Search for European Projects

Blended Academic International Mobility
Start date: Sep 1, 2015, End date: Aug 31, 2018 PROJECT  FINISHED 

International exposure during studies has a significant impact on personal and inter-personal development of students and on their employability but there are several obstacles of different kind to international mobility. Innovative teaching paradigms are required in order to facilitate international exposure and to develop transversal skills required by the labour market. Blended mobility overcomes typical barriers to mobility allowing students to experience and take advantage of the benefits of mobility and international exposure. However, despite its added value, blended mobility is barely recognized as a serious alternative. The blended-AIM purpose is to promote the employability of higher education students by means of bended mobility. Adopting the blended mobility paradigm in education removes barriers to mobility and promotes equity and inclusion. blended-AIM will provide the information, the tools and will develop and test specific teaching paradigms promoting the easy adoption of blended mobility to boost the internationalization and value to market of higher education. blended-AIM aims to the sustainable promotion of higher education students’ employability by means of blended mobility. blended-AIM specific objectives are grouped in structural and pedagogical objectives. Structural objectives: (a) settle the European Foundation for Blended Mobility, (b) foster internationalization of education and (c) deploy, test and disseminate an innovative blended mobility approach. Pedagogical objectives: (d) promote students’ employability through non-formal learning, (e) promote international experience of undergraduate students and (f) boost the provision and certification of transversal skills. The mission of blended-AIM is to develop the European Foundation of Blended Mobility raising awareness to the benefits of blended mobility and providing the information, the tools and the best practices in a way that they can be easily reused and streamlined to promote the acquisition of transversal skills through non-formal learning and to increase the labour market relevance of higher education. The blended-AIM consortium includes 10 partners: one company, a European Association and eight HEI covering several distinct but complementary study areas that are required to fully achieve the learning outcomes of the blended-AIM course unit. With a focus on employability and the alignment of students’ skills to the needs of labour market, blended-AIM will create the necessary infrastructure and resources to promote the take-up of blended mobility as a paradigm to increase the quality of higher education and provide increased opportunities for all. The first year of the project will be devoted to investigate the current status of blended mobility in Europe and to develop the blended-AIM project course. The first pilot edition of the course will run at the Spring semester of the first year. At the second year we will deploy the European Foundation for Blended Mobility. At the third year we will address long term sustainability by reviewing the SWOT analysis with a focus on sustainability and drafting a list of activities to assure sustainability. Throughout the project lifetime we will run three pilot editions of the blended-AIM project course involving 48 students. An annual workshop will be hosted by major European conferences on higher education to disseminate project results and to discuss core aspects related to blended-AIM. It is expected that blended-AIM will (a) foster equity and inclusion by removing barriers in the access to internationalization and mobility, (b) promote transfer of innovation and raise awareness to blended mobility. In concrete, blended-AIM will deliver the European Foundation for Blended Mobility portal, a certified blended mobility project course unit recognized by partner institutions and a blended mobility kit for students. blended-AIM will impact all stakeholders along time. Short term impacts include: (1) increased mobility opportunities and (2) increased opportunities for professional development of the students from partner institutions, (3) more strategic and integrated use of ICT and open educational resources through the European Foundation for Blended Mobility portal, (4) improved international exposure of students and (5) improved understanding of employability drivers. Long term impacts are expected to be reached in three years’ time. Short term impacts are replicated in long term but with a deeper reach going beyond partner institutions. Besides those, other long term impacts are expected: (6) more positive attitude towards the European project and EU values, (7) greater understanding of interconnections between formal and non-formal education, (8) better understanding and recognition of transversal skills, (9) reinforced cooperation between the worlds of education and labour and (10) improved flow and transfer of knowledge geared by facilitated mobility.
Up2Europe Ads

Coordinator

Details

9 Partners Participants