As part of the project "smart grid - intelligent power grids 4.0", vocational schools from Bregenz/Austria, Bolzano/Italy, Sokolnice/Czech Republic, Vienna/Austria and Darmstadt/Germany have united with the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Darmstadt Rhein-Main and the association DKBB e. V. for the promotion of vocational education and training, in order to exploit various forms of learning cooperation and to form a sustainable European network of vocational education and training, that offers learning stays for apprentices abroad and deal with current topics of electrical engineering and energy industry in an educational and didactic way for the professional field of electrical engineering. Our project takes up the growing internationalization of business and the increase of mobility hence necessary among youth in their first vocational training. Based on several years of cooperation in the mutual exchange of trainees and joint transnational partnership experiences and further training (e. g. electromobility, samrt grid) the institutions have dealt with the measure "learning location cooperation". The actors are aware that the building-up and cultivation of the “learning place cooperation” as an effective and strategic measure for increasing the employment of young people in Europe. The cooperation between learning places means the collaboration of vocational schools and recognized training firms, resp. cooperating companies. It does not only refer to the dual system of education but describes all forms of vocational training, even full-time schools, where cooperation between different learning places for optimizing the vocational education takes place. The Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the company cooperation partners of the vocational schools and the DKBB maintain contacts to other companies at home and abroad. Regarding the cooperation between learning places, they see things representatively in the perspective of the companies, whilst the schools are co-determining the subject from their own perspective. Both the IHK and DKBB will also assist in the mediation of posts for a learning stay. At the same time, they may also act, due to their strong regional position, as a door opener to other companies that support the schools in advertising activities with their media and offer local and international information events on the subject of learning stays and their added value for both the training and the firms. The intention is to use the example of smart grid and WBT to transport digitalisation and industry 4.0 into vocational training, to qualify the apprentices for fulfilling the tasks in the profession, and for participating in the world of works, society and Europe in a social and ecological responsibility. That is why well-tried procedures of good practice in the learning place cooperation are exchanged, further developed, and tried out. Fundamental structures for a readiness and openness for such goals are the centre of attention for the working mission of this partnership. This shall be achieved in detail by the following aspects of the cooperation between learning places: The intention is to use the example of smart grid and WBT to transport digitalisation and industry 4.0 into vocational training, to qualify the apprentices for fulfilling the tasks in the profession, and for participating in the world of works, society and Europe in a social and ecological responsibility. That is why well-tried procedures of good practice in the learning place cooperation are exchanged, further developed, and tried out. Fundamental structures for a readiness and openness for such goals are the centre of attention for the working mission of this partnership. This shall be achieved in detail by the following aspects of the cooperation between learning places: 1) Supplementing the partners' education plans. The subject area Industry 4.0 has gaps with regard to smart grid technology, 2) Organisation and management of a vocational training network based on learning location cooperation, 3) planning, realization and evaluation of cooperative training projects with a focus on action-oriented learning, including web based learning (e-learning, digitalization 4.0) 4) planning, realisation and feedback to investigations of companies for generating vocational learning assignments, and 5) transnational cooperation regarding vocational learning stays abroad. Based on these first topics of a cooperation between learning places, the following partial goals are resulting: Goal 1) Development, testing and evaluation of the smart grid learning module The status of the formulation and further information may be held anytime of the project partners or the institution filing the application, i.e. Heinrich-Emanuel-Merck-Schule. The mailing address is: [email protected] . The project group is reporting on the progress and the results of the partnership under the following website: www.erasmusplus-projekte.eu .
As part of the "smart grid - intelligent power grids 4.0" project, vocational schools from Bregenz/AT, Bolzano/IT, Sokolnice/CZ, Vienna/AT and Darmstadt/DE have joined forces with the Darmstadt Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the DKBB e.V. association. (trainers, teachers, training officers) in order to establish a sustainable European vocational training network by means of learning location cooperation, which prepares current topics in electrical engineering - e.g. smart grid - in a pedagogical-didactic manner and closes national curriculum gaps as well as offers learning visits for trainees. The project has picked up on the increasing internationalisation of companies and recognised the resulting need to increase the mobility of young people in initial vocational training. In several years of partnership experience through the exchange of apprentices and in Erasmus+ projects (e.g. electromobility), the institutions have exchanged their activities in the framework of learning location cooperation. The learning location cooperation is an effective measure for the cooperation of the institutions involved in the training. Accordingly, a total of seven company visits were carried out, the content of which was aimed at the project topic smart grid, but which also always had the mobility of trainees in mind. With the overarching training objective of enabling trainees to fulfil their tasks in the profession and to help shape the world of work, society and Europe in a socially, ecologically and economically responsible manner, three learning modules (LB) "smart grid" were developed and made publicly available, which precisely close the curriculum gaps of the participating institutions. The project group also dealt with the topics of digitalisation, Industry 4.0 and WBT in order to transport the above-mentioned training objective into vocational training. In this context, the participating institutions controversially discussed their concepts of WBT and action learning (HO) during the five transnational project meetings (e.g. modern IT training, competence development in ET training, learning bar for SOL, development of a smart meter, learning app). The category of learning location cooperation was always included so as not to lose the perspective and training responsibility of the "cooperation partner". From this exchange of experiences, 17 success factors for successful learning location cooperation were developed. In March 2020, around the same time as the penultimate TPM 4 project meeting, the Corona pandemic forced a "break" on the project. All participating countries went into several lockdown phases and the partner institutions had to maintain the requirements for their own teaching-learning operations as part of the crisis interventions. The project partners were in contact via video conferences during this time. In spring 2021, concrete plans could be taken up to conclude the project by holding the fifth and last project meeting and implementing a final event in presence. In concrete terms, the project group developed the following results in the project line: Objective 1) Development and evaluation of the smart grid teaching module to supplement the training curricula. Result: three learning modules (LB). LB1: Basic teaching of smart grid with tasks and a simulation programme. The project provides a project compendium with all documents (508 pages) in digital form, an abridged version as a brochure (125 pages) and a simulation programme. LB2: smart meter. For the development and self-assembly of a smart meter in class/training, construction and assembly documents, extensive teachware and project documents for the smart LED street lighting project are made available for download. LB3: smart grid model. Completion of three smart grid models with construction documents for replication and teaching materials for measurement exercises and the evaluation of scenarios. Objective 2) Establish vocational training network that facilitates learning visits. A total of seven training companies were explored and the existing network expanded. In the joint evaluation, the project group formulated 17 success factors for learning location cooperation. Due to the pandemic, the learning visits for apprentices had to be suspended. They are to be resumed in spring 2022 depending on the valid incidences, the progress of the vaccination and the political situation. Objective 3) Exchange of competence-oriented forms of teaching (SOL, HO) of web-based learning. Controversial exchange on the above-mentioned topics with the aim of collaborative learning and exchange of experiences with distance teaching (technical/pedagogical). The project group secured the continuation of work in the BB network by agreeing on the follow-up project "Developing vocational competences of trainees on the basis of a competence measurement".