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When organizing intercultural and interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning (PBL) activities across Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the organizational and resource implications, along with the associated financial challenges, soon become crucial. Even promising approaches may not take off as a simple ‘return on investment’ view and funding decision may not fully address their various impacts on students, staff, institutions and society.
This paper explores the experiences within a distributed interdisciplinary project-based learning program run from 2020 to 2023 and involving more than 150 students from four continents learning 21st century skills by collaborating over one semester to address real-world problems faced by clients in partner countries. While the primary goal of this distributed interdisciplinary and intercultural project-based learning program was to offer students a truly Global Intercultural Project Experience (GIPE), this paper explores its broader impact. We found that the program significantly influenced both the academic and administrative staff at all partner universities. Furthermore, we examine the program's effect on the participating institutions themselves over the four-year period. Our conclusion is that the invaluable benefits of such interdisciplinary project-based learning extend well beyond financial metrics. They include enhanced student learning experiences, strengthened cooperation and mutual learning between academics and administrative staff, improved institutional reputation, and positive societal impact.
Thus, we worked hard to convince both our university management and the world's largest funding organisation for the international exchange of students and researchers to grant financial support for another 3-year period in 2025 to 2027 during which the GIPE concept will be further developed and a permanent organizational structure shall be established based on an extended network of partner institutions and sponsors around the world.
Unleashing Personalized Education Using Large Language Models in Online Collaborative Settings
(2024)
The Artificial Intelligence community has long pursued personalized education. Over the past decades, efforts have ranged from automated advisors to Intelligent Tutoring Systems, all aimed at tailoring learning experiences to students' individual needs and interests. Unfortunately, many of these endeavors remained largely theoretical or proposed solutions challenging to implement in real-world scenarios. However, we are now in the era of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Mistral, or Claude, which exhibit promising capabilities with significant potential to impact personalized education. For instance, ChatGPT 4 can assist students in using the Socratic method in their learning process. Despite the immense possibilities these technologies offer, limited significant results are showcasing the impact of LLMs in educational settings. Therefore, this paper aims to present tools and strategies based on LLMs to address personalized education within online collaborative learning settings. To do so, we propose RAGs (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) agents that could be added to online collaborative learning platforms: a) the Oracle agent, capable of answering questions related to topics and materials uploaded to the platform.; b) the Summary agent, which can summarize and present content based on students' profiles.; c) the Socratic agent, guiding students in learning topics through close interaction.; d) the Forum agent, analyzing students' forum posts to identify challenging topics and suggest ways to overcome difficulties or foster peer collaboration.; e) the Assessment agent, presenting personalized challenges based on students' needs. f) the Proactive agent, analyzing student activity and suggesting learning paths as needed. Importantly, each RAG agent can leverage historical student data to personalize the learning experience effectively. To assess the effectiveness of this personalized approach, we plan to evaluate the use of RAGs in online collaborative learning platforms compared to previous online learning courses conducted in previous years.
This paper discusses the experiences of a distributed interdisciplinary project-based learning program for students across continents. For the years 2020 until 2023, we received seed-funding for four annual projects to engage students from Germany (Europe), Namibia (Africa), Indonesia (Asia), and Peru (Latin-America) to collaborate over one semester on interdisciplinary projects contributing to the solution of some real-life client’s problems in the partner countries. During this period, more than 150 students embarked on these projects with 116 of them being selected for a scholarship for an international mobility. With the guidance and support by academics from all partner universities, the students success-fully completed each project expressing deep appreciation for the learning opportunities while over¬coming challenges of working across widespread time zones, different cultures, changing requirements, and various technical difficulties.
While the primary aim of this distributed interdisciplinary and intercultural project-based learning program was to provide students with a truly Global Intercultural Project Experience (GIPE), in this paper we investigate on its impact in a broader sense as it was observed that this program also had a significant impact on both academic and administrative staff at all partner universities. Finally, we also reveal the impact of this four-year-program on the participating institutions themselves and conclude that the invaluable returns of such interdisciplinary project-based learning extend far beyond financial metrics. It encompasses enhanced student learning experiences, strengthened cooperation and mutual learning between academics and administrative staff, as well as institutional reputation, and societal impact.
Es werden die Hintergründe der Projekte angesprochen, die das Ziel haben, Lehrinhalte multimedial zu ergänzen, diese elektronisch anzubieten oder über das Internet zur Verfügung zu stellen. Zugangsmöglichkeiten zu diesen Lernformen und die technischen Stufen der Darbietung werden erläutert: Navigator, Lernraum, Portal. Auf virtuelle Lernräume, die Kommunikation im Internet, die Lernraumauswahl, auf Ausblicke für die Zukunft und auf e-Learningbeispiele wird eingegangen.

