DETVET Blog

What did we do during the project?

2011-10-05T16:49:00.000+03:00

Happy DETVET delegates in Olomouc.
Loreta Staškūnienė on left

The purpose of the project – to form an international sustainable partnership in order to improve VET teachers’ competencies in education techniques – was fully reached and the results gained both at national and international levels. There were six meetings organized, each of them having it’s clear objective and outcomes defined. Before and between the meetings the work was done mostly in the national teams: dissemination, discussions, survey, validation of the chosen technique within local VET teachers, preparation the material for publishing, reporting, etc. At the international level there were carried out such activities as: exchange of methods and state of art analysis, blog design and development, creation and implementation of the investigation tools, announcing of the investigation results and recommendations, etc.
Every participating institution picked the most relevant theme for the teachers’ educational needs in approach (technique) and discussed it with teachers and students in local education environment. The pivotal outcome of the common share is mutual trust and appreciation in the partnership, the brought together competences, contribution of all partner countries disseminated at the European level.

What have we got from the partnership?
After the surveys were made in all countries, there was the clearly defined picture that our teachers need to gain more skills in use of social media, ICT tools, coaching as a method and education in entrepreneurship and innovation. It is well seen in each partners’ Conclusion chapter - different education cultures in countries and different types of institutions suggest different solutions for teachers’ qualification improvement. However, all the partners agree that they have gained from the partnership a lot of experience and know-how that encourages them to meet new challenges and promote institutional development. There are some general outcomes that partners have concluded:

Much more attention should be given to the shifting paradigm. The Finnish partner (as well as other partners) raises a question of the educational use of social media – the change of culture of teaching. The education phenomena should be released from the closed classrooms and better applied to the workplaces, other surrounding environment; and teachers are supposed to be well prepared for that challenge.
Higher vocational education and training must be developed, and be maintained more in cooperation with companies and working life.
Not only pedagogic development is needed but also development of networks (working in teams, coached by a professional trainer) in order to gain efficiency in education and training.

Without the international partnership there wouldn’t be such an effective outcome achieved –new ideas and well applied practice under different circumstances ¬– that brought a lot of creativity and new know-how into our institutions.

Having the chance, I would like to thank all the partners that they were really dedicated to the DETVET project and we – all together – have had great time!!!

Loreta Staškūnienė
The author is the Project Manager of the DETVET Project

Meet our blog readers

2011-10-05T16:29:00.000+03:00

This blog opened at the beginning of December 2009.
Who were the readers of this blog?
Please find the statistics here

Read the DETVET book

2011-10-04T21:18:00.000+03:00

What is the book about?

DETVET METHODOLOGY FRAMEWORK is a place where the DETVET (Development of Educational Techniques for Vocational Education and Training) project partners have decided to summarize all the experience and findings from the project. They consist of the parts represented by the six participating countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Lithuania and Sweden that are laid by the alphabetical order.

Each country has summarized their project activities and ideas in four articles that show to what extent the partners have approached the project aims. The themes of the articles are:

VET system in a country,
The educational technique (approach, method) brought into the partnership by each country,
Results from the survey received by the questionnaire (the questionnaire – in Annex 1),
Conclusions.

Download the book (Adobe Reader 2MB)

Loreta Staškūnienė

Last DETVET meeting in Tampere

2011-05-27T14:08:00.000+03:00

You can find a similar family photo on the first port of this blog:
It was from the first meeting in Klaipeda 1½ years ago.

The last DETVET-project meeting took place in Tampere yesterday and today. We have been busy making the last decisions and preparing the project book and final report.

The meeting took place in the old Cotton mill Finlayson, the home of TAMK Art and Media programmes.

DETVET participants and the biggest steam engine in Noric countries

We also made a Finlayson tour which introduced the Textile Museum and the Steam Engine Museum.

The roof topgarden of Art and Media

We will be soon back with a more detailed report of the meeting and project results.
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DETVET at TAMK Learning Environment Conference

2011-02-20T16:17:00.001+02:00

DETVET-project was present at the New Learning Environments Conference on February 10th at Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK).

The conference with 700 participants was composed of a plenary and parallel sessions, demonstrations and workshops dealing with new solutions and environments of education and learning with the internet generation.

DETVET-project board member Cai Melakoski introduced in his presentation "Blogs and Wikis as learning platforms" materials produced by the TAMK team of the DETVET project.

DETVET Olomouc

2011-01-28T17:15:00.003+02:00

DETVET partners discuss their experiences of the project in Olomouc, Czech Republic.

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Czech VET questionnaire

2011-01-17T12:16:00.002+02:00

The Czech part of the VET questionnaire

The Czech part of the VET questionnaire was set up at the Institute of Education and Social Studies, Palacký University in Olomouc.

19 VET teachers at the Institute filled in the questionnaires with the questions about andragogue techniques, coaching, entrepreneurship and innovation, distance form of learning and self- study, social media and web 2.0 tools, and ICT tools for learning and networking.

The profiles of the Czech respondents are :

- they teach social sciences, social psychology, IT and communication, pedagogical sciences

- 18 of them have a background with vocational training and a pedagogical education

- 17 of them have a university-master degree

- 5% have been working as VET teachers for 1 year

- 47% up to 5 years of practice

- 16% up to 10 years of practice

- 32% more than 10 years of practice

- about 11% are male

- about 89% are female

The most remarkable results and figures from the Czech part of the questionnaire are:

2.1

- nearly 53% knows methods or other means to define learning needs but they don´t use them

- more than 68% use means for monitoring of a course quality – which is surprising !

- everybody knows Activating methods in realization of a study programme

2.2

- 58% develop individual action plans with their students based on the study plan

- it´s very common to have individual discussions with the students to follow up their

results and progress

- 68% of the respondents use Problem Based Learning and Case methodology

2.3

- 100% use different methods of stimulation to motivate and encourage the potential of the students, even 42% use them frequently !

- everybody knows about E-portfolio but 42% don´t use it

- on the other hand 37% use E-portfolio in their work very often

- the same number of respondents either use tools for creating ideas or don´t know them

- 74% have no experience with cross professional/cultural innovation courses !

- the same number don´t know anything about participating in competitions

but there are few who want to learn it !

- more than 73% teach core skills in marketing and business planning

- 1/2 of respondents want to learn how to promote competencies for co-responsibility

or co-employment

- about 2/3 of respondents would like to have innovation classes or courses

- nobody uses external contact(mentoring or coaching related to business)

but more than 1/2 want to learn it !

2.4

- more than 84% use self-study or distance texts

- 74% don´t know about off-line correspondence or off-line phone

- more than 1/2 use on-line e-mails, there are only few who don´t know about it

- 3/4 of respondents use Learning Management System, a half of them very often

- more than 1/2 use tutorial in groups

2.5

- 1/2 knows some of the blogs and uses them

- 1/2 knows they exist but they don´t use them

- only 1 respondent wants to learn LeMill

- more than one half don´t know anything about Twitter !

2.6

- everybody uses e-mail and word processor, more than a half uses them very often

- 100% knows Power point presentations but 1/2 don´t use them !

- 3/4 of respondents don´t use Smartboards even if they are available !

- a pretty big number want to learn photo and sound editor + web conferencing !

- more than 1/2 don ´t use E-portfolio, only 2 respondents want to learn it

At the last question the respondents choose an area of education approach to improve - the

Czech respondents are interested in the two areas of Coaching and Social media + Web.

They show the least interest in the area of Andragogue´s practice.

The most surprising answers

The questionnaire has pointed out the fact that most of questioned respondents were women as itś usual even at the Academic field.

Surprisingly big number of respondents at least have heard of different blogs although they don´t use them but they would like to know it.

Aproximately half of respondents use techniques based on coaching but there are a lot of them who want to learn much more about Problem Based Learning or individual action plans.

DETVET in Olomouc, part II

2011-01-15T10:15:00.001+02:00

Happy DETVET delegates on their way to session

The second day of the DETVET meeting in Olomouc focused on the tasks of the project. We also made a summary about what the project has given the participants by now:

sharing of skills and expertise
networking
new ideas
learning
comparison
inspiration
self confidence
sharing of problems
research resources
surprise
joint effort

You can soon see the minutes and the documents of the meeting on the Meetings page of this blog. A photo gallery of the meeting is already there to see.

The next and last meeting of DETVET will be in Tampere, Finland May 26-27. The host will be Tampere University of Applied Sciences, TAMK.

Story and photos: Cai Melakoski
Head of TAMK Degree Programme in Media

Read the DETVET session report on TAMK's Artmedia-blog

The Programme also featured a visit to Hitrádio Apollo, which adds value to broadcasts with
social media. On left Milena Hobzová introducing the studio.

DETVET Meeting in Olomouc

2011-01-14T08:43:00.002+02:00

In the hearth of Olomouc

The fifth and second but last meeting of the DETVET project started yesterday in the beautiful Moravian city of Olomouc, Czech Republic.

The day started with a guided tour around the city center hosted by Eva Kaněčková. The participants were welcomed by Helena Grecmanová, Kateřina Vitásková and Jana Poláchová Vašťatková.

The participants got familiar with the Czech practice and experience with Role of Tutor in Distance Education and Selfstudy, e-learning:

Afternoon session about to begin

Pavla Mrůzková introduced the Czech school system and Luboš Valenta gave a presentation on the VET sector and its current issues. Iveta Bednaříková and Milena Öbrink Hobzová demonstrated tutorship in adult education.

Today the focus will be on DETVET project issues.

The Danish part of the questionnaire

2011-01-09T09:30:00.004+02:00

The Danish part of the questionnaire was settled at the Centre of Visual Communication at SDE,
Odense. 18 VET teachers at the Centre filled out the form with the questions about andragogue
techniques, coaching, entrepreneurship and innovation, distance learning and self-study, social
media and web 2.0 tools, and ICT tools for learning and networking.

The profile of the Danish respondents is:
-    they are teaching in IT programming, graphic design and communication at VET level?
-    6 of them have a background with vocational training and a pedagogical education
-    7 of them have a teachers education, shortcycle and BA
-    5 of them have an university-master degree
-    61% have been working as VET teachers in more than 5 years and 22% in less than 1 year
-    61% are more than 45 years old
-    about 72% are male
-    about 28% are female

The most remarkable results and figures from the Danish part of the questionnaire are:
-    nearly 50% knows and uses the mentioned methods and techniques for teaching adults
-    less than 20% don´t know any of the andragogue techniques

-    surprising big number knows and uses elements and techniques based on coaching
-    very few don´t know anything about coaching

-    E-portfolio is wellknown, but still far from 100% in use
-    about 1/3 of the respondents knows E-portfolio, but do not use it

-    less than 1/3 don´t know anything about tools for innovation
-    surprising few uses or promote competencies for selfimployment and for preparing businessplans

-    about 1/3 don´t know anything about distance learning and self-study

-    very few of the respondents uses Facebook and Twitter in their lessons
-    about 20% uses Facebook og no one uses Twitter

-    more than 75% knows blogs, but only 10% use it frequently
-    another 10% don´t know anything about blogs

-    surprising little use of web and online communication in the lessons
-    more than 65% uses e-mails and more than 10% don´t use it at all
-    Power Point is well known and widely used with 50% of the respondents as users,
and less than 50% as frequently users
-    82% of the respondents doen´t use Smartboards, even if the Smartboards are available

At the last question the respondents choose an area of education approach to improve, and the
Danish respondents shows a big interest in the two areas of coaching and IT tools. The lowest
interest was given to the social media.

The most surprising answers
At our presentation for the members in the DETVET project, we in particular emphasized the surprising results at five areas:
-    We were surprised that coaching turned out to be a well known concept. A big number of the Danish respondents are using coaching elements, and less than 10% don´t know anything about coaching.
-    We were surprised that we are not near to 100% on the use of E-port folio. Around a third of the respondents know E-port folio, but don´t use it.
-    We were surprised that a third don´t know anything about distance learning and self studies
-    We were surprised that so few use web and online communication in their lessons. Only a fifth use Facebook and no one Twitter. More than three fourths knows blogs, but only 10% use it regularly, and another 10% don´t know anything about blogs.
-    And finally we indeed were surprised that a fourth of the respondents point out coaching and IT tools for improving, and very few (less than 10%) takes an interest in the Social Media

Something in common – cross culture and cross nationality

At our presentation in Italy we compared the Danish answers with the Swedish results, and we noticed some identically tendencies. In the Swedish questionnaire we recognized the same big interest in coaching, and exactly like the Danish respondents, the Swedish teachers show a low interest in E-port folio, online communication and Social Media.

The Swedish respondents have more females (46,66%) than the Danish, and the Swedish respondents are older (46,66% more than 55 years old) than the average age of the Danish respondents. With all our prejudices we could use sex and age to explain the great Swedish interest in the (humanities-like) coaching, and less interest in the field of online communication, distance learning and social media. But with the Danish results, the prejudices won´t do. The Danish respondents are younger and more males. The Danish are even teaching in the field of IT and communication, and still they are pointing out coaching and takes less interest in online communication and social media - Here we saw a challenge and a task to work with.

The tendencies in the answers from both the Danish and the Swedish respondents, show us an opposition among the teachers to the online communication and the social media. At the meeting in Italy, the countries presented their results and figures from the questionnaire, and all six countries saw and agreed on the need for working with the online communication and the social media. All six countries have different ways and attitudes to the everyday pedagogical practice, and still all six questionnaire indicated a kind of cross-nationality opposition to the new medias. We all have a struggle with – our personally, as well - attitudes and scepticism towards changing methods and practice.

To do is to develop and to learn

We all have learned that the social media is more than just another technology. The social media is a question about changing behaviour and way of doing. One of the important headlines in the Finish presentation about social media at the meeting in Italy, emphasized that to learn and develop the social media is to use it. There is no “teach,” there is only do, it says in the presentation (see photo below) In other words you have to learn and develop your own use of the media, and the only way to learn it, is to use it. In the DETVET group our difficulties in using and communicate via our blog, demonstrate clearly for us the need of doing!!! The challenge to learn by doing, is to cross the barriers to the doing. The question is: Do we know the barriers and how do we cross them?

There is no “teach,” there is only do
– The Finnish presentation, Italy, spring 2010

Quantitative and qualitative researches
The questionnaire has pointed out the task, and it is to define and cross the barriers to the use of the social media. But we still don´t know how to do it. The questionnaire, as we have formed it, can´t give us any ideas to handle this task. Our questionnaire tells us how many of the questioned teachers knows or wants to know a certain method or technique. But our questionnaire is quantitative oriented, and can´t tell us how to approach a new technique and how to start a new practice.

In a way our DETVET project is qualitative oriented. The spirit of the DETVET project is to inspire cross the boarders, and our meetings are not a question about e.g. number of participants, but more like a question about how we exchange experience and ideas. To support this exchange of experience and ideas we could have choosen a qualitative research (like e.g. focus group interviews), instead of our quantitative questionnaire. However, we didn´t take the discussion and the consideration about quantitative versus qualitative in advance, and at that time we probably haven´t been able to point out or agreed on the main themes and main questions for an qualitative research. In a way it is what our questionnaire has given us: A theme and a task. Next step is to work with the qualitative content and make use of our common experience and ideas to cross our barriers to the social media. Much easier to say than to do, I think?

Look at the figures

Kaare Jørgensen

Please find the Finnish figures here
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DETVET Project Meeting in Odense, Denmark

2010-11-10T15:36:00.003+02:00

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Coaching as a pedagogical method

2010-06-20T16:31:00.001+03:00

by Katarina Andersson

Coaching can be defined as ”processes to set free och develop the potential of people”. This definition corresponds to the visions of Folkuniversitetet – to provide people with the best possible prospects for a richer life, by engaging them to continuously add to their knowledge and develop their skills through a variety of creative activities.

People have different ways to learn new things, and we need a variety of methods to make learning and teaching successful, effective and interesting for the students. Coaching as a pedagogical method has met more and more interest the latest years, to be used in combination with other methods.

In recent years the coaching area has grown – from sports to working life and private life. Folkuniversitetet works with coaching aiming for new jobs and career planning, but also with coaching aiming at personal development, with the goal to support people to find the ways to a life in balance and good health.

A coach must create conditions for the person to work forward against explicit goals which he or she expresses themselves. The coach will not give any answers, but must be a support for the person in the development process. The coach listens, asks questions, gives feedback in order to:

Open up for new possibilities and to remove obstacles
Promote the person’s own answers and motivation
Give focus, support and motivation
Create results

Some years ago, coaching was only used when we talked about sports. Now the area is broader – first the methods began to be used in working life and career planning, now it is used both in education and in other areas to help people forward, for example “life-coaching”, in personal development and in rehabilitation. You use team coaching when you want people to work better together, life coaching when you have problems or want to stop smoking or something like that, there is labour market coaching – the officers in the employment office shall work with coaching, the teachers in the schools are coaches for their students, and so on.

As a short summary, coaching is the art of improving other people´s achievements, ability to learn and personal development. The coach is a guide and gives support to another person in her process of development, and gives her knowledge and methods to reach the goals she (or he) has put up in a given situation, for example to accomplish better and get better results. The coach helps other people to reach their most important goals.

The article continues, read all here

DETVET meeting in Sant' Angelo in Vado

2010-04-10T21:38:00.011+03:00

The third meeting meeting for DETVET took place in Sant'Angelo in Vado on April 7-8, 2010.
We enjoyed an effective meeting, good weather and interesting cultural visits. Our heartfelt thanks go out to Elmo de Angelis, Kylene de Angelis and Settimio Bravi (the mayor of Sant'Angelo) for hosting the meeting in their pictoresque town and making all the arrangements that made the meeting easy and enjoyable. We are saddened to leave Italy and Sant'Angelo and hope to return soon again.
Elmo de Angelis opened the first meeting day by welcoming us to Sant'Angelo. He layed out some of the goals of the meeting. Next, we heard from the partners on the subject of the questionnaire and the results. The results in general were somewhat expected but there were also some interesting patterns. Like that the results for Sweden and Denmark were practically the same. The result for social media and coaching was similar in all partner organisations and there is a need to learn more.

In the afternoon we had the priviledge of hearing from Kylene de Angelis about the use of ICT in education. Jarno Tolonen presented his case for the use of social media in education.

Elmo opening the meeting

On the second day, Loreta Staskuniene lead the discussion about the goals to be reached before the next meeting in Odense, Denmark. The look and content for the brochure was agreed upon.

Elmo de Angelis presented an idea about using the mobilities for the project to bring teachers along for the remaining project meetings and running workshops simultaneously to the meetings. It was widely felt that it was a good idea to involve and engage teachers in the project but there was some serious doubt wether the scope of the project and the resources of the partner organisation would allow it.

Due to illness, Cai Melakoski was not able to attend the meeting. Everybody were sure to send their best wishes and were hopeful and confident in seeing him in Odense.

Enjoying a break between meetings

Away from text pt. II

2010-03-29T10:51:00.002+03:00

The excitement and news-worthiness of social media derives from the fact that, as all social media are communication from many to many, it is a fiercely effective way to collect a reference group around any issue. Something that used to demand a lengthy campaign of communication from few to many, can now happen in an instant with no discernible effort at all. For advertising and marketing this has enormous implications in terms of reaching potential consumers. For education, or moreover the girl who could not sit still, social media can create a connection with a community that she needs to thrive with her own potential. "Finding your tribe" as Robinson (2009) calls it, is immensely important especially for the young learner who is not only faced with learning skills but finding their place in the world. In most cases there is no specialist or psychologist to point the student in the direction of his or her natural abilities. Social media, at best, can facilitate an authentic learning environment in the sense that there exists a community in which and with which to learn.

This is not to say that social media in itself is the salvation for every failing student. There is no added value in the existence of social media tools if there is no motivation or effort involved from the part of the student. Social media is however an avenue for the growing number of people who find it hard to find an anvil to their hammer. And at its very best it can help the people who have misplaced their hammer in finding it.

While there was a tech-utopia period in e-learning (or multimedia learning in those days) towards the turning of the millenia, it seems to be the technically fairly simple social media practices that have changed the world. The struggle away from old methods of text-based learning has turned in on itself in the sense that social media tools are largely text-based (though video and audio follow suit they haven't caught on in a major way). In fact, it is the two simple but novel ways of publishing text that seem to have had the most effect: the tag and the comment.

The tag is most commonly only a one word definition for a subject. Yet the fact that anyone can tag, anyone can participate in defining the subject holds great power. The comment is similarly only a short text but the fact that anyone can participate and anyone can comment on a comment generates a contextual web around the subject. With an infinite amount of things to comment on, only the commentators genuinely interested on the subject will gather around it. Genuine interest sparks relevant conversation. Much more so than university degrees or job titles. Not all subjects enjoy intelligent discussion, but social media does afford a chance to discuss and the chance to find your tribe.

So, in accordance to the title of this text: e-learning and social media have not moved us away from text at all but completely the opposite. They afford us new ways of using text and in so doing take us deeper into text. The fact that what we write is now published and read and reacted upon in ways that no-one could have predicted, is generating a new future for us. How that future will play out, is for anyone to tag and comment.

Mentoring in the TAOKK way

2010-02-25T20:07:00.002+02:00

We at TAOKK (Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Vocational Teacher Education Centre) apply an approach that we call collaborative inquiry learning. It relies on shared expertise and collaborative knowledge building. The theory and the method was developed by Kai Hakkarainen et al (see: http://www.helsinki.fi/science/networkedlearning/eng/delete.html#pi ). In practice, our teacher trainees work in small groups and decide for themselves what they want to study more thoroughly. They discuss their reading in groups and finally produce an answer to their research question, which can be in the form of a formal report, or a CD, video, play, whatever they see fit. During their studies they compile a portfolio of what they've learnt. The portfolio is first and foremost a tool for self-reflection (and takes a lot of guidance to succeed) and can be in electronic form as well. We encourage teacher trainees to be creative in showing their learning. Continuous self-assessment, peer-assessment and group assessment are as important as the teacher's assessment of learning outcome.

This is part of teacher trainees' studies. The other part is work based. They learn on the job in their own schools supported by mentors trained by us (9cr + 1-2 days of updating annually). Mentors guide their teacher trainees in planning their teaching practice (including observation and actual teaching), give feedback on their lesson plans, and observe their teaching in class. The assessment is based on the teacher trainee's self-evaluation, the mentor's feedback and evaluation, and a training report that consists of a plan with learning objectives and a record of hours observed and taught, examples of lesson plans, and the teacher trainee's personal theory of practice.

Away from text

2010-02-17T10:17:00.004+02:00

The Education Technology Centre eEDU in Tampere University of Applied Sciences was founded 2001 to coordinate and develop web-based learning (e-learning) and teaching in TAMK. It's function was and still is to assists teachers with the use of learning environments, support teachers with the implementation of on-line teaching materials and offer consultation in the educational use of ICT. Besides support for teachers eEDU is responsible for research and development in its field of expertise at Tampere University of Applied Sciences.

To perform it's tasks, eEDU needs to keep up with the development of e-learning (the concept as well as the tools), to form our own view of e-learning on the basis of domestic and international signals. The following is an insight into the type of discussion that forms our view.

Since its conception e-learning has been struggling to find alternative media to text-based learning. The whole concept has been wrapped around the premise of being something other than text printed on paper. Visions of that otherness have varied from video walls to brain plug-ins. As in any technology driven field, innovation, new applications and new gadgets have moved the concept forward and guaranteed funding. Now, we are entering a period in which technology is not the main issue. The main focus is coming back to people and their goals of learning. It is this shift in thinking that has been the basis of conversations towards what is e-learning for eEDU. It is extremely important to have open discussions about what learning is and what it is that we want to achieve via education. The following video is one of the sparks for conversation about long term goals and profile of the education system. It is a 20 min. video and well worth watching for anyone working in education.

(The video is from TED.com which is worth while the visit if you are looking for quality academic disussion about social issues.)

There are two key issues in the video. First, the education system is geared towards producing university professors. Traditionally, the goal of the student is to succeed well in your studies. The best possible success is to become a university professor. This however omits completely the students individual tendencies. For a small percentage of students, it is desirable and worth while to seek the ultimate goal of professorship, but what about the rest 99,9% of students? (Finland is, and has been for a while, producing doctoral thesis at an alarming rate.) What is the role in society for those students who are not and will never be university professors? This brings us to the second key issue in the video: the girl who could not sit still. The girl had intelligence which did not include sitting silently in rows of desks, reading and producing text. She had to move to think. Then, and even now the girl would have been doomed as a failure to life outside the society. BUT through the appropriate discourse and proper supportshe became a successful dancer/choreographer and has had a merited and fulfilling career. This is not to suggest that all children who cannot sit still will become the lead in Bolshoi's next production of Swan Lake. What it does suggest is that there is a definite demand for diversified education and diversified learning environments. This demand and the potential for social media and authentic learning environments to answer the demand make this a revolutionary and exciting time in education.

(to be continued)

DETVET Project Meeting in Östra Grevie

2010-01-28T16:17:00.007+02:00

Östra Grevie Folkhögskola

The second project meeting took place in Östra Grevie yesterday and today in Folkhögskolan Östra Grevie close to Malmö, Sweden. The main objective of the meetin was to learn more about pedagogical methods and techniques.

After the welcome speech by the session organiser Katarina Andersson the meeting digested the presentations:Coaching as a pedagogical method in VET, theory and practice (Tord Hansson and Maria Beres, Sweden)What's the challenge and teachers role, when the students go abroad? (Henrik Hjort and Kaare Jorgensen, Denmark Tutorship In Adult Education and Management Of Self-Study (Helena Grecmanová and Pavla Mruzkova, Czech Republic)

Finalising the questionnaire DETVET uses to collect data from VET teachers was done under supervision by Irena Pasilyte and Pavla Mruzkova, Czech Republic).
Dissemination was discussed after the presentation by Elmo de Angelis, Italy, and Cai Melakoski (Finland) led the discussion about developing the social media tools of the project, the blog and the Google group.

Finally DETVET project manager Loreta Staskuniene chaired the final talks about the work and tasks until the next meeting.

The next meeting will be held in Sant'Angelo in Vado, Italy April 7-8.

Östra Grevie Folkhögskola

The host delegation Tord Hansson, Maria Beres and Katarina Andersson preparing their group assignment

European competences and Adult's education

2010-01-25T23:55:00.003+02:00

In relation to the DETVET project aims and objectives, LLP Leonardo da Vinci office in Rome promoted the following contact seminar "Net-Working...Net-Thinking: The European common tools for transparency and certification of competences and qualifications (ECVET and EQF) and the non formal and informal learning" on 10-12 December 2009. 95 people participated representing different organisations from the training sector all over Europe. One member of Training 2000 participated in the seminar to discuss competences and transparency of certification for teachers and trainers in the domain of EQF and ECVET. The developped draft material was presented in the plenary session and accepted great interest.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2009-12-17T14:59:00.004+02:00

Klaipeda University Continuing Studies Institute's team wish you happy coming holidays and would like to acknowledge the time spent together with a honest "Thank-you!". May everything is united by the holidays spirit, May the miracles come!

First Milestone Reached by Deadline - Welcome to our Blog

2009-12-01T19:18:00.004+02:00

According to the Detvet project plan the first deadline after the kick-off meeting was to launch the project website in November. Yesterday, on November 30 the Detvet Blog was made visible to the entire Internet community.

The kick-off meeting in Klaipeda in October decided that the project website would be a blog - easy to update for all project partners. The first post and much of the informative content on right hand of this blog was made already at the meeting. We decided however to launch the blog later, when there is more to explore.

We welcome all new readers!

New Technologies in Education and Training

2009-11-29T20:21:00.011+02:00

Information and Communication Technologies are being increasingly used to create richer learning environments. In all sectors of education from primary schools to adult education, in schools for pupils with special education needs and in colleges and universities, technologies are being used across the curriculum to enhance students’ experiences.

The use of technology and new media is crucial to involve new generation in education and facilitate their learning process. It is important to train teachers how to use at best technologies and design and create attractive learning environments, and build experience also to be exchanged freely with others.

The above concepts have been developed by Training 2000 and EU partners in previous Comenius project named TACCLE, which ends at the end of 2009. The outcomes of the project aim to train teachers and trainers to create e-learning materials and raise their awareness of e-learning in general in order to establish a culture of innovation in the schools in which they work.

The TACCLE handbook created for trainers and teachers supplying suggestions on how to implement new technologies (including web 2.0 tools) and e-learning in class is available online (please click here if interested!). You may be interested to know that an in-service training course “Creating your own e-learning content in school education and adult education” is also planned to take place in Urbino, Italy in April 2010 and it has been a great success, as we have 65 applicants from all over Europe! (Click here to read more about it).

This experience from the TACCLE project can be partially transferred to DETVET and further exploited through the involvement of the VET providers and trainers in partners countries.

Training 2000 is responsible for the development and organisation of Training for the Municipality of Sant’Angelo in Vado and as first dissemination event, has organised a conference with aperitifs and snacks at the University of Urbino on November 9th 2009, with 20 participants/trainers, experts, teachers trainers and university researchers/professors.
The best moments are recorded and presented to you here:

About questionnaires

2009-11-26T12:48:00.003+02:00

As it was decided during the first meeting in Klaipeda - the leaders of this „workpackage“ Irena (KU CSI) and Iveta (Olomouc University) were appointed to create a tool for investigation - a questionnaire. The ideas for this questionnaire were also proposed by Elmo and they were based on the experience of the previous EMCET and TACCLE projects.

Iveta sent us a version of the questionnaire which is designed to find out the methods that teachers are using and also lacking in their work (Iveta‘s questionnaire).

In the meetings that Irena organized in our Andragogy department there were discussions that there should be a questionnaire shape allowing us to find out about the particular methods we are considering in our DETVET project.

We also believe that the partner offering a particular technique or approach should find out the questions or statements which are to be put in the questionnaire. We are attaching a scheme of this tool (CSI questionnaire) together with the statements allowing to reveal our – andragogic – part of teachers competences or skills. That could be an example how all the partners could fill in their parts, too, by formulating 5-6 statements. In any case – if you have any other and better idea – please let us know about that!

Could we expect each partner's contribution until December 7th?

Paradigm shift in teaching and learning

2009-10-14T15:59:00.003+03:00

The DETVET project aims at promoting VET teachers’ pedagogical, didactic, mentoring, coaching and other transferable competencies. Pedagogical competencies include, among other things, an innovative and meaningful use of ICT and social media in teaching and learning. But, introducing a new tool does not necessarily make teaching any better; in fact, in some cases it may make it worse. My concern is VET teachers’ awareness, or lack of it, of the paradigm shift in teaching and learning. This paradigm shift changes teacher and student roles in ways that are in a striking contrast with traditional teaching.

Traditionally, the focus was on teaching. Teachers were in control of students’ learning distributing bits and pieces of their knowledge to students, who were seen as ‘tabula rasa’, fairly stable in their abilities merely acquiring a toolbox of knowledge to be applied in basically similar situations. Now the focus is on the learner and learning, and what students can do to deepen their understanding of the phenomenon under study. Teachers’ task is to facilitate students’ learning process by helping them to set their own goals, monitor and assess their learning, take control. Collaboration, self- and peer-assessment, continuous feedback and feedforward are key words in this process. Here new technologies have proved a great asset enabling and encouraging students to knowledge building by sharing and learning together and from each other.

However, old habits die hard. There is plenty of scientific evidence of how difficult it is for teachers to let go of control. Teachers are rather quick to take new technologies into use and are excited about new possibilities they offer. But why is it that many times the new tool becomes a delivery vehicle of teachers’ knowledge that they want to transmit to students, instead of becoming a tool for students to construct their own knowledge networks? An overhead replaces the blackboard with the end result of messy transparencies, a computer drills and practices through automatic responses, the net becomes a material bank with questions formulated by teachers for students to find correct answers to, Second Life is equipped with auditoriums, where teachers can show power point slides!

In my dissertation on vocational education, I investigate what goes on in teachers’ minds as they face the paradigm shift and want to change their teaching. I argue that it is a question of conceptual change; the whole concept of teaching has changed. Transforming one’s mindset is not easy and does not happen overnight. Further, even though teachers may agree with the new theories of teaching and learning and want to apply them in their work, their practices do not necessarily change accordingly. I suggest that to change their teaching teachers should first become aware of their existing beliefs and critically question them in light of the new theories. Only by abandoning their entrenched beliefs are they able to accommodate their mental schemes to receive new information about teaching and learning and to truly apply it in practice.

I also make an effort to formulate a model of how this could be achieved. It requires an intentional conceptual change on the part of teachers. This means that their goal should not be primarily to make use of social media or ICT tools in a meaningful way, but to question their beliefs in order to change their pedagogical thinking. The rest will follow. To achieve this goal teachers need to have an understanding of new theories of teaching and learning and they need to engage in critical self-reflection and collaboration with colleagues.

Reference:
Mällinen, S. (2007) Conceptual Change Process of Polytechnic Teachers in Transition From Classrooms to Web-based Courses. Tampere University Press. Available 14 October 2009 at http://acta.uta.fi/pdf/978-951-44-7072-1.pdf

DETVET Had a Brilliant Start

2009-10-10T15:36:00.002+03:00

The kick-off session of the DETVET project was rounded off late Thursday afternoon with a tour to Klaipeda's old brewery.

Earlier all the important decisions to make the project running efficiently over the next two years. The project plan was scrutinised in detail and many specifications made.

The main form of activities is partner meetings, to be arranged January 2010 in Malmö/Lund, Sweden, April in Sant'Angelo, Italy, October in Odense, Denmark, January 2011 in Olomouc, Czech Republic and May 2011 in Tampere, Finland.

The meeting also started the DETVET blog to be launced in November and the DETVET Google-group for communication and work between the meetings.

The steering committee members were chosen, dissemination plan made and the tools for investigations discussed.

The meeting was exemplary well organised by Loreta, Asta and Alina and everybody felt very welcome and comfortable. Also all expectations according the kick-off meeting were more than fulfilled.

The only problem we other partners face now is; how to reach the high standard the hosts have set to a DETVET meeting now that we still are in turn to be in charge of meetings.

Pictured: Most members in a DETVET family photo

DETVET Started Today

2009-10-07T19:28:00.005+03:00

Today representatives of all DETVET project partners gatheded at Klaipeda University Continuing Studies Institute (KU CSI) to kick off the project. The welcome speech was made by by the director of KU CSI Ruta Marija Andriekiene and the opening presentation by Head of the Project Group Loreta Staskuniene.

Birute Jatkauskiene, the head of the of Andragogy Department of KU CSI gave a presentation titled Peculiarities of Andragogue’s Professionalization. All partners made presentations of the possibilities of improvement of education techniques for lecturers in different countries.

The aim of the project is to form an international sustainable partnership in order to improve VET teachers’ competencies in education techniques.

The objectives of the project are:

to make an inventory, exchange, evaluate and disseminate the best in-service training practice, methods which enable VET teachers to acquire and develop their competencies focused on education techniques,
to compare educational competencies development needs of VET teachers in participating countries,
to test a chosen method in the partner institution or silent partner,
to produce a Common Methodology Framework for the teachers from various fields of VET system enabling to reach an optimal efficiency when assisting students in learning process, also helping them in choosing adequate material and tools for their knowledge practical implementation.

The partners of DETVET are:

Klaipeda University Continuing Studies Institute (KU CSI), Lithuania, coordinator
Folkuniversitetet (FU), Sweden
SDE College (Syddansk Erhvervsskole), Denmark
Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK), Finland
The Municipality of Sant’Angelo in Vado, Italy
Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic

There are additionally two silent partners, Training 2000 from Italy and Kaunas Vocational Training Centre for Business Specialists from Lithuania.

The project will run until end of July 2011. DETVET is a partnership project funded by the EU Leonardo da Vinci Programme.

VET = Vocational education and training
DETVET = Development of Educational Techniques in Vocational Education and Training

Pictured: The entrance to Klaipeda University Continuing Studies Institute