A Methodological Handbook for a Work-Team Based Learning and Teaching Approach
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A methodological handbook for a work-team based learning and teaching approach The iTHEPHY Collaboration April, 25, 2020 1 Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 The iTHEPHY project 5 3 The platform for enhancing teacher-student collaboration 7 3.1 How to implement an e-learning platform . .7 3.2 Cloud Migration and Software Maintenance . .8 3.3 The Moolde implementation under the iTHEPHY project . .9 3.4 Exercise example in Latex . 10 4 How to implement a Tandem-Project learning and teaching activities 17 4.1 The Tandem-Project in 2018/2019 academic year as an example . 18 4.2 The research projects . 19 5 How to organise a Summer/Winter School 21 5.1 How selecting the right location . 21 5.2 Participants . 21 5.3 A efficient and well oriented agenda . 22 6 Conclusions 23 2 1 Introduction The Innovative Team-Teaching in Physics (iTHEPHY) project is an international high- energy physics teaching program for master's degree students in physics. It started in 2017 and was co-funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union. The careers of students enrolled in physics courses after the degrees normally evolve in an international research context (universities, research institutes, private industries, etc.). However, the small number of exchanges are limited by crossing cultural and lan- guage boundaries, which prevent students and the master courses to have the right level of internationalization during their studies. In order to increase the internationalization of physics master courses and to promote student and staff mobility an international consortium started the iTHEPHY project. The consortium is realized on the basis of strong national synergies between academic and re- search institutions, with the aim of straightening the link between teaching and research. In particular the consortium consists of the following institutions: Alma Mater Studiorum - Universit`adi Bologna (UNIBO) Bologna, Italy; Unversit´eClermont Auvergne (UCA), Clermont-Ferrand, France; Technische Universit¨atDortmund (TUD), Dortmund, Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique and Institute National des physique nucl´eaireet de physique de particules (CNRS/IN2P3), France; Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg, Germany. Thanks to its European flavour founded on a long-term collaboration between all involved institutions the partnerships and activities in the iTHEPHY project motivated the students to be more in favour of mobility. For the realization of the iTHEPHY project innovative student-centered learning method- ologies were developed. A central element were the so called Tandem projects where teams of high qualified European professors and researchers experienced in international research projects drove international teams of students working on specific research tasks. In the Tandem projects both students and teachers improved their collaboration skills. iTHEPHY also included two intensive teaching and learning activities (the ISHEP Sum- mer Schools) where new pedagogical methodologies were tested. These methodologies gave to the student's instruments to develop critical thinking, problem-solving attitude, and collaboration skills, strengthening the links between higher education institutions and the research, enhancing the quality and relevance of students' knowledge and skills. For a successful realization of the iTHEPHY project information and communication technologies (ICTs) were of fundamental importance. Therefore several new ICT tools supporting the teams of students and teachers during the project were developed as drivers of improvements in education. In particular, a customized Moolde platform integrated into a web-based virtual environment with additional tools useful for sharing documents, meeting virtually through chat/video rooms, tracking the project and scheduling meetings was set up. iTHEPHY promotes ICT-based educational tools and content for deep learning and teaching in physics in a digital era. The iTHEPHY Moolde page was partially published, providing access to a broad range of learning and teaching contents. In particular, an exercise database as well as a glossary for high-energy physics were set up. For the exercises different level hints as well as detailed solutions are also available. Furthermore, technical terms occurring in the exercises are auto- linked to the glossary containing plenty of definitions, additional explanations and references to literature. Therefore, the Moolde platform does not only offer valuable resources for the use in university courses but also provides an ideal environment for auto-didactic studying. 3 This handbook aiming at setting out the procedures to be followed to facilitate other master degree in Physics and in more in general of STEM disciplines to achieve the ob- jectives of iTHEPHY. The goal of this document is to provide guidelines to replicate the methodologies. It includes a critical guidance on how to set up a web-based platform with tools developed and tested during the iTHEPHY project; a section dedicated to explain how efficiently organise an intensive learning and teaching activities (i.e. Summer/Winter Schools); a section to guide newcomers to use the tandem-project approach for a team-based learning; a section on methodologies necessary for student's evaluation in order to assess the quality assurance at program implementation level. 4 2 The iTHEPHY project The project aims at building a strategic partnership to promote an innovative educational environment and exchange of good practices in the field of higher education. The project main goal, from the computing point of view, is the development of e-learning tools for teaching particle physics to students attending the second year of the master degree, in order to allow them to work together in real research projects supervised by international teachers and researchers belonging to the iTHEPHY Consortium. The innovative edu- cational approach proposed promotes internationalization, enhances team-work skills and boosts mobility worldwide. The project foresees three so-called Intellectual Outputs: 1. a web-based platform to support the team during the project, which integrates a video web-conference plug-in, a chat room, a shared storage area for files, a scheduler/agenda for planning meetings between teachers and students and a project management tool to effectively organise projects, enabling to sub-tasks assignments and progress track- ing; 2. guided exercises with full solutions on an e-learning platform; 3. a handbook describing the implementation of the project for future replications. iTHEPHY is a project funded by the European Commission on higher education method- ologies with the aim of addressing some of the most urgent priorities, recently pointed out in the Report on Public Consultation of the EU Modernization Agenda for Higher Education (2016) [1]: promoting internationalization, recognition and mobility supporting • changes in line with Bologna principles [2]. This priority is justified by an es- sential need of students enrolled in master courses. After the master degree, students' careers normally evolve in an international research context. Universities, interna- tional research institutes and laboratories, and private industries are the most fre- quent employers. However, the level of labour mobility is limited by cross-cultural and language boundaries, which prevents students from having the right level of in- ternationalization during their studies. In order to overcome this issue, the Consor- tium is realized on the basis of strong international synergies between academic and research institutions, that strengthen the link between teaching and research in an international environment. Its European flavour, rooted in a long lasting collabora- tion between all partners in High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments, such as the ones undertaken at the CERN, strongly motivates students to be more open to EU and non-EU mobility. All these characteristics are key ingredients for successfully promoting the development of international mind-set. The recognition of the training goals, assured by assigning ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) credits, and the mobility required to attend the school, both contribute to overcome language and cultural barriers. Enhancing the quality and relevance of students' knowledge and skills. The • innovative learning and teaching methodologies promoted by iTHEPHY enhance the quality and relevance of student's knowledge and skills. Learning and teaching activi- ties are carried out by teams of highly qualified professors and researchers experienced in international research projects. In this context, both students and teachers will im- prove their collaboration skills. With this goal in mind, iTHEPHY has organised two 5 intensive teaching and learning activities culminated in two editions of the ISHEP Spring School, where the pedagogical methodologies have been tested and refined to be adopted in future editions of the school. The new methodologies provide students with the right instruments to develop critical thinking, problem-solving attitude and collaborative perspectives. Open and innovative practices in a digital era. A fundamental aspect of the • project is the development of ICT tools to support groups of students and teams of teachers during their learning and teaching activities. In particular, a customized Moolde [3] platform, based on open-source software, has been developed to integrate, on a web-based virtual environment,