Partners

The TU Dresden is one of eleven German universities that were identified by the German government as an ‘excellence university’. TUD has about 35.000 students, 4.400 publicly funded staff members – among them over 500 professors – and approximately 3.500 externally funded staff members, and, thus, is the largest university in Saxony, today. TU Dresden is strong in research and provides first-rate programmes with an overwhelming diversity, with close ties to culture, industry and society. Having been committed to sciences and the engineering before the reunification of Germany, TU Dresden now is a multi-discipline university, also offering humanities and social sciences as well as medicine, organized in 14 faculties under the roof of 5 schools, making it one of a very few in Germany. As a “synergetic university” TU Dresden closely cooperates with external research institutions, cultural, industrial and social organisations. The TU Dresden is embedded in the DRESDEN concept network, which bundles and uses all synergies of Dresden’s numerous scientific and cultural institutes – under it 6 Fraunhofer-, 3 Leibnitz- and 3 Max-Planck institutes, 1 Helmholtz center, two universities and several technical and cultural collections, museums, libraries and governmental institutes. In recognition of the TUD’s emphasis on applications in both teaching and research, leading companies have honoured the university with currently fifteen endowed chairs. The TUD prides itself for its international flair and has partnerships with more than 70 universities worldwide. Furthermore, TUD is the only university in East Germany, which has been granted a graduate school and a cluster of excellence in Germany’s excellence initiative. TUD’s strategic goals can be found in four fields of action: The internationalisation of studying and teaching, the internationalisation of research, establishing general conditions for the internationalisation of teaching and research and improving TU Dresden’s position on the international stage.
The Media Center (Medienzentrum) is a central scientific institution of the TU Dresden and is both a research institute as well as a service provider. About 100 employees work at the Media Center in five specialized departments: Teaching and Learning Spaces, Digital Teaching and Learning, Media Design, Media and Information Technology, as well as Media Strategies. The Medienzentrum supports the development and conception of multimedia-based learning arrangements in education and training. Furthermore it is familiar with the development of infrastructures and networking platforms. The Media Center has been partner as well as coordi-nator in national and international projects.

 

Birmingham City University is a large, diverse, modern University with around 22,000 students drawn from 80 countries. The University has an enviable reputation for providing quality, student-focused education in a professional and friendly environment. Our superb courses, state-of-the-art facilities, first-rate staff, and focus on practical skills and professional relevance is producing some of the country’s most employable graduates, with the Sunday Times University Guide 2013 ranking us in the UK top 30 for the proportion of our students entering graduate-level jobs.
The University contributes around £270 million into the regional economy annually and support thousands of jobs in the area. We’re investing £180 million in our estate, including a major expansion of our city centre campus at Eastside, providing students with an enviable range of facilities.
Our staff and student community is defined by our core values, which outline who we are as a University and how we will work with each other. Our core values are Excellence, People focused, Partnership working and Fairness and integrity

The Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences comprises three Schools: Nursing and Midwifery, Education and Social Work and Health Sciences, all of which enjoy a national and international reputation for excellence in teaching and learning. From foundation degrees and undergraduate courses to postgraduate diplomas, PhDs & Professional Doctorates and continuing professioanl development programmes for health and education practitioners our courses combine academic excellence with a strong vocational focus, equipping students with the intellectual skills they need to be successful and the ability to transfer their knowledge to the workplace.
The School of Education at Birmingham City University is one of the UK’s leading providers of teacher education and enjoys an enviable reputation for delivering the highest quality courses, with our primary and secondary teacher training programmes rated by the national inspectorate, Ofsted, as Grade 1 ‘Outstanding’. We offer a range of courses for educational professionals, trainee teachers and serving teachers that cover the school age phases from primary through to continuing adult education, at every study level from undergraduate to PhD. The School of Education provides high quality teaching, delivered by dedicated and caring staff, all of whom have either been teachers or have worked in education. The School trains more teachers than any other university in the West Midlands and is the 10th largest teacher training provider in the UK. In the latest Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) Survey 94 per cent of Birmingham City University trained newly qualified primary and secondary teachers rated the quality of their training good or very good.
In addition to ITT activity the School supports a vibrant post qualification community of teachers who chose us as a first choice Continuing Professional Development provider.
Phil Taylor has oversight of our masters and CPD programmes in Education. Phil has designed and developed two new CPD pathways that have successfully recruited teachers from across the region. The Masters in Teaching and Learning and the Masters in Education and Leadership are innovative school-based programmes that make use of practice-based enquiry methods. Rather than recruiting students individually the MTL and MEL programmes recruit whole cohorts of students from partner schools to work collaboratively on common and whole school issues. As such they are well supported by head teachers, who may contribute to teaching, and deliver relevant and impactful outcomes.
The School of Education works in close partnership with a large network of schools and colleges across the West Midlands of England to deliver its portfolio of teacher training. This year 900 students will undertake multiple placements in over 1300 partner schools. This includes primary, secondary and special schools. We have additional relationships with early years settings and tertiary colleges, including sixth form colleges, which now deliver compulsory education to 16-18 year olds under a new government policy initiative that requires all 16-18 year olds in England to be in either education or training.
We have a well-managed and active database of partner schools and work closely with them on a range of initiatives beyond initial teacher education including continuing professional development, non-accredited programmes, research and knowledge exchange activities.
Significantly and in recognition of its outstanding work with schools Birmingham City University was awarded Academy Trust status by the UK ministry for education in July 2013. This enables the university to undertake direct ‘sponsorship’, responsibility for performance and finances, of local schools. This facilitates a very close, dynamic association between the University and the Schools it sponsors.

 

Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA) is an educational organization of private law, officially recognized by the state. Established in 1995, the Research and Development Department of EA provides the test bed for research applications for the design, development and implementation of the research activities in education.

The R&D Department acts therefore as an interface between the pedagogical research, the technological innovation and the school community. It focuses on the design, implementation and support of pedagogical and technological innovations in educational practice, both through internal research, as well as through collaborations with numerous educational, research and commercial institutions in Europe and the world.

The work of the R&D Department focuses on the following areas:  a) Development of methodologies and empirical classroom-based research;) b) Comparative research on educational policy at national and European level; c) Development of a model of and support for School innovation  d) Design and implementation of short- and long-term professional development of  teachers e) Cooperation and collaboration with Universities, research centers, museums and  private companies for the development and testing of educational material , outreach  exhibitions and  workshops  f) Design of technology-supported learning environments.

EA has a very strong vision-generated interest and rich research and development activity in the fields of formal and informal learning with an emphasis on social inclusion, implementation of anti- bullying policies and projects, combined with innovative technical solutions, game-based education, aiming to empower learners and teachers to thrive in the landscape of unprecedented challenges and opportunities in the 21st century.

Under this approach, EA has taken up the challenge to embed pedagogical practice that effectively uses ICTs in every classroom to overcome barriers and support inclusion, as well as driving up student academic outcomes across the school. Moreover, a large range of previous projects were focused on developing and implementing technological tools which leverage both digital science repositories and informal learning.