Janika Leoste

Digital transformation through development of digital readiness is one of the main objectives of this project proposal by developing a platform through which educators along their students will be able to access STEM LABs remotely through the internet. Therefore ReSTELA project aims to strengthen digital skills , through remotely accessible STEM Labs for vulnerable groups such as people (students educators) living in rural areas, or other groups that don’t have the financial capacity or knowledge to setup such systems and at the same time emphasizing on promoting new and improved learning methods.

The EuroTeQ Engineering University builds on the belief that societal developments of recent years call for strong University Alliances to make the Knowledge Square of Education, Research, Innovation and Service to Society a reality and its impact a benefit to Europe and beyond. As six leading Universities of Science and Technology, spread across Europe, situated in innovation eco-systems and with great collaboration experience, we are equipped to introduce a paradigm shift in the engineering education of the future, aspiring responsible value co-creation in technology. In three years' time all these measures will have notably promoted the cooperation between the individual Partner Universities, across faculties and central units. It will have significantly improved the seamless mobility of students and faculty, who have to a great extend joined in the pilots. The joint efforts of the Partner Universities aim to develop and integrate training formats that expand the perspective to non-academic target groups and professionals, which will diversify the skills and competence base of Europe. Bridging the gap between different groups in society will enhance social permeability. The students participating in the new formats of the EuroTeQ Engineering University will have gained a deeper understanding of the specific qualifications of other professional groups, especially non-academics, international fellow students and experienced practitioners. They will have acquired multilingual skills necessary for the interaction with non-academics involved. The developments will have provided already notable impulses for extended eco-systems beyond the Partner Universities for collaborative education in technology-oriented occupational fields.

We want to pilot the possible approaches of using telepresence robots in teaching. We are investigating whether the use of telepresence robots to bring teachers and students into a common physical learning space in cases where their participation would be prevented due to disability, health condition, location, etc., offers them a greater experience of presence, closer to contact learning, compared to the solutions used so far. Among other things, this is a prerequisite for high-quality implementation of problem and project based learning in a contact learning situation, encouraging the integration of active learning methods (group work, discussions, etc.) into various activities and offering more versatile opportunities for participation in learning. Social isolation and the resulting mental problems have been pointed out in various research articles covering higher education studies during the COVID-19 era. Presence mediated by a telepresence robot gives the robot user more versatile freedom to act in physical space, for example, moving around independently, establishing contact and eye contact with fellow students (including changing one's relative height - sitting vs. standing companion), controlling objects in the physical environment using voice commands, additional manipulators, movement, etc.