One of the burning issues of today is how to improve the quality of learning/teaching in schools. Thousands of studies and scientific research has tried to reveal the best methods, and to formulate usable advice in order to transfer theoretical conclusions into the daily practice of our schools. A particular focus has been placed on European vocational educational (VET) schools and training centres as the current economical crisis is forcing them to respond to identified demands: “increasing attractiveness, embedding stronger work based learning, enhancing labour market relevance, developing stronger career and education guidance, implementing teachers and trainers professional development. Recent educational studies often draw the conclusion that “the full potential of ICT is not being realised in formal education settings and that only a few innovative projects manage to survive beyond the early adopter stage and become fully embedded in educational practice.” (S. Bocconi, P. G. Kampylis, Y. Punie, 2012). Teachers are increasingly expected to be adept at a variety of technology-based and other approaches for content delivery, learner support, and assessment; to collaborate with other teachers both inside and outside their schools; to routinely use digital strategies in their work with students; to act as guides and mentors to promote student-centered learning. Students, along with their families, add to these expectations through their own use of technology to socialize, organize, and informally learn on a daily basis.” (The Horizon Report Europe: Schools Edition examines trends, challenges, and technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative inquiry, NMC, 2014). The long term aim of the project is to improve the quality of the vocational education and to engage a movement towards the work-based, collaborative and problem-oriented learning/teaching by utilizing the pedagogical potential of ICT tools by integrating the “flipped classroom” methodology into the pedagogical practice of the VET schools and training centers in the partner countries. The target group of the project are the teachers, trainers and students of the European vocational schools. We are convinced that “flipping the classroom” would be especially beneficial for the vocational education, where the schools are facing the challenge to meet the needs of the ever-changing labor market. The speed of technological evolution makes almost impossible to provide the vocational schools with traditional textbooks in time. Preparing learning materials for the students, the teachers have to take more and more into consideration the huge amount of information available on the Internet. How they can/should influence the students’ attitude of “being always connected” towards using the Internet for learning? How will be possible to exceed the limits of a Power Point presentation in the classroom? What kind of IT tools are the most effective for supporting the pedagogical work? “Flip IT!” consortium would like to promote the VET teachers in their challengesI In order to achieve the long term aims, we will utilize the results on FC methodology of the HE partners of the consortium, and transfer these results into the parctice of the vocational education. During the 36 months long project period we intend to add new components to the transferred methodology as well, like an FC curriculum and course for the teachers. As a consequence while we defined Hungary and Spain as target countries, the university partners can become the beneficiaries of the results as well, as they will be able to utilize the outcomes for further development of their present achievements. The main outcomes of the project are: Flipped Classroom Pedagogical Model and Practice for VET Flipped Classroom Curriculum for VET teachers Online Learning Content for Flipped Classroom Curricuum Online Community to for VET teacher and trainers for sharing FC Flipped Classroom Methodology in the Vocational Education Flipped Classroom Textbook for VET teachers In the consortium 10 partners will collaborate from five European countries; from Hungary, Italy, Spain, Ireland and from the UK - representing all type of organisations working in the VET sector. The consortium has all the theoretical background (research capacity) and the practical experience (creating online knowledge sharing communities, Web 2.0 based online content development) needed for the successful implementation of the planned objectives. To ensure the successful development strategy we will use PDCA-SDCA (Plan, Do, Control, Act, Standardise) methods. Following QMS, every product of the project will be controlled, verified and validated.
Experiments are being run all over the world about how best to introduce new, innovative teaching, learning methods that meet the requirements of the 21st century. One of these methods is the ‘Flipped Classroom’. Flipping means that processing the new learning content doesn't begin with the teacher's explanation as usually. Before the lesson the students get acquainted with the topic at home already, by watching an attractive, “provoking”, motivating video or other digital materials, created or collected by the teachers. So the teacher frees up class time to lead students in other activities, which help to develop their the 21st century skills (like problem solving, collaborating and communicating) much better than the listening the explanation of teachers. The aim of the project was to integrate the “flipped classroom” method into the pedagogical practice of the VET schools and training centers in two target countries, in Hungary and Spain. The long-term aim of the project was to improve the quality of the vocational education and to engage a movement towards the work-based, collaborative and problem-oriented and active learning/teaching by utilizing the pedagogical potential of ICT tools. The focus was on the pedagogical potential: to utilize the newest, really easy-to-use video editors and other web 2.0 tools for teaching practical subjects in the VET schools integrated into such teaching methodology which put the focus not on the technology but on the pedagogy. The target group of the project were the teachers and trainers of the European vocational schools, while the beneficiaries of the final results are the students of the vocational education. Objectives of the project were: - Review the theoretical studies and pedagogical experiences on Flipped Classroom method, and carry out a focused needs-analysis by involving the teachers of the partner countries; - Develop “Flipped Classroom Methodology” (curriculum, online training learning content, collaborative online environment for networked learning); - Pilot online course in the target countries by involving VET teachers; - Validate the results in two countries by involving the members of the target group, and even the beneficiaries, the students. The project idea was born among the researchers and teachers of the project coordinator, of iTStudy Hungary Educational and Research Centre for Information and Technology Ltd., related to their activities in the field of technology enhanced learning. The consortium involved further 8 partners from 5 European countries. Three higher educational institutes (Universidad Europea de Madrid, University of Hradec Kralove) represented the regular teacher education and provided the theoretical background and their former experiences for the implementation. The third one (Cork Institute of Technology) added expertise in design and development of digital learning contents and online courses, together with e-learning developer from the United Kingdom (Opus Learning Ltd.). In order to ensure the long-term impact in Hungary, the consortium involved four Hungarian vocational schools (SZÁMALK-Szalézi Szakgimnázium, FM Kaszk Bercsényi Miklós Élelmiszeripari Szakgimnázium, Szakközépiskol és Kollégiuma, Magyar Gyula Kertészeti Szakközépiskola és Szakiskola, Neumann János Gimnázium, Szakgimnázium és Kollégium). After a focused desk-research and surveying the teachers, the partnership elaborated comprehensive state-of-art review on the present educational innovations in the partner countries, with case studies on flipped learning. Based on the conclusions we defined the set of learning objectives and outcomes and developed a curriculum for the online course. The next step was a collaborative content authoring and translation and implementation of the course components into e-learning environment. The pilot test was running in the target countries, in Hungary, in Spain and in Czech Republic.The pilots - highly appreciated by the teachers - were followed by a refinement of the learning content, and we published the e-book titled " Flipped Classroom in Practice - Innovation in Vocational Education" freely available on the project website (http://flip-it.hu/) in English, Hungarian and Spanish. The main results of the project are the curriculum, the learning content and textbook on a new teaching method validated by significant number of teachers in the online pilot courses in four countries. The direct impact is shown by their reflections and feedbacks, while the long-term impact can be seen from the detailed case studies in which the teachers tell that they will use flipped classroom method in the future, and they want to stay the members of the Flip-IT community.