The IOE collaborated with the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education to design and deliver a programme for the country's universities. The Masters of Didactics programme provides innovative teaching and learning strategies, with a focus on academic tutoring.
There are up to 90 participants every year across all disciplines. They first attend a two-week intensive course at UCL, then access online resources at their institutions in Poland. The IOE team then visits them for observation and feedback before the participants roll out the teaching methods to students. During the pandemic, the programme moved online with video sessions and activities on UCL Extend, UCL's public-facing online education platform.
UCL is working alongside other top-tier universities in Europe to deliver Masters of Didactics. 210 academics at Polish universities are taking part in the UCL study visits. The entire Masters of Didactics programme plans to reach over 1,000 academics in Poland over four years.
UCL Consultants, part of UCL Innovation & Enterprise, provide programme management, contracting and financial oversight. The work also calls for close collaboration with UCL's 11 faculties and UCL Arena, UCL's professional development pathway for teaching.
Dr Clare Bentall of the IOE's Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment leads the IOE Masters of Didactics team and says: "This is a strategically important project to the development of higher education in one of the largest countries in Europe. It gives us an opportunity to make a substantial contribution to that and develop UCL's reputation and build networks with academic colleagues and their institutions in Poland.
Image: dudlajzov / Adobe Stock