MASTERY

REFLESS Project team members enjoy a continual dialog. We desire to improve ourselves, gain experience and get better at what we do and enjoy. We learn from our partners, we learn from our experience, and we disseminate the knowledge we gain.

REFLESS WORKING VISITS AND TRAININGS

We learn from our EU partners' valuable experience.

REFLESS project team planned and carried out five working visits to Universities of Strasbourg (May 2nd-May 6th, 2011), Versailles (May 9th- May 11th, 2011), Bratislava (May 16th- May 19th, 2011), Southampton (May 26-28, 2011) and Graz (June 19th – June 22nd 2011). The working visits specific objective, as described in our Work Plan, is to review and analyse the current curricula state and accreditation standards for foreign languages in Serbia and EU, translation and interpretation modules and master programs in Serbia and at EU Universities, and to review and analyse Serbian as a Foreign Language programs in Serbia and at EU universities. These activities are closely related to achievement of three of our goals: reforms of foreign language studies in accordance with European standards and developing master studies in T&I and Serbian as a foreign language.

The benefits of these working visits are numerous and REFLESS project has gained knowledge ans experience from EU partners who already have years of experience in the field. For more details see our working visits topics and conclusions.

One of the REFLESS project values is lifelong learning. Improvement of skills is the road to mastery, therefore trainings are planned and regularly organized for the members, as described in the Workpackege 1, Outcomes 2, 4 and 5: Key members language teachers trainings in the use of the toolkit developed, Language teachers training in planning, monitoring and assessing L2 teaching, 3 x 2 weeks I&T teacher trainings in Strasbourg ad Graz, 3 x 2 weeks I&T teacher trainings in Serbia, 3 x 2 weeks Serbian as a L2 trainings in Graz, 3 x 2 weeks Serbian as a L2 trainings in Serbia.

REFLESS MEETINGS

We learn through dialogs during our meetings.

REFLESS Project teams meet on regular basis. We hold coordination meetings every six months to go review, retrospect and plan. We inspect the progress of the project and adapt our plans to the reality of what is emerging. The goal is to promote continuous improvement in how the team creates value in the project. This is accomplished by asking key questions about the practices that benefited the project and the team or worked against it during the last sprint and to identify new practices that should be started during the next sprint. What worked well last sprint that we should continue doing? What didn’t work well last sprint that we should stop doing? What should we start doing?

REFLESS Project expert teams meet on regular basis when needed to discuss, harmonise and learn. Equipment purchase meeting is an example of how efficient can be our cross-functional and international teams.

ADDITIONAL EXPERTISE

We go outside the project to learn from other disciplines so that we can always be up to date with the modern world.

Management improvments
Management is important. It provides organization and leadership to a group of people. Management helps people work towards a common goal together, as well as helps things run more efficiently.

REFLESS Project’s management is based on modern, tools and processes, agile methodologies, and the tailor-made combination of Kanban, Scrum, Open Space and World Cafe. The project coordinator, Jasmina Nikolić, is a Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner, and Open Space facilitator, who was educated in London, Kiev and Arizona. She organizes whenever possible workshops and events for students and for members of the REFLESS project team. To learn about the upcoming events, go to our Calendar.

Higher Education Reform Expertise - HERE team and training
Higher Education Reform Expert Team was established by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia on the initiative of European Commission. Main objectives of HERE team are improvement of implementation, promotion of Bologna process and HE reform and providing of relevant information about these topics to academic and wider public. Being the coordinator of the project member of the HERE team, the Project benefits from all the knowledge gained during the HERE team trainings, such as From Imbalanced to Balanced Mobility in the EHEA – Current challenges and Perspectives for the Future, Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dients (DAAD), Berlin (2011), Higher Education in Western Balkans: Quality Assurance and Accreditation, Polytechnic University of Tirana, Tempus, UNIQA, Brussels Education Services. Tirana (2011), Recognition in Higher Education – How to Make it Work, European Commission, Talin (2010).

CEFR and ELP trainings with David Little

David Little held trainings at the University of Belgrade on CEFR and ELP that turned out to be very helpful for the accreditation process. He shared numerous articles and gave useful advice on how to relate learning outcomes with CEFR levels in the reform of study programs.

Conferences play an important role in helping bring together industry and academia to discuss and share ideas. We attended Learning Without Frontiers 2011, London, E-learning Symposium, UK Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, Southampton, 2011, Languages in Higher Education 2010 Conference: Raising the Standard for Languages, LLAS, London, INTED2010 (International Technology, Education and Development Conference), Valencia, Spain, EDULEARN09 (International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies), Barcelona, 2009.

DISSEMINATION

We share our knowledge. Read our Reader and visit our News and Blog.

REFLESS Project team is dedicated to dissemination of the results achieved through conferences, education and employment fairs, presentations, various workshops and media. REFLESS Project management was presented as an example of good TEMPUS project management practice, as a new trend in ICT development, and as an agile approach to transforming the world of instructional design in London.

REFLESS project team in a working visit to University of Versailles (video)

REFLESS project team in a working visit to University of Graz (video)

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