VET teachers and trainers have to face the challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution and globalization on the one side and to deal with the fact that VET training is less attractive for many young people than academic qualification. So they have to improve the VET training and this includes their own professional development and their adaption to new requirements. Teaching and training settings have to be adapted to the requirements of a digitalized world and trainers have to deal with modified requirements to their role, e.g. as classroom and project manager, tutor or coach of the students instead of an instructor. The role of the workforce changes from operators to problem-solvers alike. In addition, concrete further training modules which enable the teachers and trainers to prepare their students for the working world 4.0 in an optimal way are required. In the project "Interdisciplinary Teaching and Training 4.0" we want to develop training units for the professional development of VET teachers and trainers which improve their digital competences, the use of innovative practices of teaching and learning and which are based on concrete practical requirements in the working world. For Summer Schools or seminaries flexible, interactive training provisions wil be offered which improve project-oriented and work-based learning, cooperative learning, the design of action-oriented, complex learning arrangements, the proper use of digital tools, project and classroom management, etc. The idea is to bring together practitioneers in companies and VET teachers who develop interdisciplinary and collaborative learning settings along an entire product supply chain. They will benefit from each other and improve their mutual understanding. Moreover, the improvement of key resources and the key competencies are addressed and altogether human resources developed. Three VET colleges, one institution for teacher training and further education, a chamber, a business association and a regional VET college development and supervisory public body work together in order to develop the concept and the materials for the further training of teachers and trainers. The consortium represents the business and the school sector and will be able to consider the needs of both and to benefit on the other side from the experience of both sides. In the first project phase, training modules for the summer school will be developed in transnational working groups (IO1 and 2). They will be tested in a learning teaching training activity, evaluated and further developed also with a perspective that in future they will be applicable in regional training seminaries, too, in order to have good conditions for a broad implementation. Basis for the development are the expertise of the teacher training institution in combination with the experience of EUGES regarding the challenges of VET 4.0 and the needs for further improvement of teachers and trainers. The practical expertise of the other participating institutions will add to create useful practical outputs. The leading idea is to relate the modules to entire supply chains and thus to support interdisciplinarity and cooperation between different sectors, departments and different actors in the training process from the beginning. Especially the change of orientation from thinking in separate sections to considering whole processes and supply chains often is requested with regard to increasing digitalisation. The training modules are oriented toward a cooperation between the technical and the business and administration sector. The expected impacts are enhanced qualifications of teaching and training staff with regard to 4.0 competences, an intensification of the dialogue between local VET providers and companies in terms of modern digital and technical developments, an intensification of cooperation between companies and VET providers and an intensification of cooperation between commercial and technical vocational colleges/departments. Altogether this is supposed also to increase of the attractiveness of vocational training in schools and companies, initially on local level but perspectively also on regional and national level.
One of the main goals of the project was to contribute to the increasingly important topic of interdisciplinary cooperation in the world of work. Cooperation and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as viewing the entire value chain as one unit, is becoming increasingly important against the background of digitalisation and Working World 4.0. At the same time, the topic is still underrepresented at vocational schools throughout Europe. There is hardly any interdisciplinary cooperation, especially between technical and commercial professions. At the same time, teachers and trainers in particular need to be prepared for the importance of the topic. For this reason, the aim of the project was to make concrete offers for the further development of the topic. At the same time, one aim was to enable the participants in the project to understand the importance of the topic and to develop their own modes of interdisciplinary cooperation. Another goal was to prepare the project results in such a way that they can be used as examples in the classroom or make an important contribution to independently planning and implementing interdisciplinary work processes.
Interdisciplinary work processes are becoming more and more important against the backdrop of the digital transformation. An understanding of the entire process chain in companies as well as a mutual understanding of basic knowledge for technical or commercial requirements are becoming increasingly important. Overall interdisciplinary work have become a prerequisite for innovative business development for companies. Accordingly, skilled workers of the future must be prepared for these changing requirements. For VET this has the consequence of developing teaching sequences that prepare students to be able to cooperate together esp. at the interface between different industrial-technical and commercial areas, because mutual understanding of each other in the work process became more and more important. In order to that fact the INTENT project has developed 3 exemplary modules for interdisciplinary teaching and training as well as an Escape Room with digital tools and methodes ready for use in interdisciplinary cooperation.