Let's Unite! – Get to know Arnold Pears
The Unite! community introduces itself
2022/12/09
Unite! is a living and constantly growing alliance. Many people at the seven (soon to be nine) partner universities are working on different projects to make a European University a reality. Who they are and what exactly they do is what we show in the series “Let's Unite! – Get to know…”. This time, Arnold Pears from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology takes on.
Arnold Pears is the Head of the Department of Learning in Engineering Sciences and Professor of Technology and Engineering Education at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Within Unite!, he has been working with capacity building initiatives in the context of the Teaching and Learning Academy activity and also within the virtual campus, to create collaborative courses and share innovative pedagogies. On a personal level, he is a keen fencer and has trained as a fencing master for Foil and Epee in modern Olympic Fencing. Arnold lives in a village outside Uppsala in Sweden and enjoys renovating his historical house.
What future Unite! Project are you particularly excited about and why do you think it is important for Unite!’s strategy?
I am most interested in the enhancement of academic innovative capacity in terms of pedagogy and course and curriculum development. I am very interested in the idea of developing a Unite! certificate of Higher Education Theory and Practice and the certification of elements of such a certificate through the Unite! alliance, using digital micro-credentialing (digital badging) and block-chain technologies.
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What is happening in your TF? Anything interesting to share with the Unite! community?
Our most important event in the Autumn of 2022 was the Teaching and Learning Unite! conference event that showcased pedagogical activities and provided a platform for sharing innovative teaching and learning ideas between staff and students of Unite! The Unite!-Ed conference was held virtually on the 10th of November from 9am to 4pm CET, and comprised keynotes from Andreas Winkler the General Secretary of Unite! and Professor Leif Kari, Vice-rector for Education at KTH, followed by a rich programme of talks and activities helping to shape innovative teaching and learning in Unite!
From your point of view, what is the advantage of working or studying at a Unite! university? What do you think is special about the Unite! Network?
Unite! provides me with the platform to engage with dynamic colleagues throughout Europe to innovate and improve education for all. This platform provides huge opportunities in terms of collaboration and research in higher education development.
Unite!/mho
Unite! Teaching and Learning Academy
The Unite! Teaching and Learning Academy is a working group that joins the alliance's members' vast experiences in engineering education. The Teaching and Learning Academy activities help prepare the worldviews of our graduates to be broad, adaptable and multicultural, respecting European liberal democracy and inclusiveness. The working group is focused on developing flexible study paths and joint curricula, with embedded mobility, expanding beyond the traditional dual and double degree ideology into development of joint degrees. This enables Unite! students to develop individualized professional profiles, in which they are co-creators of their learning.
The Teaching and Learning Academy so far has launched a Joint Programme Communications Engineering and Data Science (CoDas ), while several joint programmes are in the pipeline. In place are interdisciplinary and challenge-based study courses (INSPIRED, ULisses), reflecting ways to implement flexible study pathways and conducting a pilot series of webinars on Teaching and Learning (TAL).
About Unite!
Alongside TU Darmstadt as the coordinator, Unite! (University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering) also includes Aalto University (Finland), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Grenoble Institute of Technology (France), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain) and Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal).
The seven partner universities aim to use the European University to create a trans-European campus for students and researchers with the involvement of regions and companies. The partners have a total of 167,000 students, already cooperate closely in more than 80 EU projects and have exchanged more than 2,000 students in the past five years. The alliance has set itself the goal of combining courses for the benefit of students, breaking down existing technical and administrative hurdles, and thus significantly increasing student mobility. Research will also benefit from the conditions created for larger and easier cooperation, which will strengthen the competitiveness of the European Higher Education Area overall.
