Training Area – Unitel Project

Our main areas (Frameworks of research)

Theory and practice

Since theory and practice were essential for all our respondents (teachers, students, etc), we considered it for all previously mentioned target groups. This area actually reflects the attitudes, principles, and approached of the teachers together with the outlook of the university. But for collation of the results, some documents were also required from universities.

Self-regulation and motivation

This framework leads us towards a perspective that is related more to the students and teachers, but to find the attitude of business actors about this framework and its effect on the university’s determination, we needed to find out their attitude as well. Through this area, we wanted to explore “How TEL can affect the students, teachers and business actors’ behavior and attitude about learning via distance learning education.”

Knowledge, skills, and attitudes

In this area, we wanted teachers to say their opinion about the skills (both hard skills and soft skills). To describe it for the respondents; we prepared some examples of each skill. We believed that this area is an essential and fundamental part of the questionnaire for the companies because they can tell us whether the students/graduates who work for them have the necessary skills or not. Moreover, teachers can tell us about the level of student’s knowledge and their teaching methods.

Working-life orientation

Online learning, like other online bases, affects our relations, behaviors, and our life. So, when we want to take it into account, we should consider different aspects of its usage such as: online teacher-student relation, cooperation between students and etc

UNITEL e-Course

The Aims of the UNITEL e-Course

The overall aim of the UNITEL e-course is to empower Engineering and STEM departments at Iranian universities in enhancing skills and competences of professors and instructional designers on innovative collaborative ICT-based practices. These practices are seen as a means to increase curriculum modernisation and internationalisation. The course is motivating the academic staff to acquire key competences and skills crucial for the integration of technology enhanced (TEL) pedagogical approaches in university curricula. It will also promote rational applications of new collaborative teaching and learning ICT-based methodologies. The course is developed together with Iranian and European partners.

General learning objectives of the e-course are:

To learn the principles of digitalization and enabling technologies that lead to innovative pedagogical practices;
To learn current trends in pedagogy (industry-relevant, working life oriented pedagogies such as project-based learning and problem-based learning) through the use of pedagogical scripts and instructional scaffolding;
To learn technologies, protocols and tools for applying ICT in processes and services;
To be able to implement a project for the digital transformation of a process, area, or department.

The materials of the course will produced in English and then translated in Farsi.

The Participants of the e-Course

The target group of the e-course are the university professors/lecturers and instructional designers in the Iranian partner universities: at least 91 professors and instructional designers from the universities will register and follow the e-course (15-16 participants/university). In each partner university 70% of the participants will be professors. By the participants and the projects which the participants are elaborating during the e-course, at least 70 courses are modernised by teaching staff till the end of the UNITEL project.

The e-course is a good opportunity to clarify the role and functions of the instructional designers in the Iranian universities.

The Structure of the UNITEL e-Course

The course will include different types of elements (figure 1):

36 video/audio lessons (from 20 – 60 minutes) to be attended on the platform in asynchronous modality;
3 webinar sessions (at beginning, mid-term and end of the e-course) to be attended synchronously by all participants (for the sake of logistical implementation 2/3 groups can be created);
Project work
2 in presence sessions at institutional level (nationally) at the beginning and end of the e-course. The trained tutors will organise, moderate and facilitate the in-presence sessions in their own institution.

The general structure of the UNITEL e-course is distributed below:

UNITEL e-Course Development

The Materials to be Produced for UNITEL e-Course

The materials to be produced by the partners for the topics (“lectures”) are:

Powerpoint (PPT) presentations (slides). 10 – 15 slides.
Lecture notes. “Powerpoints in speech”. Textual documents presenting the topic in-depth and providing different hypothesis, opinions theories and etc. as well as list of additional readings and resources. 15 – 20 pages.
Video/multimedia Combining different presentation and powerpoints, 20-60 minutes (e.g. 2 x 30 minutes).
In addition. The experts (= “course teams”) producing the topics are encouraged to utilize their experience and innovation to use other elements in their lectures , such as:
- Quizzies
- Electric whiteboard
- Free simulators
- Online math tools
Input to project work/plan assignment. The learning experiences during topics and modules are integrated in a project work elaborated by all participants of the course. The course leader P2 – UTU will cooperate with subject experts to split the project work in pieces by the modules/topics.

Starting the Material Production Process

Each topic will have:

Learning objectives of the topic

What a participant knows and can do after studied the topic

Content of the topic

The main content of the topic

Evaluation methods and criteria

The learning experiences during topics and modules in UNI-TEL e-course are integrated in a project work elaborated by all participants of the course. The course leader P2 – UTU will cooperate with subject experts to split the project work in pieces by the modules/topics.
In addition to that the institutional subject expert team can discuss are some other assessment methods used and what are criteria for successful finishing of the topic?

E-course is ready! (November 2022)

The developments of the e-course of the below table are now ready and the workshops will be started soon.

UNITEL e-course modules and topics: Slight modifications in titles still possible after discussions with Module coordinator
MODULE 1: Orientation to the course and modern concepts of learning (Coordinator: P2 – UTU)		Responsible partner
M1-1	Orientation to the course	P2 – UTU
M1-2	The current state of Iranian higher education – Lessons learnt from the UNITEL Project survey (WP1)	P8 – UI
M1-3	The concept, models and implementations of e-learning	P10 – SCU
M1-4	Designing quality e-learning	P9 – UT à USGM
M1-5	Process of e-Learning Design	P9 – UT à USGM
M1-6	Concluding remarks (topic discussed in more detail with the partners of the module)	P10 – SCU

MODULE 2: Student-centered learning in practice and in STEM (Coordinator: P3 – UAb)
M2-1	How to build learner-centered e-learning	P10 – SCU
M2-2	Engaging and motivating students with real-world problems in STEM teaching	P5 – IKIU
M2-3	Student engagement and motivation through voluntary subject choice and flexibility in STEM teaching	P5 – IKIU
M2-4	Building and utilizing community and collaboration in e-learning	P2 – UTU
M2-5	Case example(s) of online implementations of STEM	P5 – IKIU
M2-6	Open educational resources (OER) and MOOCs in online oriented STEM teaching	P3 – UAb
MODULE 3: Methods and tools of technology enhanced learning (TEL) (Coordinator P1 – USGM)
M3-1	Building the cornerstones: Teamwork and IT support in universities	P6 – USB
M3-2	Web applications, tools and programs – examples and practices	P6 – USB
M3-3	Activating methods and online tools to enrich online learning	P6 – USB
M3-4	Pedagogical models of e-learning	P9 – UT à USGM
M3-5	Implementing advanced virtual learning (including virtual and remote labs)	P1 -USGM
M3-6	Best practices of virtual and remote labs	P7 – SU
MODULE 4: Cooperation with the industry and working life relevant skills (Coordinator: P2 – UTU)
M4-1	Generic skills of STEM experts (21st century skills)	P6 – USB
M4-2	University-Business collaboration: An overview and some examples	P8 – UI
M4-3	University’s Technology Transfer (TT) strategies and ecosystems in European and Iranian universities	P2 – UTU
M4-4	Embedding Enterprise in the Curriculum I: Internships, alumni speakers, company visits etc.	P2 – UTU
M4-5	Embedding Enterprise in the Curr. II: Joint Masters’ thesis at companies, project assignments etc.	P7 – SU
M4-6	Cooperation in engineering (The title can be modified)	P7 – SU

MODULE 5: Assessment and feedback as a part of teaching and learning (Coordinator: USGM)
M5-1	Lessons learnt from the national survey in Iran: Student opinions (WP1) on the role assessment	P10 – SCU
M5-2	(A framework for digital assessment) including Self-evaluation and peer evaluation	P3 – UAb
M5-3	Plagiarism detection	P8 – UI
M5-4	Learning analytics	P1 -USGM
M5-5	Electronic exams	P1 -USGM
M5-6	Automatization of feedback	P1 -USGM
MODULE 6: Modernization of teaching (Coordinator: P3 – UAb)
M6-1	Strategies and policies supporting development	P5 – IKIU
M6-2	Quality assurance (QA) standards of e-learning	P3 – UAb
M6-3	Degree evaluation	P3 – UAb
M6-4	How to utilize feedback as a source of development	P8 – UI
M6-5	Curriculum development	P7 – SU
M6-6	Staff development as a tool for development	P9 – UT à UTU