Teachers of HE education in Nordic-Baltic countries have faced similar challenges in using digital tools in classroom settings. Although digital tools are only one side of the coin, it is important to find methods to implement digital technology into subject teaching in a pedagogically meaningful way. With our previous Erasmus+ funded LEAD project (Learning and Digitalization in Home Economics), we collaboratively developed teaching materials to help HE teachers implement digital tools into HE lessons. This NAVI-HED project goes a step further. It aims to collect and disseminate best practices to support educators in the field of HE so that they can obtain the knowledge and skills to use digital tools in a pedagogically supportive way in the context of distance/blended teaching. The experience with COVID-19 in spring 2020 showed that teachers, especially in HE, faced new challenges when trying to provide independent learning tasks for students at home. HE education includes practical activities, such as planning, making, serving and evaluating food. It is difficult for teachers to provide relevant instruction for students with different background knowledge and skills, to evaluate the outcomes and to give suggestions without face-to-face contact. It is expected that there will be a need to apply distance/blended teaching methods in the future, even when the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Students who are unable to participate in classroom activities for various reasons need to have access to distance learning methods. Therefore, the longer term benefit of this project is to provide all students with equally high-quality education, whether they are in the classroom or at home. Our target group in this project is comprehensive school HE teachers in Estonia, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The project has three stages: First, we study the topical scientific literature to raise participants’ knowledge as well as to close the gap between practitioners and scientists. Second, we use the Delphi method to collect pedagogical ideas for distance/blended learning situations. We believe that practitioners have valuable experiences, and therefore we include expert HE teachers (three from each partner country) in this project to determine best practices. Third, we introduce the developed manual of pedagogical practices and ideas in each participating country on a teachers’ seminar day and distribute the knowledge among a wider audience. As a result of the project, teachers will be introduced to the pedagogical manual—a useful product with at least 16 different pedagogical ideas or practices in their own native language for implementing HE education in distance/blended learning as well as explanatory text and analysis of the experiences. It is expected that having access to a variety of ideas will increase teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and thereby better prepare them in case distance teaching is needed. In addition, the ideas in the pedagogical manual can be adapted for HE classroom activities and special education classrooms. The developed materials can also be used by other subject teachers to obtain valuable ideas. The NAVI-HED project joins together the leading HE teacher educators and researchers from four participating countries (12 members total). We saw in our previous LEAD project how beneficial it is to exchange knowledge and experiences in the Nordic-Baltic region. Ideas for successfully navigating the digital challenges of the present context is shared, while also recognizing that digital methods will surely gain a permanent role in the pedagogic toolbox of the HE teachers. Although the area of HE education is quite small in each country, it has significant potential that has not yet been fully exploited. We need to share experiences within our Nordic-Baltic team, since every participating institution has their own specific knowledge that cannot be found in the other countries.
The main objectives in this project were to find innovative practices for using digital technology for learning in HE lessons and give needed support for subject teachers. HE can be organized in multiple ways, fostering both cognitive skills (to interpret, explain and think critically) and practical skills (choosing, preparing and evaluating). Not much attention has been paid on how to use digital tools in practice oriented school subjects especially in the situation where teacher and students are not able to meet and work in the same learning environment. Putting the project outcomes and results together, we were able to widen teachers’ understanding of the didactic possibilities of using digital technology in HE distance learning. Including also expert teachers to the co-development team enabled to facilitate collegial support and the exchange of best practices that is extremely valuable in such a small subject area. Through teachers seminar days (multiplier event) subject teachers gained knowledge on what and how to organize in distance lessons. Through seminar days and didactic courses held annually at partner universities, we strengthened the profession of subject teachers for providing all students an equally high quality education, whether they are in the classroom or at home.
According to the curricula in the participating countries (Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden), knowledge acquired in the school setting should be linked with students’ everyday situations by creating organized knowledge structures, transferable into real-life situations. Home economics (HE) is a school subject with significant potential for this, as it requires students’ active involvement with topics highly intertwined in their everyday life. All Nordic-Baltic countries involved in this project have met similar challenges in using digital tools in such a practical school subject. Not much effort is given on how to implement digital technology into subject teaching in a pedagogically meaningful way so that these tools will help students to construct knowledge, develop their skills and engage in critical thinking. The exceptional conditions at schools due to COVID-19 in the spring 2020 has shown that HE teachers need support in how to meaningfully use their digital toolbox. When in the classroom, teachers can use digital technology as a supporting tool; from a distance, digital tools need to mediate or even conduct the teaching. HE teachers faced new challenges when trying to provide independent learning tasks for students at home during lockdown periods – such as organizing practical learning (food preparation) and social learning (group works) or evaluating students from distance. The NAVI-HED project focused on supporting HE teachers’ digital competences for distance teaching. Within the project, good practices from HE teachers were collected and co-developed to support educators, and to disseminate gained knowledge to a broader audience of teachers to be used in their subject specific teaching when needed, either in the context of distance teaching or in classrooms.