Mobility and Education ZOne

The T4EU goal is to design challenge-based education, and enhance mobility and academic exchange


professional developement programme

The T4EU alliance will implement a professional development programme for non-academic staff. This virtual programme will consist of digital courses on the universities, higher education systems, regions, and national legal systems of the T4EU partner institutions and general intercultural awareness, developed by experts at the partner universities individually or together.

Open Dual Lecture

With the Open Dual Lecture series, the T4EU alliance will organise a public lecture series consisting of four lectures per term/semester rotating around the partner universities. The evening lectures will be held in an innovative joint format by either one academic staff member of the host university and one external entrepreneur or practitioner from another region of the T4E alliance, or by one entrepreneur or practitioner from the home region and an academic from one of the T4EU partner universities.

Conference for Innovative Teaching

T4EU will organise an annual conference to foster exchange between teaching staff and give visibility to the teachers who have contributed to the delivery of innovative teaching projects and to the activities of the Teaching Academy as a whole.

T4EU Teaching Award

The purpose of an Innovative Teaching Award is to identify, acknowledge and recognize innovative teaching practices and to provide opportunities not only for sharing and exchanging best examples, but also to encourage cooperation between the Higher Education Institutions of the Transform4Europe alliance.

  • Educational Escape Room Monika Frania, PhD from the University of Silesia in Katowice
The Educational Escape Room course is an example of good didactic practice for teaching adults who are eager to develop their digital and social skills. Participants, divided into project teams, deepen their digital skills and social competencies, taking part in an adventure during which they not only solve puzzles but have to create their escape room. For this, one needs knowledge, creativity, and determination. In education, overcoming difficulties is essential, and the escape room is an example of an unusual challenge.
  • Transforming Students’ Mindset for a Better Future Critical Thinking and the Digital Gender Divide María D. De-Juan-Vigaray, PhD and María Elena González Gascón from the University of Alicante, Spain
The purpose of this good practice is to discover whether Active Learning methodology, using different technologies, contributes to improving the Critical Thinking of the student body, applying it to the Digital Gender Divide. The importance of the practice becomes relevant in the context of European higher transformation to students of the Business Administration programme in their final semester of studies, who are about to become professionals entering the labour market.
  • Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Therapy Tobias Hüppe and Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Therapy from Saarland University, Germany
‘Masterclass: Intensive Care Medicine’ is offered synchronously as an interactive live event. The 15 seminars (120 min each) are given by fifteen internationally experienced intensivists and include the topics of Shock and Resuscitation – Cardiac Disease – Respiratory Disease – Renal Disease – Infectious Disease – Surgical – Medical Ethics in ICU. The course includes clinical case scenarios, ventilator curves and biochemistry, blended learning with a video-based visit to the intensive care unit, principles and content of evidence-based critical care medicine and an online final exam. Live demonstrations of intensive care interventions (intubation, bronchoscopy, thoracic drainage installation, cannulation of an ECMO, etc. on cadaver preparations) are intended to convey the practical elements of intensive care medicine.
  • Visible Interactive Speaker for International Best Learning Experience Prof. Marcel Lauterbach from Saarland University, Germany
Programming skills for data analysis are taught in an international online class to interdisciplinary students from six universities. The class uses a virtual webcam to make the lecturer visible in the PowerPoint slides, which creates a personal link with the students. Using a ‘virtual webcam’ that overlays PowerPoint and the webcam, the presenter becomes visible IN the slides, not in a separate small window. Exercises with personal tutoring in breakout sessions give immediate feedback to the students, and in-class discussions with them contribute to community building and inclusion.

1) Creation of Life Escape room

Dr. Evelina Bendoraitienė, Vytautas Magnus University

The good practice involves assigning a group homework task to students in a financial calculations course to create a life escape room. Working collaboratively, students design puzzles, challenges, and a narrative that incorporate course content and require the application of financial calculation skills. This hands-on approach enhances understanding, promotes critical thinking, teamwork, and creativity, and provides a practical context for learning.

2) ABC of Visual Thinking and Sketchnoting

Dr. Magdalena Christ, University of Silesia in Katowice

The classes aim to familiarize participants with the theories underlying visual thinking, as well as the representatives of sketchnoting and their work as inspiration for their development in this area. During the course, students acquire skills in creating visual notes as a form of organisation and presentation of thoughts, ideas, which can be used to improve the learning process and in various branches of professional life.

3) Digital entrepreneurship: Digital-enhanced and international teaching of digital entrepreneurship

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Benedikt Schnellbächer and Alexander Schöneseiffen, Saarland University

DIGEN-DIT is a digital-enhanced, international module. Students from all Transform4Europe and Ukrainian partner universities can participate due to its hybrid format, supported by digital tools (e.g. mentimeter). The course encompasses a lecture and a tutorial. The lecture provides students with digital entrepreneurship content from strategy to operational level. In the tutorial student teams develop a startup concept and present it in a pitch event. Lastly, students visit another T4E university to work on an entrepreneurship challenge.

4) Universal Game Design for Learning and Game Co-design for student-centered learning

Assoc. Prof. Giovanni Bacaro, University of Trieste

Novel educational technologies and methodologies that create enthusiasm among students and promote learner engagement are becoming instructional priorities across all disciplines of STEM. Game-Based Learning has established itself as a methodology that addresses students engagement at different levels (student-centered learning, constructivist approach, shared social experience, systems thinking and so on). A generalized Game Design Methodology (GDM), which includes the basic principles of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework is here proposed. Each phase is designed to allow students and teaching staff to develop the game and assess its progress throughout the entire process.

T4EU Chair Programme

The T4EU alliance will install a T4EU Chair Programme for academic staff. The programme will enable professors to spend a residential period at another T4EU partner university for one semester primarily for the purpose of teaching.