Employees who have begun their professional career with vocational training - in many countries in the form of a dual training - can continue to develop up to level 6 of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). In many companies, the experience shows that this group of employees, once they have established themselves at this level, are seldom able to further advance their careers beyond this level. Such a development may, however, correspond to a desire for advancement but may as well be a necessary response to changes in the work enviornment (eg "digitization", "industry 4.0"), in which tasks for the middle qualification level are often lost. The next higher positions, however, are usually filled with people who have a higher degree of academic qualifications, for the technical professions these are usually engineers. Therefore, the target group of the project are employees who have already qualified to level 6 through a vocational training and who want to develop professionally within their company without having to take a full course of studies. The extensive practical experience of the target group should also be taken into account and the focus of competence development should be less on learning of specialist knowledge (which this employee group often already acquired), but on conceptual and abstract models. Thus, the aim of the project is to develop qualification paths and strategies for the target group of technical specialists with dual training, which allow them to develop skills on an academic level without having to apply for a full study program. Instead, it must be a matter of designing and implementing workspace-integrated ways of competence development. For this approach, concepts are to be developed and tested, which are then disseminated in the partner countries and beyond. In the long term, this is intended to open up additional paths for further professional development. Specific objecties are - Bringing together the state of discussion and experience as well as actual and forthcoming needs regarding work based approaches for this target group - Preparing guidelines for organisational developers within companies as well as for coaches for work integrated learning processes - Developing and carrying out a showcase blended learning activity with a pilot group, including appropriate learning material - Disseminating this approach among stakeholders in partner countries and elsewhere in the EU
In the ALTEF project (Workplace Integrated Learning for Qualified Technical Professionals), qualification paths and strategies for technical professionals were to be developed that would allow them to develop competences at an academic level beyond the start of a full course of study. Rather, a job-based competence development should be made possible on the basis of problems from the immediate field of work. The specific objectives were - Review of the status of the discussion on competence development with a focus on workplace-integrated approaches - Creation of practice-oriented guidelines for persons who want to facilitate competence development in this context or accompany it as coaches - Development and implementation of an exemplary learning activity - Dissemination of the approach to stakeholders in partner countries and beyond The concept of "Agile Learning" was developed from the analysis of existing approaches and experiences. The innovative core of this approach was to bring together three current, action-oriented concepts or tools - The concept of learning in cycles according to Kolb (testing, observation, concept formation, reflection), - The principle of workplace-integrated learning based on practical questions from one's own company, - The toolbox of agile project management, especially from SCRUM. The scientific partners of ALTEF as well as the practical partners have jointly designed the concept "Agile Learning", tailored it to the target group of technical experts and tested it outside the project in several companies. It showed that on the one hand, this concept is well connectable in many environments, because it can link up with already existing ones, and at the same time opens up a wide range of new possibilities in which many organizations are interested. Based on this experience, three guidelines for the use of the concept have been developed: for interested parties in general, for coaches of competence development measures and for management in companies who want to use the concept. In addition, for five project management topics - Basics - Agile Project Management - Project Management for Change - Project management for sustainability - Intercultural Project Management exemplarily extensive learning materials was developed at the desired level, graphically prepared and made available on a project server for unrestricted, free use (https://academy.agile-learning.eu). These materials have the format of a "learning card", i.e. individual learning units that can be worked through within approx. 30 minutes and are particularly suitable for the approach of workplace-integrated learning. Thus, the documents can be used in many different contexts. An exemplary learning activity based on this in the form of a summer school was implemented at Beuth University as blended learning. In order to disseminate the approach to stakeholders in the partner countries and beyond in the EU, the following measures, among others, were implemented: - So far three articles on different aspects of the "Agile Learning" approach have been published in the context of the ALTEF project, two more are in preparation. - In addition, the approach was presented in six, usually international events, further presentations are already planned. The "agile learning" approach has met with a surprisingly large response. The project results have already been integrated into the curricula of the Beuth-Hochschule für Technik Berlin and the Leidse Onderwijsinstellingen B.V. (LOI - largest private university for further education in the Netherlands). In addition, other projects are now building on the agile learning approach developed in ALTEF: - A strategic partnership for continuing vocational training at the industrial level (EQF 4 - 5): The HO-WARP project (action-oriented continuing training at the workplace) was launched on 1 September 2019. - The DAAD project EDUTEX, which carries the approach into development cooperation with Ethiopia at university level, has also already been launched. - The BaMS project "Bioeconomics on Marine Sites" also uses the didactic concept of agile learning together with the concept of learning cards.