Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to describe challenge solving processes and the development work of two pedagogical models in Higher Education Institutions for Societal Engagement (HEISE) project.

HEISE project is a three-year Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education funded project that will carry out during 2016-2019. Higher Education Institutions’ (HEI) play an important role in education of young people to understand the underlying value systems of society and cultures, creating abilities to foster social integration. HEISE project aims to create an innovative and attractive educational model based on experiential and challenge led learning to increase the higher education institutions’ societal engagement. The aim is to promote the inclusion of disadvantaged people and encourage the participation of HEIs’ students. The innovation lies in engaging the owners of challenges and the students into joint teams and to use arts-based methods to understand the different point of views in solving the challenges.

The challenge solving processes are carried out by the partner institutions of the project and the best practices are collected in a toolkit for teachers to integrate challenge based learning methods into teaching. The toolkit will consist of pedagogical methods and tools, focusing on arts-based methods.

During the academic year 2016-17 challenge solving processes were organized by Laurea University of Applied Sciences and by Aalto University. The joint teams were working together and the material for the development work was collected by students’ reports, the teachers’ reflection diaries and the feedback of the challenge owners.

This paper will describe and analyse two pedagogical models that was defined through challenge solving processes. The paper will review the results focusing on teachers’ role in the challenge solving processes. Closed pedagogical model consists of strong support by the teacher in challenge solving processes. In the open pedagogical model teacher acts more as a facilitator, who makes room for novel knowledge and action by the students and challenge owners.

Keywords:

Pedagogical model, Arts-based methods, Societal engagement, Social impact.