The project aims to develop a set of tools and guidelines addressed to higher education educators/professors in the field of humanities (literature, history, geography, philosophy etc.) with the goal to improve their ICT skills, teaching performance and consequently the attainment of their students and motivation. Ultimately the project seeks to renovate the classic ways of teaching humanities subjects which are the least likely to be affected by the digital transformation, yet are those that can benefit the most, bringing our cultural heritage to a stake of European economy in different field. As stated by the Working Groups on the Modernisation of Higher Education and Digital Skills and Competences last January 2017 in Malta: “Rapid technological development is transforming the way in which higher education is delivered and students participate. The diversification of the student population requires individualisation of learning, more flexible delivery and a greater focus on pedagogies that provide support for learners.” Although more academic contents and tools are becoming available openly and freely, students will continue to require local support for learning, which underlines the importance of teachers’ pedagogical skills along with field-specific competence. Teaching staff will also need stronger frameworks for assessing students’ learning outcomes as well as the value of different technologies and how or when to use them. Teaching staff needs skills in both digital pedagogy and discipline specific digital competences. Authorities and institutions should prioritise flexible approaches that allow context and discipline specific responses rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. The approach was already stated in the Framework for digitally competent educational organisation (RC 2015) which entails that “teaching and learning is ‘redesigned’ to incorporate digital technologies. Building on relevant research, the organisation promotes a diversity of technology-enabled learning and teaching practices that are flexible, adaptable and engaging”. In the context Humanities and Social Sciences ICT has a valuable role to play. It enriches student’s education and promotes the occurrence of deep and authentic learning (Gilbert & Hoepper, 2014 pp.158). Therefore, the project will investigate on the main challenges faced by teachers in humanities field, find out the most useful and practical tools available and adaptable to different subjects and provide the right training contents and tools to help teachers develop their teaching strategy adopting ICT tools. Objectives/Goals - To improve teachers’ ICT skills and competences - To provide user friendly and adaptable tools to teachers to improve their teaching performances - To improve students’ motivation and engagement Target group Direct: teachers of Higher Education Institutions in the field of humanities studies Activities - Selection of practices and database of available tools - Development of the training plan and contents based on basic programming and coding skills addressed to the target group needs - Pilot test which includes also a mobility experience for teachers - Evaluation of the pilot both from the teachers and students’ point of view Expected results - A set of guidelines on how to include ICT tools in teachers’ pedagogy - A training course on basic programming and coding for teachers - A database of tools to be used by teachers. The project consortium has been selected following the principle of having inside the partnership all the different competences to achieve project results and represent the different European cultures, thus to have enough point of views and achieve outputs with a strong potential of adaptability and transferability. Notably there are four HEIs representing the different fields of the humanities studies from UK, SI, RO, EE. Moreover, there are three different European wide network which represents the HE sectors, Geographers and Digital Education; finally, there is one technical partner which will support the partnership in developing the necessary tools.
The project aimed to develop a set of tools and guidelines addressed to higher education educators/professors in the field of humanities (literature, history, geography, philosophy etc.) With the goal to improve their ICT skills, teaching performance and consequently the attainment of their students and motivation. Objectives/Goals included: To improve teachers’ ICT skills and competence, to provide user-friendly and adaptable tools to teachers to improve their teaching performances, and to improve students’ motivation and engagement. In addition to the project main outcomes, we managed to disseminate the Human Handbook to more than 3000 academics around the world in four languages, which we consider one of the success stories. Although dissemination activities were envisioned, the consortium did not expect to reach academics to this extent.
The project set out to understand, renovate and update the classical ways of teaching in the field of humanities in higher education. The background of the problem lies in the rapid change and digital transformation in humanities and digital competence, which was pointed out by the European Commission working group in 2017 higher education meeting. The reality of the digital transformation became more evident during the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced learning processes to move into digital and online format. The project outcomes support higher educators digital competence in the field of humanities. Furthermore, the published handbook helps to understand the context of digital technologies in humanities and opens the broader background of the future of humanities. The project also addressed the general limitations of professional development in higher education by focusing on digital pedagogy and how to support educators in reflecting their own teaching practices. The project handbook and modules are based on evidence-based teacher-led inquiry, which is aimed to support evidence-based decision-making in professional development.