Loading
Research has shown that the engineers of the 21st century have to possess more than just state of the art technical knowledge and skills. According to research they will have to be able to tackle complex problems, think outside the box, understand not only the individual technical details, but the overall picture, work in interdisciplinary teams, be creative and innovative, so that they can apply the knowledge in new and exciting ways, manage, motivate and inspire people, adapt to changes. This is not only known from studies and projections, but also from the needs analysis and the feedback from the employers of the graduates of the HE institutions involved. Research and needs analysis of the partner organisations also shows that the educators are not well informed, nor equipped with the competences to successfully implement innovative pedagogies, such as the FCA (Flipped classroom approach), which could allow the use of learning approaches to foster the above mentioned competences, nor is the adoption of the FCA from other fields and levels of education easily and successfully made without analysis of the special needs of the courses, the students and the educators. Needs analysis also showed that the educators also lack the knowledge and information about ICT tools available to support the development of efficient blended learning approaches, including e-content development, learning management systems, opportunities of innovative technologies, like augmented reality. The project PolyFlip aims to build on good practice examples in other disciplines and levels of education, current research findings on this topic and adapt and implement the flipped classroom approach (FCA), to enable and encourage active, student centred and collaborative learning in (Polymer technology) engineering programs. By developing, adapting, piloting, promoting and disseminating the developed concept, e-materials, trainings and case studies, it aims to improve the motivation and the competences of the educators and foster the faster uptake of FCA in partner and other HE institutions, other STEM fields and other countries. This will also raise the competences of the HE institutions to successfully implement other blended learning techniques, which has in light of the COVIS 19 epidemic, found to be very important and challenging.The consortium consists of three HEI with Polymer Technology courses (from Slovenia, Austria and Hungary) and two partners with experiences and know-how in FCA design and implementation, as well as design and implementation of trainings in this topic and in ICT tools available for designing quality e-content and learning paths (from Slovenia and Belgium). The project will deliver and disseminate the following outputs: a new FCA concept for HE science and engineering courses, on-line FCA training course and description, evaluation and dissemination of case studies implemented during the time of the project and presented in the Case study Report. The intellectual outputs will not only be available to partner organisations, but will be disseminated via the project webpage and social media activities as well as at several multiplier events (in all partner countries) to other HEIs and other education institutions as well. They will be available in English, Slovene, German, Dutch and Hungarian, not only fort he duration of the project, but also after its complition. Furthermore the project includes a FCA face to face training, where the involved educators from partner HE institutions will be facilitated in designing the FCA in their courses, including the design of the e-content. The participants will then pilotly implement the courses, which will be presented in the Case study report.With dissemination activities of the project outcomes, educators from other HEIs in partner and nonpartner countries and consequently their students, will benefit as well. With the described, evaluated and presented case studies of the FCA implementation in a variety of very different science and engineering courses and in all partner languages, the educators will be able to relate to the pilot implementation and their outcomes, use the developed freely available tools, which will foster the faster and successful uptake of this innovative pedagogy. This is very important since research has shown that the engineering HE programs are lagging behind other disciplines and levels of education in implementing the FCA approach and that for the approach to yield the desired outcomes, a very important prerequisite is motivating and equipping the educators with the mindset and the didactical, pedagogical and technical skills.Their will be positive impact on research results as well, since most of the research on FCA has been done outside EU and very little research has been done on the HE level and focusing on the impact on educators and not only students.
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write('<div id="oa_widget"></div>');
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.openaire.eu/index.php?option=com_openaire&view=widget&format=raw&projectId=erasmusplus_::2607020461c7767dd7b511bb0c7d2118&type=result"></script>');
-->
</script>