Learn.Inc

Description

The current proposal aims to advance teaching and learning innovation in the partner HEIs in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Turkey, through cross-institutional collaboration, knowledge sharing and networking. It extends beyond academia and seeks inspiration, feedback and validation from local communities and stakeholders.

 Learn.Inc focuses on fostering creativity and redesigning learning spaces through challenge-based learning (CBL) for graduate-level students (MA and PhDs); more specifically, we aim to promote innovation in student-centered learning and teaching, with students co- designing flexible and modular e-learning formats that are developed in response to pertinent societal issues Through competitions which will be conducted during the project, local university-led alliances are built to tackle real-life community issues and at the same time strengthen the practical dimension of the learning process.

Learn.Inc draws upon the applicability of challenge-based methods of learning for the field of social sciences and humanities. Through the project results – a virtual Sandbox, an Incubator and an open digital archive -the project contributes to the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem, connecting staff, students and infrastructure of the partner HEIs.  Thus, the project team thinks the proposal as a practical step to face some of the inherent weaknesses in the university curricula in Southeast Europe (SE): low labor market relevance, weak communication with stakeholders from business and industry, gaps between theory-centered training and practical skills, soft-skills inadequate to the sharply changing socio-economic landscape in Europe, lags in the versatility of digital culture of the students. 

The main outcomes of Learn.Inc are to:

• More strategic and integrated use of ICTs and open educational resources (OER) in education & training;
• Increased awareness of social challenges and redesigning learning pathways for students through community engagement and service learning;
• Development of pedagogy and expertise in the use of digital tools and the co-creation and innovative use of digital education content.
• Support the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem, by building capacity and critical understanding on how to exploit the opportunities offered by digital technologies for teaching and learning at all levels. 

Participants (target groups):

• Higher education institutions, local research & training institutes,
• MA and PhD students, researchers, faculty
• Civil society organizations, local communities in the partner countries.