EMBRACE is a project that wants to develop the digital and pedagogical skills of the teachers of the HEIs participating in the project. These competencies will be useful for planning, implementing and evaluating learner-centered and competency-based online education, trying to respond to the needs of Ibero-American partners to develop and implement institutional reforms by offering strong input in all key areas; development of teacher competencies, impactful pedagogical change, and joint creation of innovative and collaborative learning ecosystems.

This proposal arises from the rapid development of technology with digitization, automation, robotics, the Internet of things, artificial intelligence, among others and linked to climate change, which will continue to accelerate the process of creating new jobs and others changing or even disappearing, as well as triggering changes in the skills and competencies that the labor system needs today. These are major changes. And the means to respond to these challenges is education, especially higher education, and its role is crucial to continue developing and reforming the way of seeing the world today.

Group of university studens — Photo: HAMK

The pandemic and the confinement left It is clear that teachers are not prepared for these challenges, since in this period of time they faced their classes with obsolete methodologies and with a very limited technical support, and that is why EMBRACE seeks to develop the digital competence of educators to facilitate results of deep learning in a digital environment, however, it is also necessary to support educational management in the management of impactful pedagogical change and the organization of the innovative learning ecosystem with all relevant stakeholders, offering international collaboration and support for institutional development towards the modernization of higher education.

EMBRACE is a project led by Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK) to which several institutions from Brazil, Colombia and Portugal have joined, with the idea of looking to the future and support the modernization of higher education.