The REBUS project at Volga Tech: on the way towards student-centered learning

Abstract

The paper analyses the impact of the REBUS project (REady for BUSiness) on the development of student-centered learning (SCL) at Volga State University of Technology, one of the two Russian universities participating in the EU funded Erasmus+ endeavor to introduce entrepreneurial education for engineering students. Along with mobility, lifelong learning and employability, SCL composes philosophical grounds of a European Higher Education Area. Such tools as ECTS, Diploma Supplement and Qualification Frameworks are all aimed to help students to achieve certain learning outcomes, or statements that describe the knowledge 50 POLIS No. 19, ISSUE 2/ 2020 or skills students acquire by the end of a particular assignment, and help students understand why that knowledge and those skills will be useful to them. The authors perceive SCL as a complex phenomenon, representing both a mindset and culture of teaching and learning. In practice, it deploys innovative methods of teaching, and fostering transferable skills such as problem solving, critical thinking and reflecting thinking. The Russian government signed the Bologna declaration in 2003, thus giving path to series of reforms aimed at modernization of national university system, and increase of global competitiveness of Russian higher education institutions. Since that, Russia has taken extensive efforts to adjust its higher education system to the European standards. One of the most prominent steps was move towards Bachelor’s – Master’s – Postgraduate learning cycles in the vast majority of universities, along with introduction of mobility programmes, ECTS-like credit transfer system and Diploma Supplement. However, not too much has been changed at programme and classroom level to make learning process more student-centered. The authors argue that REBUS project with its intense use of blended learning, personalized tools for validation of competences and skills, and international mobility has created a new type of student-teacher relationship within one piloting programme, and can serve as a good example of SCL in practice.