Continuous learning is the key to educational excellence-we welcomed a colleague from the Georgia Institute of Technology

During the first days of the autumn semester, Kate Williams, a faculty developer from the Georgia Institute of Technology, visited our University to share her institution’s best practices with our lecturers and faculty developer colleagues and to invite them to reflect together on teaching and its methodology. The programme was organised by the Centre for Educational Quality Enhancement and Methodology with the aim of innitating discussions within and across university institutes that will contribute to the further development of our education and setting the directions of development. 

During the visit, Williams delivered sessions on four different topics (three workshops and one lecture), covering a variety of educational challenges. One of these was on the assessment of student performance, with a special focus on the specifications grading assessment method and its application. This form of assessment, in addition to measuring performance, helps instructors to clearly communicate expectations while encouraging students to take greater autonomy in the learning process. 

The next workshop focused on the importance of preparation for teaching integrated into doctoral training. Participants were able to learn about US universities’ strategies of lecturer training and the support they provide in acquiring the competences needed to teach. 

Exciting discussions on developing students’ problem-solving skills and experiential learning were held for our University leaders. In a semi-formal session with a presentation, participants looked at how experiential learning and related real-life project experiences with non-profit or even market actors can benefit students. 

Last but not least, our colleagues had the opportunity to listen to an interactive lecture on motivating students and the practical application of the relevant theories, specifically reproducing (in the spirit of meta-learning) the conditions that are not usually conducive to interactivity in lecture-type classes: large numbers of people, long, fixed rows of desks. The speaker actively involved the participants, presenting hands-on methodological recommendations and made the listeners reflect on their own practice. 

These events are not only good for raising awareness of new methods, but also for facilitating dialogue within the teaching community. These discussions can help us to identify where we need to improve, what external solutions can be integrated into our own operations, and where we need to innovate ourselves. So Kate Williams’ visit was important not only for the specific topics, but also because such opportunities give us the chance to step out of the daily grind and look at ourselves from different perspectives and experiment in safety,

says Dr. Kata Dósa, Head of the Centre for Educational Quality Enhancement and Methodology. 

The Centre hopes that the ideas and questions raised during the visit will help the University’s lecturers in their daily work in the long term, and even promote cooperation and sharing of good practices between the teaching communities.