PROJ/IPV/ID&I/022
EQuIPES - Study of Quality and Pedagogical Innovation in Higher Education

Several challenges have been tackled by Portuguese and European Higher Education, many of which are in the pedagogical arena. Although Pedagogy in Higher Education is not an invested area, there are studies, initiatives, projects and structures of great quality in the national context. An important part of the advances in the area has resulted from the systematic analysis, sharing and discussion of practices that have embodied several publications and sustained several interventions in Portugal and internationally. The EQuIPES - Study of Quality and Pedagogical Innovation in Higher Education aims to contribute to this body of experiences and studies that allows to understand and improve teaching and learning in Higher Education institutions, based on the analysis of practices in the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu in communication with partners. Based on projects from the Institute and at national level, EQuIPES will characterize the way IPV’s teaching staff teaches and what supports and constraints teachers recognize in their pedagogical practices. From this diagnosis, follows the identification, characterization and discussion of practices, namely active learning ones, which embody pedagogical innovation. Active learning is understood as a set of flexible practices that seeks the involvement of students through the use of approaches that move away from the teacher as center of the activities and which often resort to digital technologies. These practices, supported by a variety of records and in-depth reviews and input from various stakeholders, are shared and discussed with the closer and the wider community. The study adopts a mixed methodology. It begins with a survey for the the entire IPV that is accompanied by direct observation of spaces used for teaching, registered in a grid. In the second phase, through a snowball sampling, the case studies will be identify: teachers with pedagogical practices with active learning approaches, which we intend to characterize and analyze, using the input of external experts. The teachers involved in these case studies are invited to share these practices in peer-to-peer training spaces open to IPV staff and the larger community, accompanied by expert interventions. With this approach, we intend to contribute to the visibility of Pedagogy in Higher Education, associated to the construction and utilization of active learning approaches.