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INVEST Teacher’s Hand­book – a tool for systemic pilot­ing and imple­men­ta­tion of INVEST specialisations

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 - What is INVEST? - INVEST orientation - INVEST Pedagogy - Living Labs - Thesis - Assessment - Inclusiveness and accessibility - Open education - Student feedback - Learning environments, tools and platforms - Marketing - Student application and admission - Student mobility services - Teacher and staff mobility
Figure 1. The chap­ters of the INVEST Teacher’s Handbook

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.

Water, Energy, Food, Environmental Nexus: Climate proof Regional Development, Aquaculture and food security and safety, Energy transtion green energies Quality of life: Educator and capacy budg, Ensuring and outy of bulk, Noural and oral hea Entrepreneurship: Cecular Bo-Based Economy, job creation and human capital, New business models and smart technologies, Regonal sustenability deve capital and bio-based industries
Figure 2. Screen­shot of INVEST Teacher’s Hand­book, What is INVEST? Focal Points 
INVEST Orientation This Orientation is aimed at teachers who are going to teach INVEST courses, who have not been involved in the curriculum design. So if you are new to INVEST or want to refresh, this topic is for you! - Introduction to the curriculum model - do not skip - Introduction - Whole tasks, skills hierarchy - Blueprint example - Supportive and Procedural Information - Organizing lessons - Online Workshop Assessments April 2022 - Further information - Evaluation
Figure 3: Screen­shot of INVEST Teacher’s Hand­book, INVEST Orientation

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.

Marketing As a teacher you play a central role in marketing the INVEST specialisation studies When you share information of the project to students and to other teachers and professionals, you increase the impact of the project and motivate students to take part in the activities and courses organised Marketing materials and channels You can find - Flyers for INVEST Specialisation years in the folder: Specialisation years 2023-2024 flyers - INVEST templates and logos for marketing and dissemination activities - Invest website and social media channels - INVEST website - INVEST on Facebook - INVEST on Twitter - INVEST on Instagram - INVEST in Linkedin - Social media Publications Publishing information about the different events and experiences related to INVEST, as well as the specialisation studies in different social media channels is highly recommended, as it helps to organically reach the target audiences. You can disseminate information directly through your own social media channels and accounts, reaching directly stakeholders you have personal connections to, or create posts and send the texts and supporting pictures to your local INVEST PR team contact for publishing them in the INVEST social media channels Use following hashtags in your social media publications #instaliace #europeanuniversities sustainability #TheCompetitiveUniversity
Figure 4: Screen­shot of INVEST Teacher’s Hand­book, Marketing.

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

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