Through this project, we intend to integrate blended learning in our teaching offer by exchanging practices, develop outputs and explore the best way to do it. In the education sector in general, there is a huge trend in the way trainings are organised and provided linked to the technological evolution: learners of the XXIst century demand more flexibility in the organisation of the courses in order for them to adapt their schedule to their availability, to increase their accessibility to qualified training and to develop their autonomy in the development of their qualifications, skill which is highly needed on the job market. With the possibilities offered by the current technologies, opportunities are available for the course providers to answer this need and implement it in their practices as well as reinforce the cooperation among students and teachers. As far as the second chance/adult education is concerned, this aspect needs to be taken into account by the pedagogical teams to allow our low-qualified learners to have access to qualitative trainings. Indeed, the students attending our institutions are adults having work and/or families duties and it would help them pursue their study if part of the learning work could be done at home when they have time to do it. In addition, it also gives them the opportunity to learn at their own pace. It would lead to a desynchronization of the organisation of the learning activities to better match the needs of each student who will be supported by the teachers in a more individual way. If the learning offer doesn’t adapt to this issue, the risk is that more and more learners drop out from the second chance education system, remaining fragile on the job market. It’s also an opportunity for the pedagogical team to diversify its practices where the digital tool isn’t a pedagogy in itself but a way to introduce various ways of learning and develop competencies of the participants. Specific objectives: - Develop flexible learning opportunities in favour of our specific low-qualified learners. - Increase the level of knowledge of our learners on digital tools, specifically oriented on eLearning. - Explore and exchange practices about eLearning activities dedicated to adult education context. - Integrate eLearning activities into the curriculum to reinforce the accessibility to our learning offer together with the involvement and autonomy of the learner. - Develop the digital competencies of the pedagogical staff. - Reinforce the transnational dimension of our institutions. We decided to specifically target the learners of the social and care areas which offers lots of possibilities to integrate eLearning activities (e.g. common care pathways). In our institutions, learners are low-qualified people seeking for a qualification through the adult education system. The direction and pedagogical staff are also involved in this project to implement in a structural and sustainable way blended learning in the learning offer. The partnership is willing to reach the following results: - Research, design, development, testing, evaluation and implementation of an eLearning framework dedicated to social and care students and adapted to a second chance/adult education context. - Output 1, development of a training course for learners: “Propaedeutic to increase basic digital knowledge” - Output 2, Handbook for eLearning integration in the social/care studies in an adult education context - Output 3, Training of staff members to the use of digital tools in a teaching context - Output 4, High-quality educational videos on social and care training - Exchange ideas and practices on the integration of eLearning in the curriculum. - Dissemination and communication activities - 5 transnational meetings of partners including exchange of ideas and practices and development of the outputs - 4 dissemination events in Malta, Italy, France and Belgium
The objectives defined at the beginning of the project concerned the development of tools to support the implementation of blended (distance and face-to-face) courses. More specifically, we had several objectives, which were achieved at the end of the project: to develop blended learning opportunities for our adult learners; to increase the level of knowledge of our learners about digital tools; to explore and exchange practices on eLearning activities adapted to adult learners; to integrate eLearning activities into our training offer; to develop the digital skills of our teaching staff and to strengthen the transnational dimension of our institutions.
The ambition of this project was to work on the issue of "blended learning", i.e. the capacity of our institutions to offer distance courses in addition to face-to-face courses. We had identified that in the education sector, there is a huge trend in the way training is organised, linked to technological evolution: learners need more flexibility in the organisation of training in order to be able to adapt to their timetable and therefore increase their accessibility to qualified training and their employability. Indeed, the students who attend our institutions are adults with professional and/or family obligations and this paradigm shift will help them to continue their studies: learning can take place at their own pace. Our learning provision needs to adapt to this change, which is all the more important since the onset of the pandemic, which has seen the need for, and therefore the skills in, distance learning explode. Teaching teams need to diversify their practices: the digital tool is not a pedagogy in itself but a means of improving the quality of training.