CONTEXT The recent mid-term evaluation report of the Erasmus+ programme has highlighted the impact of work-based learning in mobility on personal and professional growth of VET students. Mobility helps students in acquiring key competences, however there are still margins of improvements, especially when it comes to the integration of such experiences in the curricula. The need to strengthen transversal skills and key competences is remarked by the communication “a new skills agenda for Europe” which invites to help more people to acquire the core set of skills necessary to work and live in the 21st century. Furthermore, although VET curricula envisage key competences, VET providers do not have many tools/training materials to teach them to learners. On the contrary, mobility experts (intermediary organisations) have developed know-how in this field but they do know how to fit into a VET curriculum. Occasions of exchanges of practice, collaborative planning of curricula and deeper knowledge of the field of expertise the other are missing between VET providers and mobility experts. OBJECTIVE The project aims at improving the quality of VET provision through a better integration of curricula and mobility experiences. METHODOLOGY and ACTIVITIES Partners will exchange practices on how to improve the integration of VET curricula and mobility with the use of gamification processes and ICTs in three joint-staff training events participated by 24 VET teachers and 9 mobility experts’ staff. 5 transnational project meetings will be used to coordinate activities and steer the project. Thanks to the exchange of practices and the work of partners, the project will produce the “VET learner journey”, meaning a set of non-formal and informal learning experiences that will help learners acquire and self-evaluate key competences during the three steps of a mobility project: preparation, implementation, follow-up. With this regard the project will stretch the time boundaries of mobility and increase its learning potential. RESULTS The exchange of practices will set the basis for developing the VET learner journey, an innovative teaching methodology for increasing the acquisition of key competences and amplify the potential of mobility. This will increase the synergies and mutual understanding of VET providers and mobility experts; provide teachers with innovative teaching tools; increase the competences of VET staff in gamification and the use of ICTs and the pedagogical skills of mobility experts, and engage learners in new educational activity. In the long term this the VET learner journey can be applied to other field of education and other learning outcomes apart from key competences. It is expected that this methodology will be transferred and become mainstream among VET providers and mobility experts in Europe.
CONTEXT In February 2021 the EU Council Resolution (2021/C 66/01) on “strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021-2030)” remarked on the pivotal need equipping students with right set of competences to match the future labour market demand (Strategic Priority 3), reaffiming learning mobility as an essential element of lifelong learning and the necessity of improving the recognition systems of the learning outcomes acquired abroad (Strategic Priority 2). The need to strengthen transversal skills and key competences was also remarked by the communication “a new skills agenda for Europe” which invites to help more people to acquire the core set of skills necessary to work and live in the 21st century. It is noteworthy mobility that helps students in acquiring key competences, however there are still margins of improvements, especially when it comes to the integration of such experiences in the curricula. Furthermore, although VET curricula envisage key competences, VET providers do not have many tools/training materials to teach them to learners. On the contrary, mobility experts (intermediary organisations) have developed know-how in this field but they do know how to fit into a VET curriculum. PARTICIPANTS The Vet Learner Journey project brought together 9 partners, including 5 VET providers (SEPR, ROC Da Vinci College, Institut Puig Castellar and Zespol Szkol Ponadgimnazjalnych Nr 2 w Piotrkowie Trybunalskim ), 3 Mobility providers (Uniser, Asociación Mundus and Mode foundation) and one technical expert (Un gout de Illusion) that had a common shared concern: develop new strategies and tools for the enhancing the development of key competences of students in mobility in support their integration in the VET curricula. OBJECTIVES The final aim of the project is to improve the quality of VET provision through a better integration of curricula and mobility experiences. To reach this objective the partnership realised a “The VET learner journey”, a flexible learning path that makes great use of ICT tools and is based on the gamification and learner-centered approaches. It is structured in modules, hereafter called “missions”, rather than “units” and it aims to enhance the development of students key competences (literacy, multilingual, digital, cultural awareness and expression, mathematical science, technology and engineering, entrepreneurship, literacy) throughout the mobility experience. ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS For the VET learner Journey realisation, 53 teaching and mobility staff from partner organisation gathered in three thematic events, respectively dedicated to three phases of learning mobility: Before departure (Lyon, March 2019), During the internship abroad (Bologna, November 2019) and After mobility conclusion (Online, November 2020). A new training methodology was developed to enhance peer learning and to set up a collaborative process of mission creation for students in mobility. The events were also based on gamification and were structured in three phases: good practice sharing, mission creation and mission testing. Firstly participants were inspired by presentations and workshops in which they exchange experiences and good practices linked with student mobility. As for the mission creation, small working groups designed brand the missions. On the occasion of the two first training events participants piloted the missions with 60 students willing to apply for KA1 projects while the test of the “after” mobility missions was done with students experiencing virtual mobility. Student feedback was used to finalise the 49 missions that are now available to the general public on the website https://learnerjourney.eu/. The website provides to all interested practitioners the possibility to create their own VET learner journey according to user interest and the expected learning outcomes of the mobility project. IMPACT The project had a relevant impact on: - Teaching and mobility staff that developed new competences on students mobility management and increased their ability of integrating the both mobility and key competences in the VET curricula. - Partners organisations, VET providers and Mobility providers, that increased their mutual understanding and fostered their collaboration; - VET Students that have now at disposal a new learning tool to support them to enhance their mobility abroad; The project in the long run will contribute to increase the offer of high quality WBL experience abroad to VET students and therefore enhance young people's employability. The VET learner Journey, the upskilling of VET teachers competences and the increased awareness about the key competence as essential for “personal fulfilment and development, employability, active citizenship and social inclusion” will also indirectly support the integration of no professional skills in the VET curricula.