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DITEPRACT – Digital and Hybrid Teaching and Learning of Practical Skills in Higher Education

Project/agreement No.
2020-1-FI01-KA226-HE-092515
Project funding
263 252.00 EUR
Project manager
Project realization
01.03.2021. - 28.02.2023.

Aim

The DITEPRACT project aims to develop high quality innovative hybrid and digital teaching strategies to support the learning of practical skills in higher education and to support teacher competence in practically-oriented distance teaching and learning. Experiences in the area of social and health care education during the COVID-19 crisis showed that distance learning concerning practically oriented teaching and learning among students in areas where practical skills and hands-on competencies are crucial, were especially challenging and new solutions are needed.

Objectives
- Explore and map the experiences, current activities, and practices of digital online technology in subject-specific practical teaching, training, and learning in HE in social sciences and health care;
- Collaborate on developing new concepts and models for digital pedagogical competencies, innovative online resources, and tools for teachers by sharing resources, expertise, and best practices;
- Develop and implement guidelines and best practices of innovative hybrid and online teaching, training, and learning of practical skills to support teachers' digital pedagogical competencies and students' learning.

Description

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced difficulties and constraints that affect the ability of European higher education to maintain classic learning models. This has reinforced the need for institutes of higher education to integrate virtual learning into their plans. As access to campuses and in-person learning environments has been limited, traditional and standard simulations that are used to train basic or continuous professional practical skills have had to be rethought and adapted to be taught online or in a hybrid model. New scenarios have also had to be developed that are suitable for existing digital tools, or tools that are still in development.

Therefore, it is crucial to produce and develop practical competence learning scenarios (pedagogical-didactic materials) that are suitable for virtual learning environments (hybrid learning). With this, we hope to increase European teachers', students', and health care professionals' digital skills and contribute to the innovation of pedagogical concepts and models that can be used in virtual learning environments. We intend for European higher education institutions to integrate these scenarios into health science students' training and guide teaching practices in digital support using the scenarios that have been developed. Achieving this objective will be possible with the development of a digital tool that aggregates and makes these various scenarios available.

The primary target group for DITEPRACT is teachers and supervisors in higher education from six universities. Around 200 teachers from partner universities will take part in workshops and competence development activities. Several student groups from each university will be actively involved in the pilot studies.

Five partnering universities are taking part in this project:

  1. Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Lithuania
  2. Mälardalen University, Sweden
  3. Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra, Portugal
  4. Baskent University, Turkey
  5. Riga Stradiņš University, Latvia
  6. Arcada Univeristy, Finland

Project Activities

  • The first DITEPRACT Transnational Meeting was held in Västerås (Sweden), 12-13 January 2021

Project Website

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