Digital technology is a part of our everyday lives, and should be an essential part of our learning practices. Vocational education and training is not an exception. When preparing learning content for VET students, pedagogical and digital competences of VET teachers play an important role in order to produce efficient digital learning content which would be motivational for VET students. The main AIM of the project INLESSON is to strengthen teaching process in the field of professions in beauty sector (beauticians, hairdressers) by sharing international experience and using digital technologies for more innovative teaching practice. In order to reach the project aim, the following OBJECTIVES are going to be met: 1. To develop a structured material that could guide VET teachers to design and create digital learning in the field of beauty sector; 2. To increase VET teachers’ digital and pedagogical competences and use gained competencies in practice in order to create efficient digital learning content; 3. To test created digital learning content in classes; 4. To develop international partnership and increase the capacity of organizations to cooperate at international level. From the beginning of the project, the guidelines on the development of digital content of blended training material for beauty sector and the methodology how to organize blended learning (pedagogical approach) for beauty sector will be started elaborating. It will be a concept how to create digital learning content (digital tools for theory, individual exercises and collaborative learning) and organize/implement blended learning (pedagogical approach) in classes in the field of beauty sector. Moreover, from the beginning of the project the project website will be started developing. The project website will be dedicated not only for project dissemination activities and uploading developed intellectual outputs, but also for using website as a source for guiding how to organize and make digital learning content for VET teachers in the sector of beauty. Later on, it is planned to organize 3 short-term joint staff training events for 36 VET teachers in total based on Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Framework in order to be able to start designing and creating digital learning content on 6 different modules for hairdressers and beauticians. After training activities 36 VET teachers will increase their level of digital and pedagogical competencies, opportunities for professional development, motivation to teach, creativity, competencies in foreign languages, skills to collaborate internationally. What is more, 36 VET teachers will be introduced with a self-reflection tool based on Digital Competence Framework for Educators Framework and had opportunity to use it in order to assess their strengths and weaknesses in using digital technologies for teaching. The strengths and weaknesses in using digital technologies of 36 VET teachers will be identified before short-term joint staff training events and after in order to assess the progress of improved digital and pedagogical competences of VET teachers. Developed digital learning material will be tested and evaluated by at least 200 students and 18 experts in the field of beauty sector. Using digital learning content in organized blended classes will increase a motivation to learn and satisfaction for learning of students of hairdressers and beauticians. Intellectual outputs will be produced in English and will be publically available and accessible to all interested parties. In relation to created digital learning content, the digital formats will be developed in such a way that they will easily translatable into other languages by stakeholders, for example changing the voice-over of an instruction video, etc.
1. To develop a structured material that could guide VET teachers to design and create digital learning material in the field of beauty sector. RESULT: Guidelines for the development of digital content for blended learning and the Methodology how to organize blended learning in beauty sector were developed. 2. To increase VET teachers’ digital and pedagogical competences and use gained competencies in practice in order to create efficient digital learning content. RESULT: VET teachers improved their digital and pedagogical competencies and developed a digital learning material for 6 modules of the hairdressing and beautician professions (3 modules for each profession). 3. To test created digital learning content in classes. RESULT: a digital learning material was tested by 279 students and evaluated by 21 experts from 3 countries. 4. To develop international partnership and increase the capacity of organizations to cooperate at international level. RESULT: a sustainable partnership had been established, which continued to collaborate, participate in joint projects, and consult on a wide range of professional issues after the project INLESSON finished.
1. According the European Commission, only 20-25% of students are taught by teachers who are confident with technology use. The Bruges communiqué (2010) had invited Member States to invest in initial and continuing training for VET teachers, including make the most of new technologies. VET teacher’s professional development was also under strategic priorities of VET schools in the partnership of our project INLESSON. Long-term observations and surveys by the project partners had revealed the need to increase teachers' digital competences and to introduce blended learning in their organizations. All partners agreed that the mastery of new digital technologies in the teaching process increase the quality of VET. 2. The organizations involved in the partnership are leaders in their fields in each country. Maintaining leadership requires continuous development, innovation and application. The ability to communicate at international level is one of the way to maintain the leadership, as in the field of education it encourages the emergence of new ideas, methods, exchange of knowledge and best practices. The need to maintain leadership had encouraged all the organizations in the project to come together for the project's purposes.