Abstract
This chapter focuses on the results of a research on European Studies aimed at identifying which teaching methodologies and tools are used in such disciplines. In the first part, it discusses the educational policy of the European Union (EU) and its implementation with reference to the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Strategy, highlighting the skills required of students in the new knowledge society. We argue that innovative pedagogical methods and tools would best serve the development of these skills. In the second part, we introduce and discuss the results of a large-scale survey – with data coming from lecturers active in the 27 EU member states, plus Iceland, Turkey and Norway – aimed at evaluating the extent to which such innovative pedagogy is used in teaching European Studies. Results provide an enlightening view of the current use of innovative teaching methods and tools in the context of European Studies, especially with regard to areas which can be improved.
This chapter is the result of the joint research efforts of the three authors. Stefania Baroncelli is directly responsible for §7.1, §7.2, §7.3, and §7.4; Fabio Fonti for §7.6, §7.8, and §7.9; and Gordana Stevancevic for §7.5 and §7.7. The authors benefitted from feedback obtained at the Twelfth Biennial International Conference of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA), Boston, MA, March 3–5, 2011. All errors remain our own.
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Notes
- 1.
Notwithstanding the difficulty of identifying the “European dimension” in education, the EU has become increasingly interested in developing a European identity at the school and university level. An interesting example of this are the European schools, created for the families of EU officials and politicians, whose curriculum has been developed in order to promote and stimulate a sense of common identity amongst pupils.
- 2.
Other sub-objectives were identified as increase in the number of graduates in mathematics, science and technology; decrease in the gender imbalance; effective use of resources; development of an open learning environment; and increase in the attractiveness of education and training.
- 3.
See art. 165 and art. 166 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Treaty of Lisbon). Art. 165, para. 1: “The Union shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting and supplementing their action, while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity”. Art. 166, para. 1: “The Union shall implement a vocational training policy which shall support and supplement the action of the Member States, while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content and organisation of vocational training”.
- 4.
Research on key competences required in the new multicultural and international environment is blossoming at the academic and policy level. For an example of a cooperative study driven by the European Commission and comparing the European and US education policies and labour skills, see Shapiro et al. (2011). This study advocates for a change in “teaching and learning environments if education is going to play a more systemic role in furthering an entrepreneurial mind-set in students” (p. 14). In particular, it identifies the following as major features of learning environments: “Research-informed teaching uses action-based research models in multi-disciplinary learning; processes to help solve complex, comprehensive, and interconnected problems; learning beyond the campus walls and in new partnership models; discovery which is useful beyond the academic community and service that directly benefits the public; students working on projects with real clients, applying their specialist subject skills and receiving course credits for their work. The community becomes part of the teaching process and benefits from the students’ work; new boundary crossing organisations and structures are developed as part of the learning environment; ICT is an integrated feature in teaching and learning processes” (pp. 14–15).
- 5.
Due to the lack of a specific competence in the field of education, the EU has resorted to financing several programmes as a way of encouraging exchanges amongst students and lecturers, such as the Erasmus/Socrates programme.
- 6.
See the Jean Monnet Action website: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/llp/jean_monnet/jean_monnet_en.php. According to these data the programme spans 72 countries worldwide. During the period 1990–2011, the Action Jean Monnet contributed to establish 162 Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence, 875 Jean Monnet Chairs, and 1,001 Jean Monnet Modules.
- 7.
For the questionnaire, see http://www.sent-net.uniroma2.it/?page_id=41
- 8.
The return rate for this part of the sample is not known, as there is no way to determine how many people saw the invitation to participate in the questionnaire posted on web pages which deal with European Studies classes, such as the SENT website and the Jean Monnet web page of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
- 9.
Information on Jean Monnet lecturers (professors and researchers) for all 30 countries included in the sample was obtained via the European Union Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency database. Also, the questionnaire sent to Jean Monnet professors was slightly different from the one targeting the European Studies lecturers from SENT, as it included a small section devoted to the use of social networks for teaching purposes.
- 10.
The web-based survey was administered via the Unipark website, which provides an online research tool that sends a personal email invitation to all the survey participants and automatically exports the collected data in a format suitable for statistical analysis. Survey respondents were asked to provide information about their teaching method for at least one of the courses they had taught covering European Studies.
- 11.
Often based on software, a simulation is a dynamic artificial environment where certain conditions are created to study or experience something that (might) exist in reality. Examples are computer simulations or management games. On the other hand, learning games are used to learn about a given subject or to gain certain skills through play: Examples are strategic games or Jeopardy-like games, which test knowledge via recall and application.
- 12.
Project-based learning is based on situations where students learn through a guided exploration of a research problem, under the supervision of a tutor.
- 13.
In role-plays participants play roles and are supposed to solve problems in the context of a dynamic social framework; an example is represented by EuMUN, the European Model on United Nations.
- 14.
In peer tutoring, a student, under the supervision of a professor acting as peer tutor, teaches to other students of the same grade level.
- 15.
E-learning stands for the use of information and communication technologies to enable virtual learning environments, such as online lecture notes, virtual classrooms, online discussion forums, video conferencing, and media files.
- 16.
As English is the official language of both the United Kingdom and Ireland, we excluded these two countries from this representation.
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Baroncelli, S., Fonti, F., Stevancevic, G. (2014). Mapping Innovative Teaching Methods and Tools in European Studies: Results from a Comprehensive Study. In: Baroncelli, S., Farneti, R., Horga, I., Vanhoonacker, S. (eds) Teaching and Learning the European Union. Innovation and Change in Professional Education, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7043-0_7
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