Teaching & Learning Working Group on Danubius Online

Danubius University’s strategic priorities in Teaching and Learning (T&L) have been endorsed by Academic Senate, and emphasize the importance of improving the quality of teaching and learning. The T&L priorities are particularly salient, given the acknowledged challenges and the critical importance of an excellent reputation for education quality in the marketplace.

Being part of Sakai community, Danubius T&L working group area is oriented towards the needs of teachers, instructors, researchers, collaborators, instructional technologists and user support. It encompasses a broad range of topics, including sharing best practices for teaching and collaborating; asking, answering and demoing how various tools and capabilities work; discussing end-user support materials (e.g., documentation, training, tutorials); connecting with users with similar interests and needs, supporting long-term collaborative efforts, individual projects, and just-in-time teaching, learning, and assessment issues.

The Teaching & Learning Working Group has had a dual purpose. First, to provide assistance to Danubius Faculties and staff in the continuous improvement of teaching, learning, and assessment and also to create a dynamic learning environment that has enriched our students' experience. There are many ways in which technology, and in particular Sakai, can increase the efficiency of teaching and learning process making it more efficient. Also, innovative technology applications truly transform the educational experience into real revelation. The second aim of the project has come subsequent to our investigation of all extant ways in which institutional organizational structures are being shaped to support the enhancement of staff creative capacity aiming at teaching and learning quality ensuring and improvement. We have also tried to create a encouraging and constructive environment that guides students in taking the initiative to assimilate the knowledge through the process of commitment and participation in online sessions. We try to investigate the way in which we can encourage teaching excellence, augment the professionalism of teaching and learning, support the distinctive features of student experience, and contribute to all initiatives to enrich this experience.

The 2009-2012 Teaching and Learning Project is a substantially revised plan intended to anchor Danubius’s position as a genuinely world-class higher education institution being the destination for the very best students. The scope of this project is broad and the goals are significant in an effort to increase performance in teaching and learning to the highest level of excellence.

The 2009-2012 T&L Project has at its centrepiece, the need to identify, promote, and support the unique advantages of the Danubius student competence and experience. Danubius’s capacity is considerable, consisting in an advanced research infrastructure and research outcomes, high quality staff and students, a comprehensive range of programs offered at the level of our university, strong communities linkages and opportunities, a commitment to providing high quality on-university grounds facilities and experiences, the exceptionally well-resourced and highly regarded Danubius Library, and an affiliated network of strong and well-established international Universities.

The guaranteeing of these very capacities underpin a superior student experience that is considerably improved by the University’s research capacity, and is highly ranked in its aims as well as being strongly connected with institutional and professional requests, and all this stands for a real challenge.

The support of a distinctive student experience needs to be sustained by the highest standards of excellence in teaching and an engagement to ensuring a high quality teaching and learning environment that is student-centred and supported by technological infrastructure.

This environment must encompass a considerable amount of professional knowledge that will provide a foundation for later endeavour and support of independent learning and will allow a graduate to adapt to new challenges. To achieve these results we should take into consideration certain priorities.

These priorities are included in Danubius University's Teaching and Learning Project which identifies three goals for the 2009-2012 academic years:

• Increase all aspects of the teaching and learning environment.
• Support the distinctive features of the Danubius University student experience, and contribute to all initiatives to enrich this experience.
• Encourage teaching excellence, and raise the professionalism of teaching and learning at Danubius University.