A training visit was arranged at DTU (P7) as part of the Special Mobility Strand (SMS) program of the KFORCE project for staff members. The visit took place in the period 12-23 March and was aimed at providing the trainees involved in the mobility with international experience on the education system and teaching methods for MSc education at DTU.
The trainees and institutions involved in this mobility were:
- Vesna Bulatovic from University of Novi Sad (UNS), Serbia;
- Edisa Nukic from University of Tuzla (UTZ), Bosnia Herzegovina;
- Mladen Slijepevic from University of Banja Luka (UBL), Bosnia Herzegovina;
- Anita Petrovic from Visoka technical school of Novi Sad (VTSNS), Serbia;
- Enea Mustafaraj from Epoka university (EPOKA) in Tirana, Albania.
The training visit was opened by the welcome speech of the head of the Building Design Section Jan Karlshøj and the K-FORCE responsible at DTU Luisa Giuliani on March 12 at 9.00 and closely followed the schedule indicated in the agenda distributed to the participants prior to the visit and also attached to this document.
The main activities in the training visit included 15 presentations and seminars on education lines, courses, and pedagogical training for teachers. The talks were hold by the K-FORCE participants and member of the fire group at DTU Lars Schiøtt Sørensen, Fran Markert and Luisa Giuliani, plus other 8 DTU staff members (Per Goltermann, Jens Henrik Nielsen, Lotte Bjerregaard Jensen, Christian Rønne, Gunvor Marie Kirkelund, Kristian Dahl Hertz, Sebastian Thoens, Pernille Hammar Andersson). Guided visits of two teaching facilities and four different laboratories (material lab, structural lab, fire lab and virtual reality lab) were included in the visit and other 2 DTU staff members (Ebba Cederberg Schnell and Michael Joachim Andreassen) and 1 teacher assistant (Andrei-Cornel Danet) offered their collaboration to this event for arranging the lab visits.
The trainees attended 5 courses (2 of the MSc in Civil Engineering and 3 of the Master in Fire Safety) and participated to 4 supervising sessions of 7 students working on numerical and experimental MSc projects. In addition, the trainees were asked to carry out a project on laboratory-based teaching, where they first prepared and then carried out fire dynamics experiments in the fire lab, under the supervision of the head of the fire lab Frank Markert. They presented the results of the experiments to the member of the fire group at DTU on 22 March. The trainees were also asked to participate in a workshop on numerical modeling on March 15 and in a final discussion on teaching and learning methods on Friday 23, both chaired by Luisa Giuliani.
In all, 22 DTU members (15 employees and 7 students) were engaged in the training activities and contributed to the success of the visit. In addition to this, the section of Building Design supported the event by offering 4 coffee break, one lunch and two social section breakfast, aimed at promoting networking among the member of the Building Design section and the trainees. Finally, a social event was arranged in the afternoon of Friday 19, where the trainees and the members of the fire group visited the Danish Museum of Science of Technology in Helsingør, 30 km north from DTU Campus.
The training visit was very positively evaluated both by the trainees and by the host professors, as indicated by the evaluation forms filled on the last day of activity. From the review of the evaluation forms it is possible to state that the content of the visit was deemed very relevant to the field of DRM&FSE and that the organization , training time, and venue were appropriate. The expectations of the trainees were fully met or exceeded and the event fully succeeded in achieving the main goals of promoting training, internationalization, and cooperation among the participants.
