Developing the digital competences of VET teachers Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing the digital competences of VET teachers

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 : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Background
The European agenda sets out a new strategy for stimulating high-quality, innovative ways of learning and teaching through new technologies and digital content. This challenge requires a change in the European VET system. There is a strong need to develop a new pedagogical approach to transform the European VET institutions into open learning environments based on the newest digital technologies. Both national and European research underline that the digital potential has not been fully exploited in the European VET systems. (CEDEFOB). In January 2018, the Danish government issued a comprehensive new digital strategy in January 2018, which identifies vocational training /education as a special field of action. In particular, the strategy contains objectives aimed at enhancing the teachers’ digital skills.
However, the benefits of the digital revolution in VET are multiple: Teachers may easily share and create content with colleagues from other countries; and a much wider range of educational resources can be accessed. Open technologies allow all individuals to learn, anywhere, anytime. The partnership behind this strategic partnership is involved in shaping the new pedagogical landscape of the future ICT infrastructure. However, their current use of ICT is fragmented and not based on a systematic strategy/approach. The partners have agreed that it will be a major step forward if ICT could be an integrated part of the learning set up – followed by a new pedagogical strategy.
The Corona crisis has greatly brought this issue to the attention of all partners, as everyone has had to complete online training because of national shutdowns. In concrete terms, this means that all partners have developed far more online courses containing digital teaching materials than originally planned.
It was not possible for the project to meet face to face – partly internally between project partners and partly externally in connection with the dissemination of the project. The project chose, in agreement with the ministry, to allocate resources to conduct a deeper evaluation than planned. The evaluations carried out clearly show the strengths of teachers preparing their own teaching material. At the same time, the evaluations also point out a number of key challenges for European VET system in terms of online teaching in terms of organization and competences.kk
Aims /objectives.
It is the global aim of this project to improve the European VET training institutions capacity to exploit the potential of digital technologies. The objective is to develop and describe a new VET pedagogic model targeting VET schools and the stakeholders within VET.
The project did develop online courses within several topics – based on open software. The project developed the VET teacher’s ability to develop and organize their own teaching material. – based on new learning approaches. On this basis, each partner organized pilot training within several VET area.

Activities
1. As a start each country conducting a survey concerning the state of art within digital media. Three surveys have been produced nationally and a mutual European report as well.
2. On this basis a training course was developed and conducted in Denmark, targeting 12 participants. The purpose of the course was to strengthen the participants’ ability to develop their own digital learning materials – using a digital platform. Each country participated with three teachers / and one member of the steering committee, 4 days stay + preparation phase. A total of 12 participants.
3. Based on the obtained new skills each partner organized national experiments in which the teachers produce their own digital learning materials. The digital training materials is aimed at both the technical and commercial areas. As a result of the Corona crisis, it was decided that all partners should develop and test far more courses than originally planned.
At the steering committee meetings in Tabor, the partners organized an interim meeting. where the results of the national experiments were presented and discussed.
4. Based on the national experiences, the project has developed a new strategy for how VET teachers can produce teaching materials. Under the auspices of the European coordinator a working group representing all partners have produced a report that contain of several recommendations with a view to promote a systematic and strategic use of ICT in the European VET sector. The recommendations target audiences like; policy- and decision-makers; managers and administrators of education and training institutions; Instructional designers and developers; educational planners; teachers, researchers and specialists and e-learning.
5 Due to the Corona Crisis the planned dissemination activities were reduced. Originally it was planned to organize a conference together with EFVET, Despite the difficult conditions, however, the project succeeded in carrying out a number of national dissemination activities with the relevant participants.
6. The project has conducted 3 steering committee meetings. (one online)

Project Website

http://khs.dk

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 152885 Eur

Project Coordinator

Køge Business College & Country: DK

Project Partners

• Kauno technikos profesinio mokymo centras
• Stredni skola obchodu, sluzeb a remesel a Jazykova skola s pravem statni jazykove zkousky, Tabor, Bydlinskeho 2474
• Peak Balance ApS
• Eurekos Systems ApS
• Eurekos ApS