ERASMUS+ Teachex: Teaching excellence in Israel Janina Kahn-Horwitz

Competitive European funded projects Consortia (15-22 HEIs) Learning to work together: extra “Brownie points” for cooperating and helping other institutions.

Other ERASMUS+ funded projects Mobility programs (Malta) Jean Monet

Oranim’s history with ERASMUS+ funded projects We have been part of consortia proposals that didn’t succeed. This February, we submitted as part of 2 and one was accepted: TEACHEX (approx. 94,000 EURO over 3 years, one of 16 institutions)

Main objective of Teachex improve teaching excellence in Israeli HEIs. This complies with the national priority for Israel category B – improving the quality of education and teaching through the use of innovative learning and teaching tools, pedagogic and methodological approaches and permeation of a culture of teaching excellence.

Main goal of Teachex retrain academic staff. Professional development as an element to include in QA processes which is not the case for Israel yet. Israeli partners will share experience and knowledge with partners from EU.

Main goal of teachex Centers of Excellence for Teaching (CETs). These centers will increase the quality of higher education benefitting both staff and students. Preparation of handbooks or guides for best practices in particular areas for teaching development related to learning and teaching methods focusing on active education - providing entrepreneurial skills to students, problem-based solving, project-based solving, case scenarios - and ICT (elearning, mlearning and MOOCs) will contribute to collecting state-of-the art portfolios in pedagogic methodologies.

Main goal of Teachex Another important dimension, which builds upon previous projects is the provision of tools towards internationalization of education related to coping with diversity in the classroom and promoting multi-cultural approaches to teaching and learning and bridging the digital gap (and generation gap) between staff and students. The project also attempts to develop a digital portfolio for teachers and create a tool for their self performance and their evaluation as part of the quality assurance system. Likewise, a digital repository will be created to collect all training materials developed during the project and with easy access for registered users.

Self Assessment tool Will help design strategy, management and structure of the Centers of teacher excellence

Workshops will enhance staff development skills in order to develop the lecturers abilities to look at their students learning processes. pilot the progress done by organising train-the trainer sessions as a dissemination tool, a mobile app will be developed with the help of an Innovative Technology company and selected students so that student and teaching community can converge in creating social media with a social purpose.

3 year plan Publish a special issue with the lessons learned in an educational journal during the 3rd year. Each CTE will elaborate a business plan including activities to develop after the end of the project funding. MILESTONES: YEAR 1 – Appointment of staff at CTEs, Establishment and/or Reinforcement of CTEs, Equipment installed. Development of training materials in 5 areas including workshops in EU and IL, development of website. Management Plan. development of academic staff training structure.

3 year plan YEAR 2 – Development of digital repository, pilot project, development of self-evaluation and benchmarking tools, development of trainings YEAR 3 – Evaluation of training materials and staff training structure, Launching of professional trainings, Development of mobile application, publication of Special issue on TEACHEX, External Evaluation, Results from self-evaluation and benchmarking tools, Sustainable Plans for CTEs.

Dissemination Local and National round tables (6 in Israel) where other Institutes of Higher Education will be invited to debate connected issues. One international conference in the field of improvement of teaching as a way to increase the quality of education with relevant key notes and speakers. The website and social media developed by the Israeli partners will also serve as a means for raising awareness regarding the project and the project results.

Sustainability after the project ends CTE will become permanent structures within each partner institution working institutionally for the dissemination of project results. Each partner university will use the developed training materials to increase the capacity of their teaching staff. train-the-trainer sessions will be organised annually and revised every 2 years. Certificates of participation will be provided to the participants which can be considered as part of the recognition in their professional career.

Sustainability after the project ends The self-evaluation models and surveys from students will be useful tools to observe the impact of the project (e.g. results from students, results from performance indicators, results from satisfaction surveys, number of drop- outs, etc). National level: The CTEs created will be active partners in the forum for teachers centers directed by Prof. Niva Hativa. They will form a platform for educational policy dialogue in terms of innovation in teaching and learning media.

Sustainability after the project ends each CTE will organise marketing campaigns and periods for enrolment to tailor-made training programs benefitting other practitioners in the country. This will have a multiplyer effect in terms of increasing the quality of teaching provision in Israel. Close cooperation with CHE (Malag) will render the visibility efforts more evident.

Sustainability after the project ends international level: The mobile app for Teachex will provide a reusable teaching and learning resource 1) for faculty members to share ideas and to contribute to the sustainability and long-term sharing of effective educational practice and 2) for students through providing opportunities for feedback and the effectiveness of teaching on a module by module/course basis. This will allow students to see and share their learning with their peers within their institutions within Israel and internationally.

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