Colibri will contribute to the Modernisation of European Higher Education by developing new and innovative teaching approaches, increase labour market relevance of education, and promote the take-up of innovative practices in education. Colibri will focus specifically on personalised learning, collaborative learning, and use of ICT. Moreover, Colibri is based on strengthening the link between companies and education by promoting teaching methods,where students work together across disciplines and cultures, on projects based on real-world cases. Colibri follows a yearly cycle of teaching material development, conducting the teaching for a diverse group of students from all universities using blended learning, evaluation, and dissemination. The evaluations and experiences are then taken into account when designing the material for the next cycle. Colibri lasts for 3 years, thus covering 3 cycles. Colibri creates an international living lab based on blended learning, where the teaching methods will be implemented in jointly developed IT-supported course modules. At the same time, they are based on active participation and collaboration between students, and they are personalised in the sense that they accommodate for students with different prerequisites and learning styles, and different specific learning objectives. Another part of the teaching methods is implemented by having students working together across cultural and educational backgrounds on real-world problems defined by companies. The teaching material and results developed through the project, including instructions on how to use the material, evaluations, and comments/suggestions, are made publicly available. This ensures that the results can be exploited both inside and outside of the consortium. Together with a dissemination plan we will reach relevant target groups, including decision makers, and university teachers. A cornerstone in the dissemination plan is to make the participating teachers Colibri Ambassadors, which will help to spread the results and benefits of the project to large groups of university teachers who will benefit from using the methods in their own teaching. All in all, we expect the project will have a significant impact - both on the participants, and on a systemic level. During the lifetime of Colibri, it is expected to reach out to at least 1000 university staff, both from the involved organisations and from outsiders. Furthermore, Colibri will be disseminated to the ICT & entrepreneurial community and to the general public, enhancing the sustainability of its results and the visibility of the ERASMUS+ Programme. The project partners include 7 universities, one research & documentation center, and two companies who ensure that the teaching methods ensure employability, e.g. by the use of real-world cases as part of the teaching. Each cycle involves 2-5 teachers per institution per year, and 4 students per university per year.
The Colibri project was created as a response to some of the main challenges faced by higher educational institutions in Europe: - A wider group of students pursuing educations in the ICT domain fosters a need for more personalised and active learning. - An increasing mobility of students (geographically and between programmes) has led to increasingly diverse backgrounds among students following the same course/eduction, calling for more personalised approaches to learning. - With fast technological developments and the increasing popularity of MOOCS, universities are struggling to find their position on how to benefit from increasing use of ICT in education and make use of Open Educational resources. - There is a need for improving interdisciplinary skills and labour market readiness among the candidates. The aim of Colibri was to contribute to the Modernisation of European Higher Education by developing new and innovative teaching approaches, increase labour market relevance of education, and promote the take-up of innovative practices in education. The project focused mainly on personalised learning, collaborative learning, and use of ICT. Colibri has also been strengthening the link between companies and education by promoting teaching methods where students work together across disciplines and cultures, on projects based on real-world cases. During the implementation of the project it became clear that the international aspects were very appreciated by all participants. The project partners are seven universities, one research and documentation center, and two companies who ensured that the teaching methods support employability, e.g. by the use of real-world cases as part of the teaching. Colibri was organised as a yearly cycle of: (1) Teaching material development (2) Conducting a course on "Future Internet Opportunities" for a diverse group of students from all universities using blended learning (3) Systematic evaluation (4) Dissemination within and beyond the consortium The evaluations and experiences were then taken into account when designing the material for the next cycle. Colibri lasted for 3 years, thus covering 3 cycles. Each cycle involved 2-5 teachers per institution per year, and 3-7 students per university per year. The course on "Future Internet Opportunities" essentially was a living lab in a blended learning setting. The course integrated course modules, which provided background knowledge on technical, social and business aspects of Future Internet Opportunities, with project work based on real-life cases from the participating companies. The course ran through the spring semester, and contained the following elements: Virtual kick-off meeting, virtual phase of studying modules, midway seminar to finish the modules and start the project work, virtual project work phase, and finally the project seminar where the projects were completed and an exam conducted. Students passing the course received 5 ECTS points. There were a total of ten jointly developed IT-supported course modules, each of which could be followed at introductory, basic or advanced levels. These were mainly studied online, based on active participation and/or collaboration between students, and personalised in the sense that they accommodate for students with different prerequisites and learning styles and/or different specific learning objectives. The projects were implemented by having students working together across cultural and educational backgrounds on real-world problems defined by companies. The teaching material and results developed through the project, including instructions on how to use the material, evaluations, and comments/suggestions, are made publicly available using the Creative Commons licensing scheme. This ensures that the results can be exploited both inside and outside of the consortium. Also, additional papers and reports have been written to different target groups including university teachers, the didactical community, and decision makers at e.g. institutional levels. A cornerstone of the dissemination plan was to make the participating teachers Colibri Ambassadors. These have helped to spread the results and benefits of the project to large groups of university teachers who can use the methods in their teaching. Based on the evaluations received we can see that the project had a significant impact on the participants. But we also start seeing an impact on systemic level that exceeded our initial expectation: More than 1.800 university staff has been reached through the Colibri ambassadors, 9 conference papers were published targeting practitioners and the didactical society, and dissemination activities were made for also the ICT & entrepreneurial community and the general public. To learn more about the project, please visit: Website: www.erasmus-colibri.eu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ErasmusColibri/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCACqthyxuIlHaBMgwO1-uvw