2B-DIGITAL: Digital competences for a successful adaptation and engagement to on-line VET teaching and learning Erasmus Project

Project Title

2B-DIGITAL: Digital competences for a successful adaptation and engagement to on-line VET teaching and learning

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

2B-DIGITAL aims at supporting the effective digital teaching and learning experience of VET teachers and learners, especially those at-risk of dropout and early leaving by adapting to the digital transition, magnified by COVID-19, in an attempt to avoid the increase of inequalities in education, and their consequent drift to youth unemployment and exclusion. It does so by encouraging teacher’s digital pedagogical competences to boost students’ engagement when learning online. 2BDigital will train teachers all over Europe to implement and mainstream an innovative online teaching and assessment methodology, that will allow VET students to promote their transversal and digital competences, boosting their engagement to online education and reducing dropouts. This methodology is grounded on the 2B- Digital Competence Framework of transversal competences for engagement in digital learning and working, designed at the beginning of the project.

COVID-19 crisis has made even more evident how global, instable, volatile, and increasingly more technological driven and dependant our society and labour market is, and the urgent need for people to develop competences to constantly adapt to change, and to the digital way of living, working and learning.

This digital transition has placed a lot of stress on the educational system, forcing it to put forward immediate distance teaching and learning solutions that often took both teachers and learners outside of their comfort zone, with teachers converting physical classrooms into digital learning environments overnight, and students adapting to ner online learning environments on record time. Teachers have struggled taking advantage of the potential of digital technologies to provide an effective e-learning experience to their students and learners have not always had the specific digital, personal, and transversal competences to keep up with digital learning. This is particularly remarkable in the case of early leavers from education and training, which are more likely to be neither employed nor in education or training (NEETs) and suffer social exclusion and poverty.

VET should be helping to retain in education and training learners who would drop out from general education, and to prepare a successful transition of students into the labour market. However, dropout rates in VET area more acute than in general programmes, what raises equity concerns, as disadvantaged students are more likely to be enrolled in a VET than advantaged students.

It is therefore more necessary than ever to implement actions that contribute to alleviate inequalities and gaps in access to high quality VET education of the most vulnerable young people, in their transition to employment, not leaving anyone behind.

2BDigital has the objectives of:
-Improving VET teacher’s transition to digital education, increasing the effectiveness of their teaching, and preventing their burnout.
-Increasing the engagement in online education of VET students, in order to reduce dropouts and early leavings, and boost their personal and professional development and employability in the new digital society.

To achieve these goals, the project counts with a partnership of 5 organizations in 4 different countries forming a multidisciplinary team, representing the fields of VET, research, education, social innovation and inclusion, and entrepreneurship.

The methodology and activities of this project have been designed to:
a) Design a common framework of transversal Competences, key for engagement in digital learning and employment, matching different EU reference frameworks;
b) Support the professional development of VET teachers with online innovative approaches for teaching and assessing learning in online settings, to adapt their teaching practice to all student’s learning needs, and boost their engagement in education;

This leads to the expected following results:
-VET teacher’s pedagogical digital competences and resources are strengthened, to promote student’s transversal competences in online training.
-Lower and upper-secondary VET students’ transversal and digital competences are enhanced through online training, to boost their motivation and engagement to education.

Along the life of the project, the following outputs will be developed, with a transferable and sustainable approach: A transversal competences framework for learning and working in the new digital society.
An online teaching and learning methodology for transversal competences development in VET that will be also provided in an open MOOC format.
An online transversal competences assessment methodology and tool.
The access to the web portal where these resources will be hosted for download, and to the virtual Competence Evaluation Tool Platform, its sustainability and further maintenance, will be assured after the project’s end by all partners ensuring its sustainability.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 192077 Eur

Project Coordinator

FUNDACION ACCION CONTRA EL HAMBRE & Country: ES

Project Partners

• BANTANI EDUCATION
• VALSTS IZGLITIBAS SATURA CENTRS
• AGENCIJA ZA STRUKOVNO OBRAZOVANJE I OBRAZOVANJE ODRASLIH
• I BOX CREATE, SOCIEDAD LIMITADA
• CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET