The COVID-19 tsunami had relevant effect on the traditional practices of learning and teaching, changing in a radical way the relation between teacher and student. This revolution brought the real introduction of the online practice, extremely relevant during the lockdowns. In this renewed learning perspective, the blended and distance learning are becoming even more relevant.
TUNED project intends to provide an innovative solution that meets the professors needs in higher education contexts, creating a new training course for
academic fostering their teaching skills based on a collaborative learning approach.
TUNED promotes a lifelong learning dimension in the HE context in approaching fluid classrooms, providing new and innovative pedagogical tools based on rooted psychological constructs on self-regulation learning.
TUNED name comes from the focus on self-regulation learning by a “self-tuning” in the learning processes. The “tuning” also refers to the music instruments played in an orchestra: a good resonance could emerge only when all instruments are “tuned”, creating a (cooperative) harmonic sound, as in all classrooms, included the virtual one. The general and concrete objectives of TUNED project are to:
Digital competences become an essential for the teachers, in all the contexts and grades. Teachers, professors and lecturers should be provided by the minimal digital skills in order successfully to manage an online classroom. Hence the digital competences are not unique elements in this context: it is
impossible to replicate the face to face (f2f) teaching experience in an online interaction. When digital component of education emerges more, focus is needed on students’ attention, motivation and on socio-emotional aspects of teaching and learning. Self-regulated learning (SRL) provides efficient strategies in online teaching and, socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL) in collaborative learning.
The project TUNED aims at providing an innovative short training course for academic staff (professors, teachers, lecturers, PhD students) in order to foster their teaching skills based on a collaborative learning and socially shared regulation theoretical frameworks.
As previously described, the ability to manage classes with students that learn in hybrid and blended environments, becomes strategic for the in-service lecturers and the professors of tomorrow. TUNED project promotes a lifelong learning dimension in the higher education context in approaching fluid classrooms, providing new and innovative pedagogical tools based on rooted psychological constructs on self-regulation learning. The idea is to provide professors in HEIs with new tools for managing blended classes in all the disciplines. The TUNED project will impact directly on professors in HEIs that teach in different subjects; and to the teaching training programme, causing a cascade impact on the students both on universities and schools.
TUNED project will deliver a mini-MOOC in order to meet the learning needs of the professors that do not devote timeslots for the improvement of its teaching practices. The training programme and the lessons will be co-created with the professors itself, supporting a real student-centred curriculum. The learners (professors) will become next creators of contents, bringing their experiences “on the field” and presenting the best practices to other students (teachers in a broad sense).
The MOOC delivered in the TUNED project will also embed a serious game for training experientially professors on collaborative learning in their teaching practice. The serious game will allow the professors/lecturers to directly apply the lessons learnt in the slides and videos from the MOOC.
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
2021-IT02-KA220-HED-000032188