T4EU Professional Development Training in Kaunas
Webinars for Academic and Non-Academic Staff
March–June 2023 | Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
- event for: academic and non-academic staff
- form of the event: webinars | online
- language: English
Call for applications
The Transform4Europe Alliance has developed various innovative training materials as short online training units (webinars). The training sessions will be launched soon and will take place from March to June 2023. The webinars will cater to and foster various skills – Innovative Teaching, Intercultural Communication, Digital Storytelling, Time and Project Management, etc. – that may be of use for every academic or/and non-academic staff member from across the Alliance.
We encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity and register to the webinars to further develop your competences. The list of available webinars in March and registration forms can be found below. The registration for upcoming trainings will be announced soon.
Participants of the Transform4Europe Professional Development training /webinars will be awarded certificates recognized alliance-wide.
The webinars will be delivered on the “MS Teams” platform and held in English.
If you have any questions, please contact us by email: transform4europe@vdu.ltÂ
Webinars in June
webinar title
Digital Storytelling
Digital Storytelling – facilitates student-centred learning strategies based on engagement, reflection, project-based learning, and the effective integration of technology into instruction. By encouraging students to organise their ideas into individual stories, digital storytelling can easily support learning in different disciplines. It can provide more variation to learning than traditional method – personalise the learning experience, make the explanation of particular topics less complex, create real-life or problem-solving situations and improve learners’ engagement in the learning process.Â
For: academic staffÂ
Date: June 1, 2023, 12.00-15.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Aušra RutkienÄ—, Dr. Eilina DailidienÄ— (Vytautas Magnus University). A. RutkienÄ— is Lecturer at VMU’s Education Academy. Dr. E. DailidienÄ— has been involved in VMU’s research and innovation activities. Her research interests include project development and management strategy, cultural and creative industries.Â
webinar title
The importance of digital accessibility in universities: How to create accessible content. This training is meant to be support material for creating accessible electronic documents. Throughout the different sections, the basic and universal concepts that digital documents must have to be accessible to everyone are introduced. We rely on the word processor MS Word of the Office suite as the most widespread among the university community. However, the concepts are extrapolated to any word processor such as Mac Pages, Libre Office or another. Â
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: June 6, 2023, 14.30-16.45 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Cristina Palomares Crespo, Jose Maria Fernandez Gil, Josefa Parreño Selva (University of Alicante). A decade of experience providing training indigital accessibility in several international ERASMUS+ projects, in countries like Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Chile, and the United Kingdom.Â
webinar title
Presentasion for video-recordings – how to overcome of „stage fright”
In this webinar, we dive into how to set realistic and self-accepting public speaking goals and how to plan and give engaging and interesting video lectures. We discuss issues such as fear of performance and public speaking, keeping students engaged, and structuring and planning our lectures well. The webinar focuses on performance skills, not technical issues and tools of video recording. The learner sets achievable goals for improving oneself as public speaker; gains an overview of steps how to plan and prepare for an interesting video lecture/ recording.Â
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: June 8, 2023, 13.00-15.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Anna Karolin (The Estonian Academy of Arts) is an experienced argumentation and public speaking trainer in „Speaksmart”. Anna also focuses on consulting on how to overcome the fear of public speaking and social anxiety, as she had to learn to deal with it as a young debater. She works as a behavioural sciences researcher in Kantar Emor.
webinar title
Promoting scientific reasoning and epistemological attitude through Research-based teaching. Promoting inquiry-based learning: students’ agency in relation to the knowledge of main objectives of HE. Two models of teaching: interaction of Mastery Learning and Inquiry Learning Curricula.Â
For: academic staffÂ
Date: June 12, 2023, 10.00-13.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Paolo Sorzio, Caterina Bembich, Michelle Pieri (University of Trieste) have experience in the field of In-service and Initial Teacher Education Programme at the university level. P. Sorzio was the coordinator of the MA Programme in Teacher Education for prospective teachers of secondary schools.Â
webinar title
A common unterstanding: Intercultural communication in Project Management
A common unterstanding: Intercultural communication in Project Management. In professional intercultural encounters, especially in mixed teams, tasks and the way of solving them can be understood differently. In this webinar we would like to raise awareness for the cultural dimension of multilingual and international teamwork. The focus is on the special working environment at universities, which increasingly requires project-based and international work. Common challenges and solution strategies will be discussed on the basis of practice-oriented case studies in order to better recognise and utilise the synergy potential of multicultural project management. Â
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: June 23, 2023, 09.00-12.30 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Dr. Elisabeth Venohr; Dr. Julia Frisc (Saarland University).Â
webinar title
Introduction to Project Management
Introduction to Project Management. It is crucial to acquire basic project management skills for the successful planning and execution of projects at universities. In this webinar, some of the most influential methods and instruments (tools) of project management will be presented. Moreover, some planning tools and analyses will be discussed that deal with the objectives, stakeholders and risks of projects. In addition, an outlook is given on how methods from time and self-management can help to support the successful implementation of projects.Â
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: June 30, 2023, 09.00-12.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Dr. Theo Jäger – is PhD in Experimental Neuropsychology, coordinator and trainer at the Support Centre for Doctoral Researchers at Saarland University (GradUS), staff member of the President’s Office at Saarland UniversityÂ
Webinars in May
webinar title
Podcasting as a teaching tool – how to prepare and create an interesting podcast
Podcasting has growing value in an educational context, as this offers learners the opportunity to take in information in a way that fits their lives and schedules, while also allowing educators to bring additional structure to their courses. Although podcasting might seem less challenging than video lectures, there are particular skills which can make the recording and listening experience more pleasurable. This webinar is about how you can make compelling and helpful podcasts for your institution or business, which carry huge educational value for their audience, while informing and entertaining. The webinar will explain how and why to make podcasts, including the technical instructions to do so.
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: May 4, 2023, 14.00-16.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Stuart Garlick is a teacher and lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts. He taught several subjects – digital marketing and brand building, as well as podcasting and vlogging. He has made podcasts for three of his own series since 2019. I think podcasting is a great way of doing marketing for a business or putting educational content into an easily-listenable package.
webinar title
Getting through the Culture Maze
The webinar aims to raise participants’ awareness of the complex substance of culture, to help them identify some of their own views and attitudes towards cultural differences, to involve them in reflecting on some aspects of their own culturally conditioned behavior and to provide them with opportunities to discuss and evaluate specific cases of mediating between cultures in a professional setting.
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: May 10, 2023, 9.30-11.45 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Associate Professor Dr. Nikolina Tsvetkova has designed and delivered training courses, seminars for teachers, students and non-academic staff on developing (inter)cultural awareness and intercultural competence. (Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski).
webinar title
Teaching of multilingual groups
Working with multilingual groups is really a challenging task, so the first step in the webinar will be a presentation on how to recognize the needs of a given group, how to find the most effective methods of work and grasp what problems may appear in the development of every skill, which must be learned during the course. Finally, we will identify the most important needs and discuss the working environment the most suitable for a multilingual group.
For: academic staffÂ
Date: May 17, 2023, 16.00-18.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Dr. Barbara Morcinek-Abramczyk has been a teacher of Polish as a foreign language for more than 20 years. Employed at the School of Polish Language and Culture at the University of Silesia. She has acquired her professional experience through working with monolingual and multilingual, monocultural and multicultural groups at all levels of advance. awareness and intercultural competence. (Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski).
webinar title
The well-being and inclusion of students with disabilities in university settings
The webinar will address the issue of the well-being and inclusion of students with disabilities in academia. In particular, a new tool to encourage the inclusion of persons with disabilities in higher education. In the second part, practical examples will be presented to promote the well-being and inclusion of individuals through small group work, the use of Padlet and Mentimeter to share reflections on the awareness of the difficulties that individuals with disabilities may encounter in participating in university life, and simple expedients that can promote the well-being of individuals.
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: May 18, 2023, 11.00-12.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Professor in Pedagogy and Special Education Dr. Elena Bortolotti and the researcher in Pedagogy and Special Education Dr. Barbara Bocchi at the University of Trieste.
webinar title
Informal language learning formats: what, why and how?
The webinar aims at discussing the theoretical perspectives on what informal language learning is and what advantages it has. Also, various informal language learning formats, such as tandem learning, a language cafe, speaking clubs, language tasters, the European Day of Languages, etc., will be presented. The participants will be able to discuss and share their experience and the possibilities of implementing these language learning formats in their contexts.Â
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: May 25, 2023, 13.00-15.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Dr. Teresė Ringailienė – The Director of Institute of Foreign Languages at Vytautas Magnus University.
webinar title
Launching knowledge-based companies. Main issues, concerns, and some tips
Based on our own experience, the main objective is to discuss the steps to be followed to launch a knowledge-based company and to share ideas and experiences. Through different discussions and examples given, the audience will end up with an idea of the key aspects to be taken into account.
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: May 29, 2023, 11.00-13.00 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Loren Moreno Monteagudo started to work at the Technology Transfer Office in 2007. She has worked on the development of more than 20 spin-off companies promoted by researchers at the University of Alicante in such areas as chemistry, ICT, biology, etc. She has a master’s degree in Software and has specialized in technology transfer, spin-offs.
Webinars in April
webinar title
Time management for an effective and stress-free life
In this seminar you will learn how to plan time while working remotely from home or in interactive teams, how to maintain the best efficiency and focus during the day, identify time thieves and neutralize them. You will learn about methods and strategies that work best while interacting with people.
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: April 5, 2023, 12.00-16.00 (CET) – MS Teams
T4EU YouTube link: www.youtube.com
Lecturer: Danguolė Kraskauskienė is a Leadership Coach. She has worked in the leadership area for more than 8 years. As a business woman and university lecturer, she has personally implemented all the methods she shares in this seminar. (Vytautas Magnus university).
webinar title
Teaching for action: Changing attitudes to promote the Sustainable Development Goals through challenge-based teaching
The economic development model based on the massive exploitation of natural resources has led us toa global emergency. Under this scenario, we propose a webinar using a methodology based on a problem-solving project to learn and change attitudes about responsible consumption and environmental sustainability, studying the mobile phone cycle.
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: April 18, 2023, 09.00-13.00 (CET) – MS Teams
T4EU YouTube link: www.youtube.com
Lecturer: Associate Professor Asuncion Menargues Marcilla (University of Alicante) – has been teaching Education for Sustainability for pre-service teachers for 11 years. She has developed a service-learning project of international cooperation.
webinar title
Workplace Writing (English Language)
Workplace Writing (English Language) – introduce participants to the basic principles of workplace writing and to develop their skills and confidence in planning, researching, drafting and editing workplace documents (business letters, emails, project proposals, reports etc.). The webinar focuses on various strategies for composing concise, targeted and productive messages that accomplish business objectives. Particular attention is paid to tips and techniques for employing structure, format, and layout.
For: non-academic staffÂ
Date: April 26, 2023, 10.00-14.30 (CET) – MS Teams
T4EU YouTube link: www.youtube.com
Lecturer: Lika Pishtalova is an assistant professor at the Department of English and American Studies (at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski). Her areas of research interests include translation studies, linguistic anthropology, and contrastive rhetoric.
webinar title
How to promote a knowledge-entrepreneurial mindset in teaching
This webinar aims to give an understanding of what it means to have an entrepreneurial mind-set. On the basis of the European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (Entrecomp) of the European Commission, participants will get an idea of the knowledge, skills and attitudes which promote entrepreurial thinking and acting. This theoretical framework is combined with practical teaching methods.
For: academic staffÂ
Date: April 27, 2023, 14.00-16.30 (CET) – MS Teams
Lecturer: Dr. Denise Vesper – an industrial and organizational psychologist interested in strikes, unions, collective bargaining, and political psychology (Saarland University).
Webinars in March
webinar title
Innovative teaching methods in developing and enabling Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools
Participants will be introduced to the innovative teaching methods and will have a hands-on experience in not only developing but also enabling the ICT tools in order to present the information in an innovative and interactive way.
For: academic staffÂ
Date: March 15, 13.00-15.00 (CET)
Lecturer: Vigilija Žiūraitė – a PhD student in Political Science at Vytautas Magnus University with interdisciplinary education in sociology, journalism, communication and language studies.
webinar title
Do you hear what I hear? Avoiding the pitfalls of intercultural communication
Particular attention will be paid to issues of values, the role of stereotypes in both hindering and assisting intercultural communication, and challenges that arise in multicultural teams.
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: March 21, 12.00-14.00 (CET)
Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ignas Kalpokas – taught “Intercultural Communication” course for MA students at Vytautas Magnus University and a BA level course “International Business Communication” at ISM University of Management and Economics.
webinar title
Breaking intercultural communication barriers
The aim of this training is to bring awareness to challenges of intercultural communication that occur in the educational institutions on daily bases.
For: academic and non-academic staffÂ
Date: March 22, 13.30-15.30 (CET)
Lecturer: Vaida Misevičiūtė – a lecturer in English language and multilingual pedagogy at Vytautas Magnus University. Most of her work experience was gained in the USA, at Roosevelt University, where she had been working with students from all over the world. “International Business Communication” at ISM University of Management and Economics.
