University of Nicosia Partners in a New ERASMUS+ Project: TEACHEX – Teaching Excellence in Israel
The University of Nicosia is engaged as a partner in an Erasmus+ Key Action 2 (Capacity Building in Higher Education) project, entitled “TEACHEX – Teaching Excellence in Israel”, which kicked off in November 2015. The project is led by theInterdisciplinary Centre Herzlya, Israel and involves a total of 14 partners from seven countries. This collaboration was made possible thanks to the efforts of Dr. Philippos Pouyioutas, Vice Rector of Academic Affairs at the University of Nicosia. On behalf of the University of Nicosia, Dr. Pouyioutas is the Coordinator and Main Researcher on the project and is joined by fellow colleagues, Dr. Evi Eftychiou, Head of the Erasmus Office and Erasmus Institutional Coordinator, and Dr. Dimitri Apraksin, Head of the Computer Centre.
The University of Nicosia contribution to TEACHEX will be the development of a model for measuring teaching excellence and developing an online repository for online resources. Consequently, a number of University faculty will be trained on the models/methodology/resources developed during a project meeting/workshop in Cyprus.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Teaching excellence is of primary importance for the learning environment in higher education. Thus, TEACHEX is a project conceived to contribute to the continuous professional development of academic staff by offering adequate support structures (Centers for Teaching Excellence) and innovative, high-quality, flexible programmes designed to promote better teaching and therefore enhanced learning as well.
Other specific goals of the project are:
- To improve quality of education by contributing to university management in accordance with academic staff needs, connecting personal and civic fulfilment with the ‘transferable skills required for a rapidly changing world.
- To develop and deliver training materials and follow up activities for staff working at CTEs.
- To create support structures in CTEs that outline conditions for project sustainability.
- To produce benchmark tools for teaching excellence that serve as medium and long term analysis.
- To disseminate the European experience in teacher training and preparation of documents necessary for enhancing the interaction between the CTEs and other educational key stakeholders in IL.
The main outputs and outcomes are:
- To place sustainable structures for academic professional development in function of academic staff an student needs, connecting personal and civic fulfilment with the ‘transferable skills required for a rapidly changing world.
- To develop and deliver training materials for professional development including e-learning and active education in IL.
- To evaluate the impact of training and use of materials in relationships between continuing education, academic and student groups through the piloting of professional courses.
- To create a digital repository with open educational resources of easy access to all.
- To disseminate outcomes broadly in IL (i.e. website, newsletters, media) and internationally.
- To create informal networks through a social media app generating conditions for sustainability.
PROJECT CONSORTIUM
- Interdisciplinary Centre Herzlya – Israel / Coordinator
- Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design – Israel
- University of Groningen – Netherlands
- EURASHE – Belgium
- University College Cork – Ireland
- Beit Berl College – Israel
- Glasgow Caledonian University – UK
- University of Brighton – UK
- Jagiellonian University in Krakow – Poland
- Ben Gurion University of the Negev – Israel
- Gordon Academic College of Education – Israel
- Oranim Academic College of Education – Israel
- National Union of Israeli students – Israel
- University of Nicosia – Cyprus
The project duration is 36 months and the total project budget is 960,021 Euros.
For more information contact:
Dr. Philippos Pouyioutas ([email protected])
