In order to strengthen and extend EPFL’s contribution to the digital transformation of education, the Center LEARN has joined the partnership between the Canton of Bern’s Department of Education and Culture and five universities to form BeLEARN: a competence center whose objective is to advance digital education through a translational approach.
Within this framework, the three Bernese institutions – the University of Bern, the Bern University of Applied Sciences and the Bern University of Teacher Education – as well as the EPFL and the Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training (SFUVET) are combining their competencies with a multidisciplinary network of various educational research teams working on all levels of the Swiss educational system. Start-ups specialized in digital education participate in BeLEARN through a strategic partnership with the Swiss EdTech Collider.
BeLEARN partners collaborate on research projects based directly on specific needs identified in the field and transpose their results into the implementation of practical solutions along three main axes: the development of digital skills in education, the pedagogical use of digital resources and tools, and learning analytics (data science applied to education).
Within EPFL, various projects are conducted within the framework of BeLEARN:
- Grafmilis: The project concerns two platforms for the analysis and remediation of learning difficulties in writing, Dynamilis and Grafos, respectively developed at PHBern and EPFL. (CHILI; contact person: Pierre Dillenbourg)
- Teaching engineering and computing ethics with Deepfakes: The project focuses on an experimental study to evaluate pedagogical approaches to develop the ethical reasoning of engineering students (CAPE; contact person: Roland Tormey)
- FREE – Federal Library of Open Educational Resources: The FREE project aims at designing and implementing a federal library of open educational resources for different levels and curricula in Switzerland and beyond. It is complementary to the Swiss Digital Skills Academy initiative (d-skills.ch). (REACT; contact person: Denis Gillet)
- Learning Companion: The Learning Companion is an online tool for students to develop effective learning strategies. The project investigates the usefulness of the tool with a pre-university audience and develops a multilingual version (CEDE; contact person: Patrick Jermann)
- Computational problem solving in MINT mobil : The MINT mobil program of the Department of Compulsory Education of the Canton of Bern includes a robotics mission, developed at the EPFL. This project aims at developing the robotics mission and measuring the impact on students and teachers. (MOBOTS; contact person: Susanne Grabowski)
- Labnet Booster project: The Labnet project aims to assess the needs, expectations, and potential applications of networking physical and virtual laboratories. (Contact person: Jessica Dehler Zufferey)
- “Serious Game” for Entrepreneurial skills training: In this project we design, develop and test a module for a scenario-based “serious game” to promote entrepreneurial competencies. Main target groups are primarily vocational school students and secondarily students at universities of applied sciences. (ML4ED; contact person: Tanja Käser)
The current internal call for projects is open with a submission deadline of 31.10.2023.