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Description
Tackling the specific challenges faced by the partner HEIs, with increased complexity in Romania, of students and teachers having to perform in a digital environment without having good knowledge, the capacity, and prior practice of using their digital skills for educational purposes, the VR-classrooms project aims at developing innovative practical solutions for learning in virtual-classrooms.
Objective 1: Enhancing the quality of education in the digital era for HEIs
Objective 2: Strengthen the cooperation between education and the world of work
Objective 3: Increase the learning and teaching mobility between HEIs
Target groups: students, teachers, researchers, the world of work.
Intellectual outputs to be elaborated:
IO1 Study on Learning Outcomes Assessment in Virtual Classrooms
IO2 Study on Reflective Learning in Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Virtual Classrooms
IO3 Two scientific papers, submitted to peer-review publications by the end of the project: Cultural Understanding of Teamwork Dynamics in Transnational Virtual Classrooms; Reflective Learning in Virtual Classrooms
Transnational learning activities will involve 94 students, teaching staff and researchers, local experts, and a Norwegian company developing technological solutions for the use of VR/AR in education;
The students develop transversal competencies required on the labor market and increase their employability: digital skills, social skills, international experience, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural teamwork, autonomy, professional integrity, community needs-oriented.
The teachers and researchers of the VR-classrooms project will use the transnational learning activities for developing innovative practices of learning and teaching based on the advanced technology of communication across distance.
Summary of project results
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the growth of interest in practical solutions in the field of digitalization of education. The universities adopted various degrees of virtually, from face-to-face to hybrid, remote or exclusive online. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) adopted the scenario of altering face-to-face with hybrid activities, while the West University of Timisoara (WUT) adopted the fully online scenario, with teachers and students not having good knowledge, the capacity, and prior practice of using their digital skills in an exclusive virtual learning environment. Tackling these specific challenges faced by the partner HEIs, with increased complexity in Romania, the VR-classrooms project aims at increasing the quality of education by testing, analysing, and developing practical solutions for learning in a virtual environment, in the setting of a joint transnational experiential laboratory for Norwegian and Romanian students.
The project strengthens the cooperation between higher education and the world of work by including the active involvement of local experts from organizations providing social and work mediation services to disadvantaged people. The experts provided first-hand information and an in-depth understanding of the real cases studied by the NTNU-UVT mixed groups of students to develop further project-based practical solutions. The project sustained learning and teaching mobility between students, teachers, and academic staff from partner HEIs.
The activities organized by our project were collaborative international learning activities: C1 International Summer School in Social Anthropology and C2 UVT-NTNU Joint Course, where UVT and NTNU students participated in mixed study groups, developed team-based projects in experiential, cross-disciplinary, and cross-cultural learning context, by learning, communicating and collaborating together and reached a higher degree of transversal competencies (soft skills as communication, collaboration in teams, digital skills, cultural understanding of international work relations and reflective learning skills).
The students, teachers, researchers, and local experts were directly involved in the learning activities and the learning process was continuously monitored and evaluated by the research team of the project.
Based on the data collected from these collaborative international learning activities of C1 and C2, the project partners'' research team developed an empirical research design and conducted it during the entire learning process and shortly after to measure the impact of these innovative learning methods on the HE student''s success in developing professional and transversal competencies.
The documentary and curricular design phases of these C1 and C2 learning activities constituted the structure of the first intellectual output and deliverables of our project: IO1 "STUDY ON LEARNING OUTCOMES’ ASSESSMENT IN VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS", .
Further, based on the empirical research conducted during the learning process of the C2 UVT-NTNU Joint Course, the second intellectual output IO2 was elaborated: IO2 "STUDY ON REFLECTIVE LEARNING IN CROSS-CULTURAL AND CROSS-DISCIPLINARY VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS". Finally, the innovative teaching and learning methods tested, implemented, and assessed through the empirical research, together with the importance of the development of reflective learning competence for all higher education graduates provided us with the evidence-based research results to jointly elaborate the third intellectual output IO3: "Exploring Virtual Reflective Learning Experiences in Higher Education" and "Immersive Team-based Learning in Transnational Virtual Classrooms"
The two collaborative transnational learning activities implemented within the project were integrated into the educational offer of the two partner HEIs and were continued after the project implementation.
Impact on STUDENTS: The UVT and NTNU students practiced and developed transversal competencies that increase their employability, such as social skills; experiential and reflective learning; teamwork in inter-disciplinary and international groups; cultural understanding of international work relations; digital skills by using exclusive digital tools, platforms, virtual-reality to communicate and collaborate across the 2500 km distance and to create digital content, to analyse data and present their jointly elaborated project results; capacity of responding deadlines; flexibility and adaptability; solving complex social problems; raise awareness and voicing the needs of disadvantaged people; and express their cultural identity.
Impact on the WORLD OF WORK: The local experts representing Romanian non-governmental organizations, companies, and public institutions involved in the learning process of the C1 Summer School and C2 Joint Course directly collaborated with the UVT and NTNU students and teachers, being involved in all the phases of the learning process, including the assessment of the students joint projects results, being empowered in relation with academia and understanding their role in contributing at the learning objectives for students and academic fields related with contemporary central social problems.
Impact on TEACHERS: Co-creating, curricular designing, testing, and practicing evidence-based innovative teaching and learning methods for the virtual environment through advanced technologies of communication and collaborative learning across distances responded to one of the biggest challenges in the field of HE education. The collaborative transnational learning activities C1 Summer School and C2 UVT-NTNU Joint Course, together with the open educational resources produced in the frame of our project contributed to the teacher’s professional development and made a relevant contribution to the challenges addressed by the project.
Summary of bilateral results
The NTNU - UVT project team jointly elaborated, tested, implemented, and truly integrated into their universities'' educational offer collaborative transnational learning activities for students C1 International Summer School and C2 UVT-NTNU Joint Course. C1 and C2 were already organized for the second time, after the funding period:C1 second edition, June 2023: https://avizier.uvt.ro/listing/west-university-of-timisoara-summer-school-5th-edition-material-video/C2 second edition, October 2023-January 2024: https://dct23.uvt.ro/DCT2023/lista2_discipline.phpBoth C1 and C2 will continue in the future academic years.The NTNU - UVT project team jointly elaborated 7 scientific publications tackling the challenges of digitalization of education and collaborative international learning interventions, on specific methods, techniques, best practices, and digital tools suitable for learning, teaching, and assessment in virtual classrooms. All these publications are OERs for the use of education professionals.