STEP IN project reacts to current situation at secondary technical schools in Slovakia, Czech republic, Italy and Finland, and generally across Europe, caused by COVID - 19, that puts schools, teachers as well as students under the pressure of completely new, unexpected challenges, with the demand for the use of digital tools for teaching all the content online. The experience from spring 2020 brought several issues that teachers and students need to face, revealing problems, such as lack of ICT skills and experience on the side of education providers, lack of skills to exploit available online tools in greater extent, lack of teaching materials that would enhance online teaching, lack of cooperation among schools in sharing the teaching resources and methods and other issues. Also, one of the key problems, common across Europe (learnt about from the talks with project partners) is the unaccessibility of, and difficulties in providing vocational practical training that students from secondary technical schools, as well as from other vocational fields, could undertake during lockdown and online teaching, as there aren´t available teaching resources ready to use with this purpose. The difficulties caused by this fact, result in the lack of students´ skills and competences which they needed to acquire through practice, that would prepare them for their practical jobs and labour market needs. From these reasons, we would like to tackle this problem by focusing our attention on - 15 teachers of 5 secondary technical schools, vocational subjects Machining, Hydraulics and pneumatics, and Logistics, including teachers of practical training related to this field, who will be directly involved in project activities, outputs development and pilot testing of materials, tools and methods related to online teaching - 50 students of secondary technical schools, aged 15 – 19, undertaking theoretical and practical training on the above subjects, who will also contribute to development of the outputs and their pilot testing, from at leat 5 schools in SK, CZ, IT, FIN while developing project outputs: O1/Needs Analysis in the target groups of the teachers and students, related to online teaching and practical training in the fields of Machining, Hydraulics and pneumatics, resulting in setting priorities, content, methods and proven tools related to online teaching O2/Educational Video materials/learning units to teach these topics, including online modules, supporting practical training on: 1- Machining, eg. metal processing, turning, milling, grinding and drilling, CNC machining 2- Hydraulics and pneumatics, eg. hydraulics, pneumatics, electrohydraulics and electro - pneumatics 3- Logistics, eg. truck transport, eg. accessories and equipment for loading, unloading and transporting groupage goods (such as rear or side-lift, forklift, general cargo crane, hook and demountable containers O3/Tests for reviewing incoming and outcoming knowledge and skills of students, related to the machinery use, before and after the use of online educational resources, developed in O2, for the grades of 1 – 4 of secondary technical schools, with sets of questions, for each of the topics: • Machining (manual metalworking, turning, milling, grinding and drilling), CNC machining • Hydraulics and pneumatics (hydraulics, pneumatics, electrohydraulics and electropneumatic) • Logistics, eg. truck transport O4/ Examples of good practice for teachers with overview of suitable tools / technologies and methods for online practical training and teaching concrete vocational topics, tested during the project, Also, we will focus on testing the outputs and implementing them in practice, in 5 pilot schools and/or organisations from SK, CZ, IT, FIN and subsequently enabling their use among other schools from the same vocational field, as well as transferability and adaptability in other vocational fields. Project should be carried out transnationally due to identical problems the schools face and needs created by COVID – 19 in all partner countries, and due to first common experience with online teaching gathered by schools during lock – down in the spring time, as well as the common will to provide high quality incusive digital education across Europe, through mutual cooperation, under the new circumstances. In the project, we expect the following impact: - Detailed needs analysis carried out, identifying teacher´s and students needs in relation to online teaching of vocational subjects (O1) - New educational resources developed for online practical teaching and training - interactive learning units, video – based, on the topics of Machining, Hydraulics and pneumatics, Logistics, including assesment tools – incoming and outcoming knowledge and skills tests for students (O2 & O3) - Cooperation skills developed, sharing of experience and teaching resources, supporting each other and enhancing teaching togehter in a time of crises
To achieve the aim of the project, we set the following goals, namely: • to develop EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS, usable not only during lockdowns in the future, but also for hybrid education, or self-study (O2/ONLINE MODULES and O3/TESTS), combining video materials for getting familiar with the topic and evaluation tests, to compare learning progress • to develop VIDEO MATERIALS that at least partially replace the real situation and familiarize the student with the workshop environment (190 videos within O1, in 5 languages), for the fields of Machining, Hydraulics and Pneumatics and Logistics • to develop EVALUATION TOOLS to determine the progress of students' knowledge and skills (O3/ TESTS - 370 tests with approx. 1850 questions, in 5 languages), to assess learning progress – entry-level and outcome test for the selected video, to verify knowledge acquired during online teaching /self-study • to collect EXPERIENCES WITH ONLINE TEACHING as examples of good practice (O1/NEEDS ANALYSIS and O4/DIGITAL TOOLS), which provide an overview of experiences with online teaching and recommended applications, tools and pedagogical methods that can be used during online teaching in addition to professional topics for the given fields
During the COVID-19 pandemic, all practical training of students at secondary technical and vocational schools was difficult, as it was mainly carried out by distance learning. However, teachers lacked the initial skills to use the online environment and ICT tools for teaching, but especially they were missing the relevant educational materials for online teaching and practical training. The project therefore responded to the current need by developing educational materials for practical teaching in the fields of Machining, Hydraulics and Pneumatics, and Logistics, which are the main study fields of the partner institutions. The purposes of the STEP IN project were: • to help cope with the current situation that forced teachers to use the online learning environment, • to facilitate access to students' vocational practice through online teaching at secondary vocational and technical schools, • to strengthen the profile of the teachers by improving their skills in handling digital tools and equipping them with relevant teaching materials.