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Teaching and Learning Unite! - Student interaction in the virtual international project INSPIRED

The Unite! European University Alliance welcomes all partner’s teaching staff (including Ph.D. students and postdocs involved with teaching, lecturers, other teaching staff, as well as faculty) to a series of pedagogical events, a series of activities designed to share and develop teaching and learning in an international setting. The activities, courses and training events are run by pedagogical experts from the partner universities and are provided free of charge to the Unite! community.

Time: Thu 2021-05-20 14.00

Location: Virtual workshop

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Pedagogical Activity 6: It's an amazing experience – Student interaction in the virtual international project INSPIRED
Hosting university: TU Darmstadt
May 20, 2021, 14:00 CEST (single session of approx. 105 min)

INSPIRED (International Project Week for Interdisciplinary Research-Oriented Digital Learning) builds on a long tradition of international and interdisciplinary projects at TU Darmstadt. Coordinated by the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Biology, and Materials and Earth Sciences, the short-term summer exchange program comprises two phases: a virtual e-Learning “Prep phase” and the so-called “Do phase” – originally, a three-week summer school that was held on-site in Darmstadt during the first edition of the program in 2019. In the e-Learning course, the participants of disparate academic backgrounds prepare independently to complete the task that awaits them during the main summer event. The primary aim of the “Do phase” is to investigate an unusual and challenging (bio)engineering issue together – in international and interdisciplinary project teams.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, INSPIRED 2020 was redesigned from its original blended format into an exclusively virtual course offer.

In the workshop, we will present how the digital working environment described above of the Virtual Team Project was designed and what concrete impulses and visual tools were used to support collaboration and interaction in INSPIRED. The participants will get an overview and the opportunity to try out selected tools for interaction in small groups.

Our aim is to stimulate our workshop’s participants to create their own team student projects in an interactive virtual working environment. Thus, we wish to share the good pedagogical practice concept developed at TU Darmstadt. While exemplified by INSPIRED 2020, it is applicable to a variety of teaching contexts – be it local or international, field-specific or interdisciplinary, as well as any digital teaching activities that stand to benefit from stimulation of collaboration and interaction between students.

Target group:
The workshop is designed for scientific and didactic university staff and student assistants interested in fostering interaction in diverse student teams (e.g., various national and/or academic backgrounds) in a virtual context.

Contact person:
Agata Staniek Ph.D., Maik Mendler, M.Sc., INSPIRED program coordination
Dr. Andrea Dirsch-Weigand, Didactic Advice & Support
Email: staniek@bio.tu-darmstadt.de

To register (deadline May 5th) and read more about this workshop:
Link to "It's an amazing experience – Student interaction in the virtual international project INSPIRED"

To read more about the series "Teaching and Learning Unite!":
Link to Teaching and Learning Unite!