Using a 3-Tier Training Model for Effective Exchange of Good Practices in an Erasmus+ Project

Abstract

VISIR+ is an Erasmus+ project that aims to develop educational modules for electric and electronic circuits theory and practice following an enquiry-based teaching and learning methodology. The project has installed five new VISIR remote labs in Higher Education Institutions located in Argentina and Brazil, to allow students doing more experiments and hence acquire better experimental skills, through a combination of traditional (hands-on), remote and virtual laboratories. A key aspect for the success of this project was to motivate and train teachers in the underpinning educational methodology. As such, VISIR+ adopted a 3-tier training process to effectively support the use of VISIR in the Institutions that received it. This process is based on the "train the trainer" approach, which required the participating partner institutions to identify and engage a number of associated partners, interested in using their newly installed remote lab. To measure the quality of the training process, the same satisfaction questionnaire was used in all training actions. This paper presents a detailed description of the training actions along with the analysis of the satisfaction questionnaire results. Major conclusions are that the quality level of the training process remained practically the same across all training actions and that trainees sometimes considered the practical use of the VISIR remote lab as difficult, irrespectively of where and when the training action took place.

Improving the use of remote laboratories. The case of VISIR at Universidad Nacional de Rosario

“…The VISIR+ project "Educational Modules for Electric and Electronic Circuits Theory and Practice following an Inquirybased Teaching and Learning Methodology supported by VISIR" was carried out with the support of the European Union ERASMUS+ programme, under the coordination of the Polytechnic of Porto (IPP, Portugal). Within the framework of that Project, developed between 2015 and 2018 by a consortium consisting of institutions from Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Sweden, it was sought to spread good teaching practices as a result of cooperation and exchange in the fields of the teaching of electric and electronic circuits, by using the so-called "Virtual Instrument Systems In Reality" (VISIR) [1] [2], name given to the remote laboratory developed by Ingvar Gustavsson, at the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), Sweden. This Project made it possible for the VISIR remote laboratory to be set up in five Higher Education Institutions (HEI), three of them in Brazil and two in Argentina, thus allowing about three hundred teachers and over 1,500 students [4] from different universities and high school institutions in Latin America (LA) to be part of the VISIR users community since the curricular integration of this resource in coherence with inquiry learning approaches.…”