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The demand for the quality increase in higher education institutions is a current issue. The need for innovative teaching methods is declared as the Ministerial Goals by the European University Association (EUA). In the Ministerial Conference 2020, it is also planned for the presentation of these principles and best practice examples. Similarly, the need for enhancement in learning and teaching by revealing poor teaching performance of academic staff had been underlined in Trends 2015: Learning and Teaching in European Universities report published by EUA. Existing literature showed that the main indicator of students’ learning is effective classroom management skills of teachers (Emmer & Sabornie, 2015; Kunter et al. 2013; Seidel&Shavelson, 2007; Wang, Hartel, & Wahlberg, 1993). Controlling a classroom can be overwhelming also for academicians (Sherer, 1991). Especially, academicians that don’t have necessary teaching experience before starting teaching in the university, suffer from lack of experience in the first years of their careers. However, most of the studies focused on classroom management issues are at the pre-collegiate level (Luo, Bellows, & Grady, 2000). There is a knowledge gap in classroom management strategies for higher education classrooms. Therefore, Teaching in Higher education Effectively via Eye-tracking -THEE- project aims to explore in-class interactions in university classrooms to present classroom management strategies by using eye-tracking technology with a holistic perspective. It is expected that THEE project will answer the necessity of new teaching strategies announced by EUA. THEE project will also contribute to technology integration attempts to university classrooms. It is obvious that academicians are stakeholders of successful technology integration and understanding how they use technology in classrooms is necessary to create innovative teaching strategies. Interactions between academicians and technology will be also analyzed and a set of strategies to enhance technology integration into higher education classrooms will be presented within this project. The project has four intellectual outputs and five multiplier events. During the first three intellectual outputs, eye movement data about classroom interactions from three different Europe (Turkey, Italia, Lithuania) countries will be collected and analyzed in collaboration with P1 and P2. The last output O4 contains the preparation of e-learning contents and pilot test of the project with P5. In the pilot study, the e-learning contents will be used for the education of academicians. The pilot study of output O4 which are the results of A18 will be used for the education of academicians from P5- Atatürk University- Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement. After being educated; the academicians’ eye movements, and behaviors (jests and mimics) before the activity will be compared with their eye movements after the activity. This will also be the evaluation of the overall project outputs. The last output O4 of the project will be disseminated by multiplier events in every participating country. Further dissemination will be realized from the project web site on the Internet. The development of the digital learning contents, project web site and hosting of those materials are in the Applicant’s responsibility. The outputs of the project; on-line course contents will be hosted on Bilgeis MOOC platform. Bilgeis.net is co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey. To reach a wider audience in Turkey, We conduct an association with The Council of Higher Education (YÖK). YÖK will have a role to the dissemination of the intellectual outputs of the project although it will not be formally partner of this project. Our Partner P6 UNICA is an institutional network of European universities and it has 51 university members from 31 different capitals of Europe combining over 160,000 university staff and 1.900,000 students. UNICA as a partner of this project will share outputs of this project with its members. At the end of the project, it is expected that the results of the project will be easily published in high impact journals and presented in high-quality conferences and on the Erasmus+ dissemination platform. Since the project is innovative in terms of several ways. First, the analysis of in-class interactions with eye-tracking technology is a novel practice in educational researches and practices (Yamamoto & Imai-Matsumura; 2013) and there is very limited research on this area. Second, the project differs from existing eye-tracking studies used to examine classroom- dynamics in terms of the varieties of interaction types that will be explored within the project. Third, exploring classrooms from different countries is another innovative way of this project. As a result, the project is innovative in overall it offers practical solutions to existing problems.(PS: References are given as a separate file)
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