On June 16-17th a seminar on “Teaching and learning: Enhancement tools” took place in Yerevan. Representatives of the Armenian universities, education managers, and renowned international experts participated in the seminar.
Director of the National Center for Professional Education Quality Assurance Ruben Topchyan welcomed the participants of the seminar. First, he mentioned the problems typical for the Armenian educational system which had come out during the institutional accreditation, and then he highlighted the role of the seminar which was aimed to find solutions to those problems.
Mr. Topchyan noted that it is important that the strategic governance is measurable and the quality management reaches the teaching process. The next important problem, according to Mr. Topchyan is the definition of measurable learning outcomes and the link between learning and assessment processes.
According to Mr. Tpochyan, solutions for the problems could be found only through dialogue, and such seminars are providing a dialogue between ANQA, universities, and international experts.
The key speakers of the seminar were Prof Lucien Bollaert, member of the executive board of the Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO), member of the board of the European Consortium for Accreditation in higher education (ECA) and member of the working on the quality of higher education of EURASHE and Dr Declan Kennedy, full-time lecturer of University College Cork.
Professor Bollaert spoke about the necessity to formulate a new vision of higher education in order to cope with the current challenges of the global economy. He presented how a vision can be turned into a corresponding mission and strategy. He also had a report on linking learning outcomes to teaching and learning activities and to assessment.
Dr. Kennedy gave a background to the international focus on learning outcomes and discussed the meaning of key terms. He also gave recommendations for writing module learning outcomes and program learning outcomes. Then the participants had an opportunity to gain practice in writing module learning outcomes, discuss these learning outcomes with their colleagues and share their good practice.
Summing up the two-day seminar Mr. Topchyan highlighted the fact that the participants were active and the desire of each university to find a solution for its problems was visible.
The two-day seminar was organized by Armenian Erasmus + national office and Support and Promotion for Higher Education Reform Experts team. The co-organizers were the Yerevan State University of Languages and Social Science and Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts.