The main focus for “Learning for Life” is student retention through innovative teaching approaches based on best practice and development of next best practice. We will produce and publish the results in an interactive e-book for teachers and trainers at primarily secondary and tertiary educational level. We have identified three areas where we can gain from working together across the borders:To develop new teaching methods:The traditional way of thinking teaching - one teacher/one subject/one lesson/one classroom is not always appropriate when taking into account the diversity among our young learners. This diversity is not only concerning the different academic levels of the learners, but also factors like cultural background and state of readiness to learn play a central role when organizing the lessons. Another significant reason to the diversity is the fact that the educational institutions, due to political requirements, over the years have been accepting an increasing number of students; on numerous accounts without regarding the different levels mentioned above. Studies of individualized learning such as individual leaning styles e.g. have shown how efficient this approach is and we will base our cooperation on this knowledge. Furthermore, we will base our cooperation and intellectual outcomes on observations of educational institutions being front riders in this field. We will add new ways of organizing the teaching strategies and lessons taking into account the students' backgrounds and to meet the requirements concerning collegial cooperation, project work, as well as a more optimal or better use of teacher resources. Thus, we look for changes in the teaching role.To ensure a manageable study environment by creating an application-oriented training:Reorganization of teaching strategies and lessons should not involve a more complex every day student life or more complex technical requirements than the institutions are used to. Thus, we want to work with application-oriented training to ensure this. We will scrutinize various ways of working application-oriented and point out the most efficient methods. This will include academic seminars, teacher shadowing, surveys, and cooperation with local businesses for example cooperation with local media and tourism organizations. To ensure retention, inclusion, and completion:Of course, this is indirectly comprised in the above paragraphs, but we want to develop specific strategies for how we can ensure a safe and collaborative learning environment for particularly students with less favourable background including migrants and refugees. We will exchange best practice strategies and develop next best practice for subjects like e.g. coaching, social events and field trips.The desktop research carried out by all educational partnering institutions prior to the first transnational meeting and the presentations of local and national pedagogical and didactical methods to enhance student retention, success and completion will form the base for the observation grid. At this Kick-off meeting, the participants will determine which of the presented issues to grab and of which we have to be aware. These determinations and the theory based knowledge of teaching methods, strategies, and experiences from primarily the involved countries will be elaborated and transformed into measurable paragraphs to be used at observations in Wales and Finland. Observations of lessons at Coleg Cambria and Axxell and interviews with pedagogical staff and management and theory based knowledge of teaching methods, strategies, and experiences from primarily the involved countries. By including one of the most experienced Danish publishing houses regarding creating interactive e-books we have ensured both didactical and technical expertise for this project. Furthermore, the University of Lower Silesia is highly experienced in the above-mentioned areas as well as in processing collected data. We therefore believe that the diversity of the competences within this partner group will ensure quality products. We also believe that a cooperation across EU boarders will strengthen the project products, as we will have a diverse pedagogical and didactical view and assess to differently structured teaching and learning methods and strategies. To frame the project qualitatively, we will develop an observation grid and questionnaires to be used by all partnering educational institutions at observations and interviews at Coleg Cambria and Axxell. These partners are front riders when it comes to student retention, but they are looking f
We have achieved the goals we set out to do; our project is about finished. We have identified parameters relevant for student retention at our quite diverse institutions, investigated these through interviews, questionnaires and observations (with each partner assigned to a specific role/task). The data obtained has been scrutinized, and we have concluded on what ended up being the must fruitful keywords - "care" and "flexibility", as well as teaching methods. Concerning our distribution of tasks beween partners: Coleg Cambria and Axxell has been visited and investigated. They both are big institutions with retention success. University of lower Silesia has been leading into designing observation grids etc, and elaborating data. Campus Vejle has lead the project, and have been primary producing the ebook, and the website. Publisher Systime was to write the ebook with partners assistance, but Campus Vejle overtook this task almost completely. Our conclusions on retention lead to trial runs and some changes in retention relevant areas, as described by the respective partners here: Campus Vejle: CV has made changes into the “care”-area: A new student coach Louise Seremet Sørensen has been employed. This coach has the same function as the pastoral coaches at Coleg Cambria. Thus CV has separated the care function from the teachers, as our research implied that the double-function was no good approach. Campus Vejle has also increased the frequence of care-taking interviews with students. On the flexibility side CV has widened the array of profiled classes to students individual needs, so that each new student has a wider range of choices. I.e we have now the profiles “minus 20 year class”, “gaming class” (we have just moved our E-sport students who gets access to E-game facilities into new and specialized classrooms), and we are anticipating an “ADHD-class” (we shall find a better name for this class). Statistics from april 2019 shows that retention has improved significantly at Campus Vejle during over the past year, and as we have not made any major changes besides the above mentioned, we are prone to think that these changes have had an effect. Axxell: The project had a big impact on Axxell and the way we work with students. The benefits of working in an international project is that you through networking with the project partners can establish good contacts with your peers. You get to share best practices and ask recommendations on how to implement what you see/learn. One of the biggest impacts of the project was the way the Welch partner worked with a method that was/is called Pastoral Coaches. Through the project Axxell was able to learn and see how Pastoral coaches work and the impact they have on students. During the project Axxell developed a new group of staff called Examenshandledare. The idea for Examenshandledare came from the Pastoral coaches and they work now in a similar manner at Axxell. By introducing Examenshandledare we have become better at making sure that the students are cared for and Axxell has become better at recognizing risk factors for students dropping out. Even though Axxell has become better at this, due to Learning for Life, we still think we have a lot to learn about and hope to be able to participate in a European project working on establishing tools that helps prevent students from dropping already from the first day students begin their education. The 2 participants from Axxell, Unni and Henriette, were working as teachers when the project begun but by the end of the project they had been selected to work in the newly established positions of Examensledare, together with 4 other persons selected for this position. Unni and Henriette has educated the other Examenhandledare to the way a pastoral coach works and have thus implemented it in Axxell. From Denmark we learned the importance of creating welcoming surroundings/areas for students where they can work while working on project or just hang out during their breaks. Due to the project we have made changes to public areas at Axxell, trying to make them inviting and making students feel more comfortable and at ease. We’ve come to realise that it is important that students feel comfortable at school and that they have areas where they can socialize together. Another impact the project has had on Axxell is that we learned how to become better at making the students voice heard. We have now involved students in the planning of curriculas and also we become better at educating students in providing constructive feed-back in a way that will support them and other students learning. University og Lower Silesia: Regarding the implementations of particular solutions in our institution, I would like to remind, that our role in the project was to provide with analytical and pedagogical perspective. Also, we are the tertiary education institution, thus we haven't planned to implement particular organizational solutions as an outcome of the project. However, we claim, that as a result of the project we gained the knowledge about different modes of organization of the vocational education and we promote "care" and "flexibility" as an asset way to organize vocational education in Poland. We do it through presentations on seminars and conferences, preparation of academic papers, public discussions about best ways for vocational education development. We plan to establish the Centre for Skills Development at the ULS, which will be providing support for vocational education institutions in Poland according to better adaptations to nowadays expectations of the labormarket and economy. The experiences (the "Flexibility" and the "Care" modes in particular) learned out of the Learning For Life project, will be the essential part of the recommendations we will disseminate. In this respect we will cooperate with Technical Schools and Basic Vocational Schools. Moreover, as I am the expert of the Ministry of National Education of Poland for the vocational education issues, it is possible to promote outcomes of the project on the level of national educational policy. For the beginning it can be use in works on the Integrated Skills Strategy, which is the strategic document elaborated by Polish government in cooperation with the OECD. Its aim is to strenthen the skills development and usage system in Poland, and the vocational education, allong with LifeLong Learning and LifeWide Learning Perspective are crutial parts.