methods. The IES, VUB and MGSOG, UM will coordinate the online training process and the preparation of a training handbook that will be translated and used for in-house training in Georgian, Moldovan and Ukrainian partner universities.

The results of the online training group work will be presented at a meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, in January 2015 that will conclude the “Training the trainers” work package.