Silvia Cristina Mărginean / Camelia Budac / Troy B. Wiwczaroski (eds.) The Paradigm Shift in Higher Education

About this book

Until the gross disruption of practically every facet of life began in March 2020, with the realization that a global pandemic had erupted, the drive to achieve internationalisation on university campuses by i.e. promoting Erasmus student and faculty exchanges among European Union countries was an effort marked by mixed success. True, instructors and researchers had been forging successful cooperative relationships, resulting in e.g. joint textbook and journal publications. Brief or extended stints of teaching at partner universities not only provided colleagues with new impulses to reinvigorate their devotion to teaching, but exposed them to new ideas and methodologies for use in their classrooms, while enriching students with fresh and innovative ideas and approaches to subject matter that a classroom experience with an engaging instructor from a different culture brings.

However, social changes – even before COVID-19 appeared – pointed to a trend among students at many European universities that the motivation to live and study abroad was waning. Participation numbers were declining, and the number of Erasmus dropouts were on the rise.

There are many reasons why.

The nuances behind what it is that makes one student apply or not may change from culture to culture, member state to member state or university to university.

The rationale behind the project from which this book arose from real needs, and identified three major challenges to be addressed through the internationalization activities of the New Modes of Mobility (New M) Erasmus+ project:

• Bringing Europe together by increasing awareness and understanding in Europe.
• Increasing the transversal competences of the future workforce and therefore enhancing the Europe-wide employability of our graduates.
• Reducing inequalities in international education.

For this purpose, the key factors internationalisation and mobility would be reconsidered and revised. The main objective of this book is to introduce mobility concepts using digital technologies that can be made available to all participants of a course of study. The authors also demonstrate how new pedagogical concepts were developed, tested and implemented into existing curricula to achieve improved internationalisation at home.