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The three-day Erasmus+ Staff Training Week offered participants a chance to explore Aalto, strengthen networks across European universities, and exchange ideas.

The first day opened with a warm welcome from Petri Suomala, Vice President for Education, followed by an inspiring talk from Elina Kähkönen, Head of Cross-Cutting Approaches, who spoke about integrating sustainability into education and research.

The second day was dedicated to two parallel workshops. The first, ‘Transnational Joint Courses’, provided a practical overview of how to design and deliver international collaborative teaching. Topics covered included course formats, planning tools such as the , and real-life examples from Unite! alliance members. 

The second workshop, ‘The Exchange Student’s Path from Home to Host’, focused on sharing practices and challenges at each stage of the student exchange journey. Discussions covered promotion, applications, pre-departure learning agreements, as well as the arrival process and early weeks at host universities.

The final day offered a focused clinic for Unite! staff working on joint programmes. Participants could ask detailed questions and receive personalised advice on how to initiate or develop joint and double degree initiatives within Unite!.

From Matchmaking to Modules: Building QUORUM Across Unite! Universities

Elena Comino, Associate Professor at Politecnico di Torino, attended the Transnational Joint Courses workshop to deepen her understanding of how to design and deliver meaningful joint modules. 

Comino is currently involved in QUORUM, a Unite! seed-funded joint project that brings together five Unite! partner universities. The idea for the project took shape during a Unite! online matchmaking event. After being assigned to a breakout room with staff from across Europe, the group quickly found common ground and decided to build the project proposal.

“We may have been lucky building this consortium, but I think that luck came from an instinct,” Comino said. “Just from seeing each other on screen and exchanging a few words, we sensed we shared the same values in education and collaboration. Next, we will meet in person in Torino and build the first module together.” 

Building Connections for Short-Term Exchange

Valentina Visnjic Lang, from TU Darmstadt, is the Coordinator for International Relationships at the Department of Architecture. Her motivation for attending the Transnational Joint Courses workshop at Aalto was to get to know Aalto University, but also to find ways to implement joint courses even more smoothly. “In my work with international and exchange students, I know that many are not interested in long-term exchanges; rather, many are interested in short-term exchanges and different ways of studying such as Blended Intensive Programmes (BIPs).” 

Her department has already experimented with formats like BIPs, and Visnjic Lang initiated a course that is still running. Her experience has shown that these formats can be tricky to implement, which is why she values hearing how others are tackling similar challenges. 

Exploring Large-Scale Teaching 

Ernest Ampadu, Associate Professor in Mathematics Education at KTH, led a session in the Transnational Joint Courses workshop focused on large-scale teaching. He shared insights from a recently developed handbook that explores effective strategies for managing and improving teaching and learning in large classroom settings.

Ampadu invited participants to reflect on what large-scale teaching looks like in their own institutions and how it impacts assessment and student engagement. He said he always learns something new when presenting at workshops. One idea that resonated with him during the event was "using the crowd to support the crowd," i.e. leveraging peer learning as a powerful tool in large classroom settings.

Ampadu emphasised that large-scale teaching is context-dependent—a class of 150 in mathematics may be equivalent to just 15 in a language course, highlighting the importance of aligning expectations in collaborative programs.

Reframing the Exchange Experience

Manuel Ausserlechner, Erasmus+ Coordinator for outgoing students at TU Graz, participated in the concurrent workshop An Exchange Student’s Path from Home to Host. Although he’s been working in student mobility for several years, he was reminded of the value of events like this for sharing insights and learning new perspectives from colleagues across Europe.

During the workshop, Ausserlechner was particularly inspired by the social side of student exchange. “This time, I’ve had an insight into the need for more events that help students get to know each other and lower the threshold for them to come to my office,” he said. By hearing how colleagues across Europe approach the early phases of exchange, he left the session with new ideas to support his students not just administratively, but socially and emotionally as well.

Are you interested in international staff training? 

Unite! offers staff weeks and training courses to all members of staff from the nine partner universities. to find opportunities to meet other people with similar interests, internationalise your professional curriculum, and find partners for your teaching, research or university management projects.