How to get started with INVEST pedagogy? Where to find information on teacher mobility? Who to contact when you have problems with Moodle? A new lecturer starting to teach on INVEST specialisation years may face many practical challenges. In order to help him/ her get started, we have created a tool called INVEST Teacher’s Handbook.
INVEST, the Innovations of Regional Sustainability European University Alliance is a consortium of five universities. During the first project period one of its main tasks was to create joint degrees and 10 specialisation year programmes. Five educational institutions with different operating cultures, rules and timetables can sometimes create quite big challenges. Especially, when you have to organize a functioning entity where everyone knows what, when and how to act. INVEST Teacher’s Handbook is developed to facilitate cooperation and solve practical problems in the implementation of the training.
INVEST Teacher’s Handbook is a tool planned to support teachers in systemic piloting of INVEST specialisation years. The aim of the handbook is to provide teachers with the information they need in an easily accessible form. The material can also be used as orientation material for new INVEST teachers. In addition, the Handbook can be a useful tool for project staff, student administration and mobility office staff within the INVEST network. This can be especially useful now that INVEST network is expanding with three new partners stepping in.
Collaborative content development
INVEST Teacher’s Handbook has been created as a joint effort between all participating universities. It is one of the key results in the Work Package 4.1 that concentrated in creating sustainable INVEST tools. Every partner university nominated a responsible person for the team and the planning of the Handbook was carried out in team meetings. The partner universities were responsible for creating content on their own areas of responsibility. For example, University of Thessaly created content on Virtual Campus, University of Agribusiness and Rural Development wrote a chapter on INVEST Moodle and Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences provided materials and videos on INVEST pedagogy and curriculum development. There was also cooperation with other INVEST project teams. The chapters related to student and staff mobility have been created in co-operation with the INVEST Mobility Team and the chapters related to marketing have been created in co-operation with the INVEST Marketing Team.
Placed on INVEST Moodle Platform, the material is easily accessible to all teachers. The Handbook consists of the following chapters:
INVEST Teacher’s Handbook presents the teachers with the basic facts of the INVEST network, its goals and operations. The Handbook provides the teachers with the key elements of INVEST pedagogy and Living Labs. It also guides them in organising thesis work, carrying out assessment and gathering student feedback. Teachers can also find practical information about INVEST learning environments and digital tools (i.e. Virtual Campus and INVEST Moodle) and student application and admission. New INVEST teachers can find orientation materials both in video and text form. The material can be also used to refresh one’s knowledge on INVEST pedagogy and curriculum planning.
Boosting activity in social media
One of the most important goals for INVEST is to increase student mobility. European University Alliances aim at reaching 50% of students in their activities. INVEST teachers play a central role in marketing the programmes. They are encouraged to disseminate the teaching activities and market the programmes e.g. on social media platforms. Since the INVEST network and its programmes are new, active marketing is needed in order to attract large student numbers. INVEST Teacher’s Handbook provides the teachers with a simple toolkit to marketing and dissemination.
In order to gather student feedback, INVEST partners have created a joint feedback form which can be used at the end of the specialisation studies. A joint feedback form and process increase the comparability and quality of INVEST studies. INVEST student feedback questionnaire measures student satisfaction in relation to the following topics:
- presentation of the content and objectives of the study units
- knowledge and skills acquired (i.e. INVEST competences)
- development of the professional competence
- working methods
- co-operation with other students
- work-based learning
- information systems used
- services (e.g., student services, mobility services, ICT-services, library)
- communication related to studies
- counselling and support
- assessment and feedback
The student feedback is used to develop the teaching and the INVEST programmes.
To promote inclusion in teaching, we have created Power Point and Word templates that pay attention to accessibility. By using these materials, teachers can easily make their teaching more accessible to various types of students.
Continuous development
The INVEST Teacher’s handbook is tested during the piloting phase and will be developed further based on user experiences. For every chapter, we have named a person who is responsible for updating the material regularly. During the first phase of the project, we have concentrated on creating INVEST specialisation years. Therefore, this material concentrates on the specialisation years. A lot of the material, however, could also be used and developed further to serve the purposes of other INVEST studies during the second phase of the INVEST project, INVEST 2.0.
How to access?
You can find information about the INVEST Teacher’s Handbook on the INVEST alliance website, including login instructions for accessing the Handbook on the INVEST Moodle platform.
To access the handbook, please request login credentials from Delyan Placvkov, University of Agribusiness and Rural Development: dplachkov(at)uard.bg
Authors:
Marjo Nenonen, Head of Educational Development, Karelia University of Applied Sciences
Riina Korhonen, Project Coordinator, Karelia University of Applied Sciences
Mervi Heikkinen, Head of Education, Karelia University of Applied Sciences
Image by jcomp on Freepik