FREQUENT ASKED QUESTIONS

Who participates in this project?

The students, professors and administrative staff. In overall all the staff of the Faculties of Veterinary Medicine of the Universities of Bosnia, Milan and Oporto.

·          At the beggining there are a series of “pilot” subjects for the project BLENDED LEARNING (dermatology with the DERMATIC´s project and pathological anatomy with the NECROTIC´s project) but it is expected that at the time the project finishes there will be more subjects that participate directly. All the professors, students and staff of these areas are directly involved as active participants.

·          On another area of interest (Young Teacher) will participate all the young professors visiting the Universities of Milan and Oporto and their corresponding subjects. All the staff who receive them in the Faculties of destiny and the students of those subjects are involved too.

·          On a third area of interest the whole University of Sarajevo participates, especially the people in charge for the planning of the curriculum of Veterinary Medicine of the Faculty of Sarajevo. It will be attempted to transmit, through these persons in charge, the means to understand the ECTS system in Veterinary Medicine to all the academic community of the Veterinary Medicine in Sarajevo, presenting viable alternatives of application in the specific context of the Veterinary Medicine, reformulating and thinking on new means of learning based on this system that is the mandatory doorway of the European University interchange.

 

Is it necessary to be an experienced professor to participate?

There are two fields of participation.

 

·          It is necessary experience:  The communication between professors with experience is important since they know better the local practices and educative problems and can contribute bringing their ideas and solutions to specific local problems (the practices with corpses, lack of an specific animal species or interest in others, the way the students react to new methodologies, etc.). In the section ECTS this is fundamental. The same happens with the BLENDED LEARNING part in which it is necessary to adjust formative objectives unknowned to professors of other Faculties or without experience. In the section YOUNG TEACHER it is necessary this experience in order to collaborate in the formative design of the visiting young professor. Without this collaboration the young professor who returns from his period of learning in Oporto or Milan, will have difficulties in the application and extension of his new skills in his specific context of work.

 

·          It is not necessary experience: All the professors of the section YOUNG TEACHER do not need experience of course. On the other hand the project is open to all the innovating or creative people with ideas that they can be carried out. In educative innovation the experience is not totally essential.

 

Is it necessary some previous knowledge to be an participant professor?

 

·          BASIC ENGLISH: It is recommendable a certain knowledge of  basic English as the language of communication of the project although that is not totally essential. Either way the visiting professors integrated in the YOUNG TEACHER section must know English, at least at a basic oral communication level, if they do not know the local language (Italian or Portuguese). Remember that the receiving University most certainly will integrate them in the local educational work and creation of specific educative material.

 

·          MINIMUM COMPUTER SCIENCE SKILLS: It is only necessary basic user level skills (turn on the PC, word processor, Internet navigation and use of the electronic mail). The most important is professor’s point of view as specialized agents in its subjects, implied in the education-learning processes. The rest is relatively simple to acquire.

 

Is this an e-learning education program?

NO. The basis of the Sarajevo JEP II project is the people involved, the students and the professors and never the technology. Most certainly technology is going to provide certain models of education-learning but in no way it will be the fundamental part. We will use a fast, simple and cheap technology. The key is in what the students learn.

On the other hand this project cannot be concieved as a pure e-learning one. The students have to physically solve the cases, must physically make the necropsies, must physically solve the necropsies. For that reason it is a Blended-learning system. The online component is a complement to the essencial presential part. An alternative way to reinforce the cognitive processes learned in the practices. Without that practical and physical basis our system our online sistem could not exist. For that reason we speak of Blended-learning (mixed presential learning and non presential online learning) and not of pure e-learning (online learning).