E-TRAINERS: new skills and tools for VET

Project summary

The partners have selected as target group of the E-TRAINERS project the VET trainers, teachers and guidance operators of their institutions, regions and Countries. According to OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS 2013, June 2014) and the The Teaching Profession in Europe (Eurydice, 2015), the areas where target groups need more professional improvements and continuous training are:- teaching students with special needs, developing ICT skills for teaching, new technologies in the workplace and teaching in a multicultural or multilingual setting;- new and innovative teaching methods rather than on arguments;- inclusive and student-focused methods;- skills and ability to work with other professions and partners;- innovative and active pedagogies, such as inter-disciplinary teaching and collaborative methods;- difficulty to deal with learners’ individual needs and growing diversity;- difficulty to prevent early school leaving and to use innovative pedagogies and ICT tools in an optimal manner.E-TRAINERS project aims at increasing the VET professionals competences and skills thought a structured digital training platform based on Moodle system. The project wants to set up innovative e-learning courses based on the results of several LLP and Erasmus+ projects (COBUILDING, EMPLOY and DIGICOMP). The four training courses focus on the following content:1. Introduction to Moodle;2. Use of video as didactic method (COBUILDING);3. Key transversal competences teaching methods (EMPLOY);4. Critical use of internet and the web (DIGICOMP).The E-TRAINERS courses, available in 9 languages, apply the Project Based and the Problem Based approaches, promoting the acquisition of technical knowledge and skills through practical exercises and simulations. The continuous support and coaching service, available for trainers during and after the training, facilitates the mentoring of target groups and the monitoring of their competences development. Another innovative aspect of the project is the assessment and recognition of the prior learning of the target groups with entry level tests. The learners access each course of the E-TRAINERS catalogue at the right level according with their competences. VET is a challenging and complex field and professionals must have at their disposal the best instruments to train and guide their students, NEETS, refugees, unemployed and other beneficiaries during their lives. The partners set up three working groups (steering committee, didactic experts team, ICT team) for the correct management of the project. The project management and implementation activities guarantee the proper project start up, management, quality assurance, reporting, dissemination and exploitation. Six international meeting are set up at milestone points in order to guarantee a better management and development of the project and intellectual output. Once the E-TRAINERS platform will be ready, the partners plans a Joint Training Event in order to train the partners staff about the correct use of the platform functions and tools. The partners involves 300 participants in the multiplier events organized in their Countries: 80 participants in Italy (40 in the North and 40 in the Centre-South), Spain (40), Latvia (30), Netherland (50), Slovene (50) and Croatia (50). The partners aim is to reach the following indicators of achievement in terms of number of trainers trained with E-TRAINERS by the end of the project (665 at regional level and 1660 at national level):- Italy: 100 (Piedmont), 100 (Puglia) / 400- Spain: 50 (Euskadi) / 100- Netherlands: 250 (Groningen)/ 800- Latvia: 10 (Courtland) / 50- Slovene: 75 (Zasavska) / 150- Croatia: 80 (Primorsko-goranska županija) / 160The desired impact is to create an effective tool for the improvement of transversal, professional and digital competences of VET trainers, teachers and guidance operators, that will result on better prepared workers. At local, regional, national and European level the desired impact is that the tools created are accessible and used by the target groups.More than numerical impact targets, the partners are going to work for the integration of the project results and outcomes in the regional and/or national VET policies about continuous professional development of target groups. The recognition of the training made through E-TRAINERS as part of the continuous training of VET staff and the inclusion of the eLearning courses/offers in the stakeholders catalogues are the main impact expected by the partners at regional/national level. The overall impact of this project at European level will be the contribution to the development of VET policies in the different partner and stakeholders countries. The partners are going to work for the European impact of the project with the international dissemination activities and with the inclusion of the project results and outcomes in the main EU OER and MOOC resources.