Teaching and E-Learning Advances in European Mobility Space (TALARIA)
The high competition on the European labor market forces the need of increasing the quality of education. The higher quality of education at European level requires intense activities aimed at exchange of experience and skills in the process of building the Europe of Knowledge. The current higher education development strategy in Poland anticipates imminent introduction of obligatory mobility for academic staff. However, Polish academic teachers prove low mobility, which, in turn, leads to limiting relations with global and European academic community.
The reason for low mobility may have its roots in a fear of the new, unfamiliar cultural and professional environments. It is often the result of insufficient knowledge of working standards abroad, difficulties in reconciliation of family life with the change of residency, or physical dysfunctions when some health impediments make it impossible to travel. The target group of this project is the academic staff, which is not mobile, but objectively and potentially has the ability to work at foreign universities or research centers and participate in exchange programs as well.
At the first stage, the objective of this project is to exchange professional experience among the universities and academic centers, which are highly involved in mobility programs and development of e-‐learning, perceived as implementation of modern methods and ICT tools in supporting the didactic process. The next step is to develop a comprehensive knowledge base for mobile teaching staff, considering the peculiarities of different educational systems, organizational requirements, and cultural backgrounds identified in each individual partner countries.
Realization of the project in the first part will take place through the study visits in partner universities, which represent different educational systems, with the goal to identify the specificity of the national labor market, traditions, academic conventions, cultural differences, social structure and mentality. After that, the juxtaposition of mobility areas will be presented in the form of comparable e-‐learning courses, with the possibility of creating the conditions for starting the virtual mobility and obtaining a certificate of EuroPass Mobility.
The expected results of this project are acquisition and organization of knowledge about the academic staff functioning on the European labor market, the partnership and further cooperation in the area of mobility and the e-‐learning development, a comprehensive set of e-‐learning courses, which will enable the dissemination of acquired knowledge within the project. Another important effect is providing the conditions for virtual mobility, and thus encouraging the openness to the mobility itself. The opportunity of obtaining EuroPass Mobility certificates should also increase the competitiveness of the European academic staff on the labor market.
As part of the project results’ dissemination, there will be sharing of experience and knowledge with partners through e-‐learning courses, publication of research results at international conference, and promotion of academic staff exchanges in the virtual mobility through integrated e-‐learning platforms.