Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (PEED) courses are a part of STEM technical disciplines. Teaching subjects in PEED has its own specifics. Unlike traditional STEM subjects such as programming or mathematics, specialized laboratory equipment and multidisciplinary knowledge are indispensable to teach PEED courses. There is a tendency for different teachers to treat PEED courses differently, resulting in varying levels of quality. The courses offered in the PEED field are influenced by the availability of financial resources, but, more significantly, by the teacher’s expertise and training in innovative educational methods. A diversity in the students’ educational backgrounds also can lead to weak skill levels and a lack of interdisciplinary skills. The education systems in some Visegrad countries are criticized for being overly rigid and often focused on rote learning and memorization. All participants of this project have reached a consensus that teaching programs are dissimilar among V4 universities offering education in PEED. People might think these differences come from students’ different needs. Based on the feedback from industrial stakeholders in all V4 countries, it is clear that the essential skills for graduates studying PEED programs are similar everywhere. It follows that the requirements for teachers’ innovative methods should also be the same and unified. However, the teaching methods are not the same and the best practices used are different. This is the problem we want to address – the alignment of the curriculum of core subjects in PEED courses.
One of the possible solutions for the described problems would be to establish cooperation and a ground for the exchange of the best practices and innovative teaching methods. We propose an event consisting of different activities: workshops, round tables, and seminars. Each partner will organize at his university a two-day event consisting of workshops, round tables and seminars dedicated to both hard-skills and soft-skills. Therefore, each partner will contribute to the project equally. The best practices and innovative teaching methods in PEED related technical courses will be delivered by each partner, for example: Inverted classroom in Power electronics (Wroclaw), Problem-based learning in microcontrollers (Košice), Machine-learning control of storage devices (Győr). Furthermore, there will be also round tables for academics to create a space for sharing ideas and best practices. Examples of round tables are: The role of PhD. supervisor (Košice), Teaching of electrical drives (Wrocław) or Key to the success of students teams (Győr). Workshops dedicated to improving soft-skill will be led by invited guests who are experts in soft-skills training. All activities of this two-day event will be available for teachers and students in all three levels of study from partnering faculty. The measurable outcomes of the project, in the form of examples of best practices and recommended methodologies, will be available to a wide public via the website created especially for the project.