Workshops: practical knowledge and the shaping of an InnovaT learning community
“All the teachers are exceedingly committed. They immediately joined this learning expedition as ambassadors of a higher mission and not only participated and learned, but also contributed to thinking about how we could continue this quest together in the future,” says Liliya Terzieva from the Breda University of Applied Sciences.
In order to delve further into the contents of the Mooc, the InnovaT project held four workshops: “Teaching as facilitation and design,” “Recording educational videos,” “Gamification and playfulness,” “Gold standard in virtual teaching,” and “Use of collaborative tools in education,” which were held consecutively in November by the European universities of the consortium.
InnovaT partner university professors from Peru and Chile were connected to this initiative, including a total of sixty people in both workshops. “Based on the preceding MOOC in which they participated, we designed a survey to find out which topics would be most applicable and valuable to teachers. Each of the two workshops was conducted in a format that allowed no more than 30 participants in each and to ensure the best possible interaction,” says Liliya Terzieva, coordinator of the workshops.
The workshops are characterized by being dynamic and practice-oriented, so they encourage participation and an active attitude on the part of the attendees, “all of the speakers were very engaged, interested and asked a lot of questions. There was a positive atmosphere throughout all the workshops and, even though everything was virtual, the participants really felt absolutely engaged and passionate about the topics and the interactions with each other,” says Terzieva.
Participating professors came from very diverse professional backgrounds, from different faculties, and most of them did not know each other before the workshops, which allowed them to get to know each other and form alliances, giving way to the creation of an “InnovaT learning community.”
“We can say that all the teachers are exceedingly committed. They immediately joined this learning expedition as ambassadors of a higher mission and not only participated and learned, but also contributed to thinking about how we could continue this quest together in the future,” says Liliya Terzieva from the Breda University of Applied Sciences. We are currently exploring the possibility of more workshops and how to achieve greater coherence of the community generated,” says Liliya.
Learning about teachers’ experiences
In the workshop “Gamification and playfulness,” the participants joined a game with the aim of experimenting this way of learning to transfer it to their students, “I learned about new tools that will allow me to make my classes more dynamic, considering both face-to-face lessons and those of the current times of pandemic. The gamification module stood out because it gave me good tools to teach my classes,” said Lisia Estay Martínez, a professor in Chile at Universidad de Viña del Mar.
In the workshop “Gold standard in virtual teaching” the participants discussed and applied the concepts presented in module five of the InnovaT MOOC. With the objective of transferring and integrating essential teaching practices into the current virtual teaching and learning environment, according to the Gold Standard PBL model, “the workshop has allowed me to focus the courses in a different way, from their creation to their development in the classroom,” said Mauricio Marrufo Lopez, from Universidad de Lima, Peru.
Also, in the workshop “Use of collaborative tools in education”, new virtual applications were presented, which allow to improve the experience in the virtual classroom such as blackboards and diagrams, documents and forms, “I have used the collaborative tools, and I have incorporated Jamboard, MIRO, Edpuzzle, Mentimeter, among others to my classes”, says Yohana Beltrán from the Universidad Austral de Chile.
The fourth workshop, “Recording educational videos”, focused on approaching the subject of recording from the experience of teachers who have recorded their own videos to be used as a complement to their face-to-face and online teaching, “I find it interesting to use videos and record my own material in my classes, and that students can also do it”, adds Mario Catalán Catalán, from the Universidad de Viña del Mar.
All participants who successfully completed the tasks assigned in each workshop received a certificate of participation and are invited to continue being part of future InnovaT project activities.
