I CEU Congress on Educational and Teaching Innovation: sharing experiences to improve teaching quality

CEU has held this 20^th July an encounter to share experiences on teaching innovation between the members of the educational community. The encounter has focused not only on the use of TIC but also on the design of teaching strategies to improve educational quality.

The intention of the I Congress on Educational and Teaching Innovation has been to increase students’ motivation, to enhance the human teaching dimension – focusing on the person who learns – as well as to reinforce the external projection of the CEU as a leading institution in educational and teaching innovation.   

Professors representing all CEU educational areas have taken part and already amount to 25 centres. Therefore for the first time, the three CEU Universities have joined the 10 CEU Schools, the Vocational Training and Postgraduate Centres to share online their experiences.

One hundred and seventy innovation projects have been presented during this Congress promoted by teachers and administration and services staff from different CEU centres. All of them are a good example of CEU’s commitment to innovation as evidenced by the quick adaptation to the new situation of these last months. In this context of digital transformation, interesting experiences have appeared which have been shared by our teachers in the Congress.

A comprehensive and transversal vision of the most innovative trends

The encounter has developed seven subject areas as it has been decided to organize the content by topics rather than by centres. Among them we highlight the instruments which are all the innovation tools within the teaching and learning environment as well as the use of multimedia, gamification strategies or flipped classroom. Moreover it has dealt with the role of simulations; very used in CEU Universities at practice facilities are now especially useful to solve problems, challenges and for project-based learning. Also, mainstreaming has been another axis. Without doubt it is a proposal that looks into the future thanks to synergies between degrees, shared subjects or pairs of complementary subjects boosted by CEU Universities.

Learning environments either physical or human, formal or informal, learning and services, the basis of the CEU model which refers to training through solidary and social actions, teaching management and the generation of innovative processes have been all other topics discussed during the Congress.

The double presence model requires more innovation than ever

All shared experiences enrich the model of double presence that will be implemented at CEU Universities next year with new Hyflex classrooms as major asset. Thanks to technology (touch screen, two cameras, microphone and screen) students may carry out a synchronous and asynchronous follow-up as required by the circumstances.

Without doubt in order to innovate it is essential to compare experiences in class and models with other educational agents. CEU group has an advantage in this sense as it is integrated by universities, schools and education centres covering all educational stages.