From Classroom to Collaboratorium: Rethinking Learning Spaces in European Joint Masters
Best practices From Classroom to Collaboratorium: Rethinking Learning Spaces in European Joint Masters Users: Training Providers (Private), Training Providers (Public) | Theme: Programme Development | Action: Education programme/course | Beneficiaries: Learners (STEM background), Learners (Non-STEM background). EURIDICE EURIDICE Emiliano Grimaldi Pietro Nunziante Contr: Anna Bon, Hans Akkermans In international joint master studies, students/learners and educators are inherently spread over different locations and countries. Only remote/online teaching is not a good educational approach. Community formation through in-person and face-to-face contact and collaborative work are also needed, and must be blended with remote virtual components.Students with different educational backgrounds, from different institutions, countries and cultures, collaborate in challenge-based master-level research and educational projects for societal impact. Building a community of learners is key to successful learning. The challenge? How can we build and educate young professionals to be both skilled and reflective for the Digital Society? How should these innovative curricula look like? How can we give our students a sense of belonging to a group, in an international, digitally connected context? How can we avoid that every student is working together while being alone behind their computer screen? Our solution Our proposed solution was coined: Collaboratorium. This is both a hybrid digital/physical interconnected workspace, and an educational concept. It combines onsite in-presence classrooms and workspaces, connected via digital collaboration bridges. In a Collaboratorium approach students tackle real-world “wicked” problems and work in small interdisciplinary, and often transdisciplinary teams, in the design of socio-technical solutions, through user-centered and community-centered approaches. Outcomes What have we already achieved through the implementation of the educational concept of the Collaboratorium? To gain and share experiences with this innovative educational concept, EURIDICE partners have implemented a series of pilots, through master projects. All projects embody the societally-oriented ambitions and are related to the Sustainable Development Goals. The idea is to co-design and build digital, socio-technical solutions for real world problems formulated with partners in the Global South. Our SME consortium partners are co-supervising a number of these projects, related to food security, health and wellbeing, and adaptation to climate change. Preliminary outcomes, as of 1 February 2025: 15 master theses, produced through this educational concept. Key takeaways Virtual education is efficient to train people remotely, however, presential collaboration is important for human well-being and enhances learning capacity and creativity. We advise to design your education such that groups are together in one space, while virtually communicating with other groups who are remote. A Collaboratorium requires a careful design of both physical spaces, digital international collaboration tools, and virtual spaces in an integrated whole. Learn more here
Denmarks’s responsive policy approaches for rapid accreditation in vocational and higher education
In 2013, the Accreditation Act in Denmark, led to a shift in accreditation of courses, in particular from programme-based to institutional accreditation.
The institutional accreditation process evaluates the quality assurance systems of higher education institutions, focusing on whether they are well-documented and effective in enhancing programme quality. The Danish Accreditation Institute works closely with an expert panel to ensure thorough assessments.
The process results in an accreditation report that is handed over to the Accreditation Council. Based on the report, the council makes a decision on whether to classify the institution as ‘self-accrediting institution’. What this entails, is that the institution can make changes to existing programmes as they please, as long as the changes do not change a programme’s identity.