The UNWE Center for Innovative Educational Technologies Held Two Seminars for Lecturers from the Law Faculty
The UNWE Center for Innovative Educational Technologies organized two Seminars for the lecturers from the Law Faculty on the Interactive and Innovative Teaching Methods to Enhance the Quality of Training. The event was held at the suggestion by the Rector of UNWE Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov in relation to the upcoming procedures for programme accreditation of professional fields and specialties of regulated professions.
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Prof. Dr. Matilda Alexandrova, Vice-Rector for Educational Activity and Prof. Dr. Yanka Totseva, Director of the Centre for Innovative Educational Technologies and Head of the Pedagogy Department |
Prof. Dr. Matilda Alexandrova, Vice-Rector for Educational Activity, opened the Seminar by emphasizing on the fact that it is part of the overall policy of UNWE to improve the quality of eductaional and teaching activities. She explained that these seminars are related to the new elements that the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency /NEAA/ has included in the evaluation and accreditation of professional fields and specialties of regulated professions, including the upcoming accreditation of the professional field of Law as a regulated profession.
"It is the first seminar in such format - training by faculties, because in each Faculty there are specifics and these specifics must be reflected. There are a lot of new points in the accreditation procedures, an important emphasis is on the quality of teaching and the inclusion of interactive and innovative teaching methods in this process. Besides being a requirement of the NEAA, improving the quality of teaching is also enshrined in the Strategy for Higher Education Development", said Prof. Alexandrova and expressed her contentment that Prof. Dr. Yanka Totseva will lead the seminars as she is "one of the leading specialists in Bulgaria in the interactive and innovative teaching methods, a lecturer with many years of experience and numerous works on the subject and a specialist in andragogy, the science of teaching the elder people".
"The objective of the Seminar is to familiarize the lecturers with the essence, the main characteristics and the practical application of interactive and innovative teaching methods in the academic lecture and seminar exercises", said the Director of the Center for Innovative Educational Technologies and Head of the Pedagogy Department at UNWE Prof. Dr. Yanka Totseva. She held the two workshops, first of them was intended for all lecturers from the faculty, course holders who read lecture courses, chief assistants and assistants who lead seminar classes, and the second one was focused on the newly appointed assistants and those with up to three years of experience.
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Prof. Dr. Yanka Totseva introduced the attendees to the different types of interactive methods which aim to provoke the active participation of students. She presented the essence, main characteristics and practical application of interactive and innovative teaching methods, as well as the three categories of interactivity. She also analyzed the types of interactive learning systems, methodological prerequisites and methodological approaches for organizing content and presentation technology based on knowledge of the age and socio-emotional characteristics of the audience. Special attention was paid to the use of modern digital educational technologies applicable to the process of education in higher education institutions.
The implementation of activities for the improvement of the qualification of lecturers in the higher education institutions is a requirement set out in the Criteria for Programme Accreditation of a Professional Field/Specialty of Regulated Professions in accordance with the ESG Part 1 /1-10/ and within the meaning of Art. 3 of the Higher Education Act. It is more specifically stated in Standard 1. Quality Assurance Policy, where the following are recorded as quantitative indicators: N1.1.2. Average annual relative proportion /in percentage/ of lecturers who have participated in in-service training /relative to their total number in that year/ /weight 3/. N1.2.1. Average annual number of quality assurance events /training, seminars, roundtables, etc./ organized and held in the PN/SRP /weight 3/. Also in Standard 3. Training, lecturing and evaluating, have a specific indicator that could be supported by evidence of acquired competence in the use of interactive learning methods: N3.1.1. Relative proportion /in percentage/ of compulsory and elective courses in the professionla fileds with curricula requiring the use of interactive learning methods /to the total number in the current academic year/ /weight 2/.
