Research Project: Designing Learning Experiences: Competences in the Digital Era
research project

As of March 2024, I have initiated a new research agenda, creating a dedicated project.

Scope of Research

This research project aims to develop a comprehensive structure of competences tailored for trainers and lecturers, focusing on the integration of digital skills and andragogic principles.

The scope encompasses the identification, analysis, and synthesis of essential competences required for designing effective learning experiences in contemporary educational settings, particularly in the context of online or remote training.

It will also address the challenges post COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to update teaching methods and tools to better cater to adult learners.

Target Audience

The primary target audience includes: trainers involved in corporate training programs, lecturers across various disciplines and professionals engaged in instructional design and educational technology.

Reaserch Objectives
 

Identify Essential Competences

Conduct a thorough literature review and empirical studies to identify the essential competences for designing learning experiences, with a focus on addressing challenges post COVID-19 pandemic and the shift towards online or remote training.

Develop a Competence Framework


Utilize the findings to create a structured framework outlining the key competences required by trainers and university lecturers, integrating updates to teaching methods and tools for teaching adults in online environments.

Validate the Framework

Validate the developed competence framework through expert review, focus groups, and pilot testing in real-world educational settings to ensure its applicability and effectiveness, especially in the context of remote or online training.

Create Training Materials

Develop training materials, resources, and tools aligned with the identified competences to support educators in enhancing their skills in designing engaging and effective learning experiences, particularly in online or remote settings.

Methodological Aspects

 Data Collection from Practitioners

Gather data through surveys, questionnaires, and observations from practitioners actively engaged in online or remote training to understand their challenges, needs, and experiences.

 Investigation of Online Learning Environments

Conduct a benchmarking analysis of existing online learning platforms, tools, and environments to identify best practices and innovative approaches in delivering effective online learning experiences.

 Interviews with Professionals and Experts

 Conduct interviews with professionals and experts in education science, instructional design, and educational technology to gather insights, perspectives, and recommendations for updating teaching methods and tools in the context of online teaching for adult learners.

As milstones are reached, parts of the research will be published. You want to know more? Drop me a line at: adina.munteanu [at] upb.ro

PhD Thesis

AN ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURE AND PERFORMANCE OF THE ORGANIC MARKET IN ROMANIA DURING 2012-2014

AN ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURE AND PERFORMANCE OF THE ORGANIC MARKET IN ROMANIA DURING 2012-2014

The thesis was publicly defended on  21.06.2017

Publishing info: Creative Commons License 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Available at https://rei.gov.ro/teze-doctorat

The thesis is fully written in English.

Direct link for download of the thesis file
In caz de intrebari, trimiteti un email la adina.munteanu[at] upb.ro

Executive Summary

 

Romanian organically certified market

 

In Romania, the certified organic market has been slowly growing over the past few years. However, given the lack of available data regarding the market structure, this research aims to fill the knowledge gap by revealing the characteristics of the organic market in Romania during 2012-2014, the main external factors that influence the organic operators, and the business performance of organic companies.

Risks and benefits

 

The thesis begins with highlighting the risks and benefits of organic agriculture, and critiques and improvements of the third party certification system. A first practical contribution of the research results is a scoring system, meant to reduce the transactional risks for the potential trading parties on an online trading platform for organic agricultural products.

Certification process

 

After explaining the certification process for a Romanian operator, the research focuses on detailed analysis of the supply side of the market, meaning the geographic distribution of the organic operators, type of legal entities, and the permanence of the operators in the certified organic system.

E-commerce

 

Moreover, for a sample of 50 e-shops selling organic products and analysis was performed in order to facilitate some strategic decisions for a manager.

Additionally, for a sample of 410 certified organic companies the business performance was analysed based on two financial indicators: return on assets and profit margin.

Overall, this thesis brings unique results, both practical and academic.

PowerPoint Workshops

PowerPoint: Format & Design

Agenda:

  • Customization of comands
  • Formating tips & tricks
  • Design : Create your own visual template

Participants: 12

Time: 3 h

Date: negociated with those interested (use this form

This is a workshop, meaning that more than 70% of the time will be spent applying conceps and creating your PowerPoint visuals. Participants will receive slides to work with, customize settings on their instance of PowerPoint. 

PowerPoint: Discourse Structure & Visuals

Agenda:

  • Discourse structure 
  • Tips & tricks for public speaking using slides
  • Use of images, animations and transitions

Participants: 12

Time: 3 h

Date: negociated with those interested (use this form

This is a workshop, meaning that more than 70% of the time will be spent on applications. 

In teams, participants will works on creating a a 3 minutes presentation and delivering it for their peers. 

 

Should you choose to attend:

  • be mindful that the workshop will be held in Romanian (if enough English speakers announce their interest, there will be an English training as well)
  • confirm your attendance to the email invite you will receive 
  • you will bring your own laptop with PowerPoint installed
  • Your instructor will use Microsoft 365
  • fell free to bring your own snacks & water

Questions? send an email to adina.munteanu[at]upb.ro

Excel for Research

Data Analysis with Excel

DATA ANALYSIS – Workshop Agenda

  • Data analysis: process steps
  • Data clean-up : tables, functions
  • Data analysis: functions
  • Results display: charts, dashboards

Participants: 12

Time: 3 h

Date: negociated with those interested (use this form

This is a workshop, meaning that more than 70% of the time will be spent solving Excel exercises. The focus will be on how to use excel to work with data, data clean-up, presenting data. Really useful for your research projects as well 😉

Modelling with Excel

MODELING – Workshop Agenda

  • What is a good model?
  • How is a model constructed?
  • Checks & validations
  • How can we implement a model using Excel?

Participants: 12

Time: 3 h

Date: negociated with those interested (use this form

We shall explore all the questions mentioned in the agenda using a predefined set of data. Participants will receive files, work in teams and construct a model.

This is a workshop, meaning that more than 70% of the time will be spent solving Excel exercises.

Should you choose to attend any of the workshops:

  • be mindful that the workshop will be held in Romanian (if enough English speakers announce their interest, there will be an English training as well)
  • confirm your attendance to the email invite you will receive 
  • you will bring your own laptop with Excel installed
  • Your instructor will use Microsoft 365
  • fell free to bring your own snacks & water

Questions? send an email to adina.munteanu[at]upb.ro