For higher education institutions to effectively play a role in increasing graduates' employability across the EU, it is necessary to overcome their institutionalisation and compartmentalisation of knowledge within the traditional disciplinary frameworks and embrace interdisciplinary approaches to education in a digital era. In line with this need, the main objective of the project is to develop, promote and integrate innovative interdisciplinary, collaborative content-based approaches to language learning and teaching. This objective will be achieved by redesigning the learning environment through enhancing in-class HE instruction with innovative online modules in English, Spanish and/or German as a medium of instruction. The online modules will combine skill and content-based approaches with foreign language learning and teaching and will enable students to individualise and internationalise learning pathways through the promotion of collaborative digital practices. Additionally, the project enables the validation and harmonisation of assessment frameworks across partner curricula in EU HEIs through the internationalisation of HE shared content. The direct project beneficiaries will be 24 HE educators based at the project partner universities. Approximately 600 students across the partner HEIs will be directly involved in using the innovative online modules produced during the project period. Indirect project beneficiaries include approximately 140 other HE staff members and educators, who are involved in follow-up trainings and workshops, as well as about 1500 new students per year at the partner HEIs. The legacy of this project will be a project website providing innovative open educational resources for language and skill/content based blended e- and m-learning resources including: innovative online modules, methodological guidelines for educators, and case studies to guarantee further post-project dissemination and the replication of best practice. The project activities will increase the human capital of teachers who will share their knowledge not only by training others but also by influencing students and future teachers in EU HE and lifelong training projects. Finally, HE students will be better trained in interdisciplinary approaches and 21st century transversal skills and thereby more employable across the EU. This project has been developed in close consultation and cooperation with the partnered educational institutions from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal, and Spain, as well as other relevant stakeholders. Each partner is a recognised HE institution with long-standing expertise in foreign language, content and digital teaching, transversal skills, and innovation.
The main priority of the project was to create an open educational environment which promoted Content and Language Integrated Learning in HE through digital technologies enhancing interdisciplinary approaches and honing transversal skills of young people to succeed in a globalised job market. The specific priority of the project was to improve the quality and effectiveness of pedagogies in the participating HE institutions and beyond by creating, sharing and disseminating interdisciplinary collaborative approaches to learning and teaching through a tailor-made digital learning platform with innovative online modules. Close connection of foreign language and content-based learning and teaching reinforced by electronic, mobile and blended learning in the project was to meet the increasing demands for fostering 21st century transversal skills such as learning to learn, intercultural communicative competence, problem solving, teamwork, creative and critical thinking, and digital literacy. Supporting a multilingual European approach by using English as well as Spanish and German in the learning and teaching settings, the project contributed to collaboration, internationalisation and interdisciplinary pedagogies.
For higher education institutions to effectively play a role in increasing graduates' employability across the EU, it is necessary to overcome their institutionalisation and compartmentalisation of knowledge within the traditional disciplinary frameworks and embrace interdisciplinary approaches to education in a digital era. In line with this, the main objective of the project was to develop, promote and integrate innovative interdisciplinary, collaborative content-based approaches to language learning and teaching and offer methodology and materials relevant for HE including digital features for blended learning. The project addressed the lack of in-service support facilitating efficient international cooperation amongst HE educators from different fields, in particular language and content specialists; missing opportunities to develop skills enabling HE educators to innovate; a need for greater investment in educators’ skills for using ICT in teaching; as well as a shortage of validated assessment frameworks