International Higher Education Teacher Award ^2024/25

The course offers a student-centered internationalization at home activity for underrepresented groups of students and lecturers at Technikum Wien and fosters inclusion and disability awareness, intercultural exchange and digital skill development by service learning. This is done by the inclusion of part-time students, people with disabilities as co-designers, the work in groups of mixed international teams and the use of innovative digital technologies for online collaboration. The course is held on Wednesday and Thursday from 4pm to 6pm on campus. The timeslots are selected to allow part-time students to participate in the course, as they typically work during the day and have classes in the evening beginning at 6pm. The course is held in English and is also booked by incoming international students doing a study abroad at Technikum Wien. In the summer semester 2024 there were students from 8 nations including Austria. At the beginning of the course, students get a short introduction about different types of disabilities and typical causes. In a second session, they are introduced to people with disabilities (PwD) who talk about their daily challenges and real-world problems that could be solved or improved by technical solutions. PwD are involved as co-designers to help the students in terms of requirements engineering and to get feedback about their technical prototypes. In parallel, introductory workshops at the beginning of the course level-up the students in the principles of co-design, assistive technologies, rapid prototyping, programming and microcontrollers. The workshops involve two assignments that are graded with 10 percent each. One assignment is about building a low-cost Assistive Button using a 3D printer and some soldering. The second one is about emulating mouse movements with a microcontroller. Then they select a project topic and form international teams of 4-6 persons. During the project work, the students get regular feedback by their supervisors and the co-designers. The lab facilities, equipped with 3D printers and soldering tools, support hands-on experimentation, and students can get materials and tools, as needed. The projects emphasize digital collaboration using tools like Git, with final results shared via public repositories including documentation. Finally, students present their work to supervisors and co-designers, with group work contributing 80% of their grade.

Methodology

The course was designed and planned by the applicant and internal (International Office, Teaching and Learning Center, faculty staff) and external stakeholders (disability organizations) through the funded project inclusion international (33-02, City of Vienna) that combines the fields of action “internationalization” and “e-Inclusion” (support of people with disabilities through modern information and communication technologies). The internationalization strategy 2025 of the UAS Techikum Wien aims to foster intercultural exchange by internationalization at home activities for our students. This is especially important for part-time students not having the possibility of doing a semester abroad. Hence, the course ASSIST HEIDI is not embedded in the curriculum of a specific program but implemented as an elective course for both UAS Technikum Wien students and incoming students (primarily ERASMUS+ students). The course is offered in the winter and summer semester and involves lecturers from two faculties (Faculty of Electronic Engineering & Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Life Sciences Engineering) and two external co-designers (People with Disabilities). The course exemplifies a student-centered approach by actively involving participants in real-world problem-solving and fostering empathy through direct interaction with individuals with disabilities. It aligns with the horizontal priorities of inclusion and diversity by promoting accessibility and awareness, and internationalization through collaboration with students and experts from various backgrounds, fostering cross-cultural exchange and learning. Additionally, the integration of digital tools, such as version control systems, collaborative platforms, and assistive technologies, ensures students develop essential digital competencies while enhancing project outcomes. The methodology is also in line with service-learning, where students engage in real-world projects, applying theoretical knowledge to develop assistive tools that directly benefit people with disabilities. These projects promote civic responsibility and professional growth while creating tangible social impact. During the group work, students are learning the principles of user-centered design by discussing requirements together with their co-designers in English. Furthermore, the discussion process helps to practice their technical English and they are sensitized to the challenges and requirements of people with disabilities. Working together in groups on complex project topics requires students to bring in diverse skills and perspectives. These stem from their cultural backgrounds, study programs at their home institutions, and individual expertise. This setup also allows individual learning paths and autonomy of learning which is especially important for students of underrepresented groups like part-time students with limited time capalities, students with caring duties or students with disabilities. By the use of versioning and collaboration systems like git, the students get digital skills that are requested by the labour market. Regular feedback from co-designers, students (e.g. by a course evaluation survey), and supervisors informs iterative improvements to the course structure and delivery. Project topics are newly defined each semester, elaborated with input from co-designers to address current needs. While the co-designers may vary each year, they maintain close contact with the teaching staff, providing regular feedback and collaborating to refine the course approach. Review processes focus on enhancing inclusivity, digital integration, and collaboration, ensuring the methodology evolves to meet diverse needs effectively.

Tools, equipment, technology used

The course is held in the Smart Living Lab of the UAS Technikum Wien which is equipped with Smart Home technologies and is dedicated for Active and Assisted Living applications and Assistive Technology projects. The lab infrastructure also contains 3D printers, electronic components and soldering tools, supporting the creation of assistive technology solutions in a new and innovative learning environment. The course design promotes the use of technologies within a hands-on learning environment. The students gain experience in rapid prototyping, programming, microcontrollers and AI-based solutions like text-to-speech services and ML-based computer vision APIs to develop innovative assistive technology prototypes. This approach fosters inclusion by addressing diverse user needs and digitalization by equipping students with cutting-edge technical skills.. The course contents and structure is provided on a moodle platform, guiding the students through the learning activities and to upload the requested assignments. Collaboration is facilitated via email, instant messaging, and a dedicated Discord server managed by Technikum Wien, enabling internationalization through teamwork among diverse, multicultural groups. In order to simplify collaboration, the students are encouraged to use versioning and collaboration tools like git and are asked to finally release a public repository with their project results on github, further enhancing their digital competencies.

Outcomes and outputs, main results

After successful completion of the course, the students … • know types and causes of disabilities • understand the requirements for people with disabilities • know strategies for problem-solving • are able to discuss technical subjects in English • are able to understand and apply the principles of co-design • are able to reflect diversity • are able to design and implement technical prototypes using rapid prototyping, programming or microcontrollers • are able to collaborate in international, multicultural teams • are able to prepare and present in English The outcomes are continuously measured during and at the end of the course, by the following: • continuous evaluation by co-designers • continuous supervision and observation by lecturers • final group presentation • project results in public respositories • real/working prototypes The outcomes are in line with the EHEA goals of the Paris/Yerevan communiqué regarding • Innovative Learning and Teaching in form of student-centered learning and enhancing digitalization • Social Dimension and Inclusion by including underrepresented student-groups (part-time students), co-designing Assistive Technologies and creating awareness for disability.

Lessons learnt

The design and implementation of the ASSIST HEIDI course had many positive effects. The involvement of PwD as co-designers and doing a meaningful task led to a high student motivation. By releasing the project results to the public, not only the involved co-designers can personally benefit from the technical solutions but also other PwD in the world. The work in mixed international teams enables individual learning paths, promotes the contribution of diverse skills, makes fun and helps to create new international networks. In the first iteration in the summer semester 2023, the project topics had not been defined in advance. The students interviewed the PwD and they were allowed to propose project topics themselves. While this approach can be useful, to foster creativity of the students and to find new ideas for technical solutions, it also made it difficult to estimate the feasibility of the topics both for the students and the lecturers. Additionally, the time for researching and finding technologies for the realization is about 2-3 weeks and is better utilized in the project implementation phase. In the first and second iterations, some of the supervision sessions were online to provide more flexibility for part-time students. This measure turned out to be counter-productive for the project progress and the teams did not evolve as expected. As skills are diverse and the students are not experienced in the field of application and the technologies, it’s quite challening for them. Hence, the project topics should fulfill certain criteria and there should be tasks with different levels of complexity (e.g. researching, basic programming, advanced programming) and consider the usage of different technologies (e.g. 3D printing, microcontrollers, …).

Adaptability and sustainability of the best practice (for other institutions)

The course design can be directly implemented at other institutions as an elective course or embedded in a curriculum without modifications. Although the involvement of PwD and the co-design approach add unique assets and should not be skipped, it can be difficult to realize it that way for several reasons. It could be difficult to find PwD who want to talk about their challenges and who are fluent in speaking English. Also the payment of two extra persons increases the course costs. There are several strategies to cope with that: a) Skip the co-design element and already define project topics in advance in accordance with PwD or with experts in the field. b) Setup the course as blended or virtual mobility in cooperation with a partner university and share the co-designers, project topics and supervisors. The use of English as the course language makes the course suitable for incoming students and helps to justify the course operation costs. Long-term sustainability is supported by the course’s focus on fostering inclusive design, digital skills, and intercultural collaboration, which have lasting impacts on students’ employability and societal contribution.

Promotion of best practice

At the end of the semester, the course execution is promoted in several channels including the results and with links to the public repositories: • National / International Level: ◦ Course Webpage: https://www.technikum-wien.at/en/course-assist-heidi/ ◦ Newsletter on UAS Technikum Wien web page (www.technikum-wien.at) including posts by the official account of the university on Linkedin and Facebook. ◦ Social Media: Linkedin and Facebook ◦ Application Profformance Teacher Award ◦ EHEA Partner Network and activities of project Inclusion International: ▪ Guest Lectures at Iowa State University and MIT (USA) or workshops in Romania, Kenia and Brazil. • Institutional Level: ◦ Newsletter: Internal newsletter for staff ◦ Social Media ◦ Application UAS Technikum Wien Teaching Award Channels and Forms: Promotion takes place via newsletters, social media platforms, course web pages, and public presentations, ensuring broad outreach. Outreach and Impact: The course has reached international academic and professional communities through events and workshops, while the public repositories enable global access to project results, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Scope and impact

• Faculty level
• Institutional level
• National level
• EU/EHEA/International level

The impacts of the course are clearly visible on several levels: Faculty level: • Faculty of Electronic Engineering & Entrepreneurship (long-term impact): Internationalization at home activity for part-time students • Faculty of Life Sciences Engineering (long-term impact): Promotion for the new specialization program „Assistive Technologies Engineering“ of the Bachelor Biomedical Engineering. Institutional level: • Institutional level (medium-term impact): Contribution to the internationalization strategy 2025 and 2030 of UAS Technikum Wien, which incorporated obligationary internationalization activities of Bachelor students. • EHEA level (medium-term impact): Increasing the attractivity of the university for student mobility within the EHEA network National/International level: ◦ Contribution to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and community outreach strategy of the UAS Technikum Wien (long-term impact) ◦ Contribution to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities (long-term impact) ◦ In line with the scope and long-term impact of the EHEA goals of the Paris/Yerevan communiqué regarding ▪ Innovative Learning and Teaching in form of student-centered learning and enhancing digitalization ▪ Social Dimension and Inclusion by including underrepresented student-groups (part-time students), co-designing Assistive Technologies and creating awareness for disability.

6.1 Digitalization

• Innovative, novel methodology in using digital tools/devices in teaching
• Digital skills development and assessment both general and profession-related, embedded in course design, in teaching and assessment
• Other:

  Application of cutting-edge digital technologies for real-world problems Development of innovative digital tools and solutions

Reasoning: The course integrates innovative digital tools like microcontrollers, AI-based solutions, and collaborative platforms to address real-world challenges. Students develop professional and general digital skills by creating assistive technologies and using tools such as Git for collaboration. The use of cutting-edge technologies and continuous feedback fosters hands-on learning, helping students build digital solutions, while enhancing both technical and collaborative competencies in the process.

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6.2 Internationalization

• Developing students' multicultural awareness
• International projects/research results embedded into course development and T&L
• Other:

  Internationalization at home

Reasoning: The course fosters internationalization at home by involving students from various nations and adjusting schedules for part-time learners and using English as the language of instruction. It addresses global challenges like inclusion and accessibility, incorporating diverse cultural perspectives through user-centered design for PwD. Practical projects and collaboration tools like Github enhance global competence and intercultural communication skills.

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6.3 Inclusion and diversity, universal design

• Innovative teaching methodology for inclusion and meet diverse student needs
• (Innovative) use of devices and tools for inclusion
• Senzitivizing students to consider special needs when practicing their profession
• Course includes hints on how the services/products of the profession could be universally designed/inclusive
• Other:

  Inclusive teaching by involving lecturers with special needs as co-designers

Reasoning: 1) The course includes part-time students, international students and PwD as co-designers. The integration of co-designed assistive technology prototyping creates awareness for diversity and universally designed products and shows an innovative use of devices and tools for inclusion. 2) The course ensures accessibility by providing adaptive learning paths in hands-on workshops and group projects and by the use of digital collaboration tools, supporting diverse needs and abilities. The schedule (4pm-6pm) accomodates for part-time students. 3) Teaching strategies, such as workshops and group projects, address varied skill levels. Interactive co-design sessions ensure students can contribute meaningfully, regardless of prior experience and with individual learning paths. 4) Assessments emphasize group contributions (80% grading) and individual learning paths. Regular feedback from lecturers, peers, and co-designers ensures continuous improvement tailored to diverse student needs.

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6.4 Sustainability

• Sustainability goals are addressed in the course(s)
• Special courses reflecting to UN 2030 Sustainability goals, Green Deal - mini-courses, microcredentials
• Social entrepreneurship projects, service-learning in the topic

Reasoning: The course addresses SDG 4 by fostering inclusive, equitable, and lifelong learning opportunities. Through service-learning, students engage in real-world projects, applying theoretical knowledge to develop assistive tools that directly benefit people with disabilities. These projects promote civic responsibility while creating tangible social impact using cutting edge-technologies and AI in research and third mission activities.

3.3 Public contact datas

Name	Email address	Website
Martin Deinhofer	deinhofe@technikum-wien.at	https://www.technikum-wien.at/en/course-assist-heidi/