The fundamental aim of the project is to increase the quality of professional education at secondary schools, to establish its closer links with the industry and to increase the interest and motivation of students at secondary professional schools to study well. The pre-project analysis has revealed that professional education in technical areas: a) Does not satisfactorily reflect real needs of the industry, b) Does not have satisfactory contacts with the industry, c) Does not satisfactorily react to the recent development in science and technology by inclusion of modern topics in the education, d) Does not satisfactorily motivate the students, e) Does not have satisfactory international collaboration. The proposed project should help to reduce the above-listed constraints of professional education by developing a large number of results and their large-scale pitot testing. The project consortium (excluding associated partners) consists of 9 partners based in 3 EU countries – Czech Republic, Slovakia and Spain. The structure is the same in all these countries: a) 1 industrial company or association of companies, b) 1 secondary professional school, c) 1 technical university. The industrial companies and associations bring to the project the insight and demands of the industry. The secondary professional schools (students and teachers) are the main recipients of the results. The technical universities will, in general, provide high-quality specialized services to the secondary schools, especially develop tailored learning objects, according to the demands of the schools and companies. The principal project outputs are aiming at the improvement in the above-listed areas. With respect to the needs of the industry, we will develop and pilot-test 9 sets of different types of electronic learning objects (in English and national languages of the consortium). These objects will cover modern topics that have not been adequately dealt with in the form of learning aids so far. The topics will be selected according to the identified needs of schools and industrial companies. We will interconnect the worlds of secondary education and the industry, on the national as well as international levels. For students (and their teachers) from the secondary schools within the consortium we will prepare – in two phases – a series of internships in industrial companies, home as well as in the two other partner countries (within the international mobility). The internships will be supplemented with a motivating competition of international student teams, which will be partly organized as a virtual one, using modern communication technologies, and partly in a conventional way with physical presence of the competitors, during their international mobility. An important result of the students' internships will be also gaining of specific skills thanks to the 12 newly developed ECVET learning units. We will focus also on further education of the teachers from the secondary schools, using the form of specialized lectures on modern topics (close to the areas of the internships in the industrial companies) at the partner universities. The teachers will be provided pedagogical materials dealing with the respective topics, which they will subsequently use in their own regular courses. Extensive dissemination events (special workshops, publishing activities) will be used to spread the message about the project and its results within the target groups, so that the impact of the project is as wide as possible. The key factors for the success are the attractiveness of the topics, high quality of their interpretation, large extent and unlimited availability of the developed materials. We will develop also methodologies for education at secondary professional schools, emphasizing the involvement of the industry and including the international dimension in the process of education. These methodologies will be based on the experience originating from the international and national internships and from the pilot testing. Another methodology to be developed will deal with long-term sustainability of the results after the conclusion of the project and with continuous propagation of the results among the teachers of secondary professional schools not participating in the pilot testing. The main platform for concentrate the developed learning objects will be specialized learning environment that will serve also to supporting the competition of international student teams and social networking. Educational activities are intended for a target group of 750 students and 30 teachers; the international internships (mobility) and international team competitions are intended for 48 students, the national internships for 120 students. The total number of newly developed learning objects will be 151.
Introduction There were two significant changes during the project implementation: 1. The project was originally not selected for support and put on the “waitlist”. Later it was accepted, but with a significantly reduced budget. For this reason, there was also a significant reduction of the outputs. Detailed description of the changes can be found in the appendix “MoVET_Změny_2017.pdf”. Changes made to the number of outputs are clearly summarized in a table contained in the appendix “Appendix 4 - Changes in partial outputs and activities.pdf”. With respect to the reduced budget and in accord with these amending documents, a contract was concluded with the grant provider. 2. During the coronavirus crisis, activities related to students' trips abroad could not be performed, nor was it possible to hold the Final Meeting in person. Both types of activities were carried out in an alternative way. The cancellation of the original activities and setting of new (alternative) ones also induced a significant increase in workload. Context/background of the project The pre-project analysis revealed that professional education in technical areas: a) Did not satisfactorily reflect real needs of the industry, b) Did not have satisfactory contacts with the industry, c) Did not satisfactorily react to the recent development in science and technology by inclusion of modern topics in the education, d) Did not satisfactorily motivate the students, e) Did not have satisfactory international collaboration. The project goal was to reduce the above-listed constraints of professional education by developing a large number of results and their large-scale pitot testing. Objectives The fundamental aim of the project was to increase the quality of professional education at secondary schools, to establish its closer links with the industry and to increase the interest and motivation of students at secondary professional schools to study well. Number and type/profile of participants The participants (target groups) were students and teachers from secondary professional schools focusing on technical subjects. Over 1700 students and 55 teachers took part in the conducted educational activities. 61 students participated in the national internships; 39 students participated in the international ones (out of which, 8 in the only physical mobility and 31 in the virtual ones). Finally, 24 students (8 from each partner country) students took part in the international student teams competition. The total number of students involved in project activities significantly exceeded our commitment stipulated in the project application. Description of activities and results A detailed description of the activities can be found in the relevant sections of this Final Report. Just a summarizing information is provided here: 1. Sets of different types of electronic learning objects (in four languages) 2. ECVET learning units 3. Pedagogical materials for teachers 4. Large-scale pilot run for students 5. Pilot run for teachers 6. Series of internships in industrial companies 7. Motivating competition of international student teams 8. Further education of teachers from secondary schools (specialized lectures) 9. Extensive dissemination events (special workshops, publishing activities) 10. Specialized learning environment and supporting software 11. Methodologies and strategies Longer-term benefits and impact The developed educational materials are part of the learning portal (http://techpedia.eu), which is publicly accessible and administered by the project coordinator. Thanks to the fact that the portal also contains the results of other projects, it is a relatively wide library of educational resources (offering over 140 packages of materials), which is often used not only by the primary target groups, but also by other academic or professional public. After the project conclusion, ECVET units and a number of methodologies and strategies will also remain available to the public. The long-term benefit for members of the project consortium is the newly acquired know-how.