Project name:
REVEAL IT!
Area of work:
The blended learning institutions’ cooperative is an educational cooperative with a European scope which has its headquarters in Göttingen, Germany. The main activity areas are in competence oriented learning and competence validation in innovative fields of Adult Education. The organisation focuses on providing innovative blended learning approaches, courses and also informal learning opportunities for learners who learn outside formal education, such as learners on the job, in volunteering, traineeships, in leisure time, sports and in youthclubs, in mobility (e.g. ERASMUS mobility) and in innovative CPD formats.
blinc focuses on mixed learning modalities and approaches combining face-to-face, project (practical) learning and e-learning. A special focus is on the acquisition and validation of social, personal and organisational competences in different learning contexts for specific target groups, such as NEETs, youth and target groups without an explicit connection to a formal/non-formal learning course, but also learners in Lfelong learning who acquire competences that are hardly ever validated such as people in cultural heritage projects or in cultural integraton courses for refugees or migrants.
Educational sector:
Adult Education
European Development Plan:
Develop your digital teaching and learning competences!
Summary:
The blended learning institutions’ cooperative (blinc) is a German cooperative working in:
- Innovative fields of learning and validation,
- innovative formats for contents like circular economy,
- design thinking,
- entrepreneurship education,
- CSR and Sustainable Development Goals
- Holistic technology supported blended learning systems
There is a constant need of continuing professional development for our staff members since new contents, approaches and technologies are quickly developing in our domain. Hence we have set up a European Development Plan which outlines the pathway for future developments in the following domains and learning fields which comprise the competence development of our staff members:
- Competence oriented Learning
- Developing innovative teaching and learning methods and didactical approaches
- Developing teaching and learning in innovative domains
- Validation of informal and non-formal learning
- Further development of innovative and competence related assessments
- Creating (more) interfaces between our validation system LEVEL5 and the European systems
- Development and implementation of learning technologies
- Offering holistic open source learning solutions
- Offering new technology supported learning formats
- Development and implementation of sustainable development
- Programme development on SDG (sustainable development goals)
- Project and Programme and CPD development of circular economy offers
- European network management
We are targeting: 20 staff members to be sent to courses tackling the above mentioned competences and learning fields 6 staff members participating in job shadowings and 10 staff members in teaching and training assignments which we also consider as “learning by teaching” experiences.
The aforementioned learning fields and competences will be subjects of personal development plans which will be discussed and agreed on by the blinc management and the staff members. Apart from the domain specific competences our staff members will also acquire a number of generic social, personal and organisational competences. All competences will be operationalised by the LEVEL5 validation system and will be integrated in a holistic staff development programme. Learning trajectories and learning outcomes will be validated by LEVEL5 (assessed, documented and certified) and can this be linked with the European validation instruments EQF, ECVET and EUROPASS.
Key needs and goals:
The blended learning institutions’ cooperative is an educational cooperative with a European scope which has its headquarters in Göttingen, Germany. The main activity areas are in competence oriented learning and competence validation in innovative fields of Adult Education. The organisation focuses on providing innovative blended learning approaches, courses and also informal learning opportunities for learners who learn outside formal education, such as learners on the job, in volunteering, traineeships, in leisure time, sports and in youthclubs, in mobility (e.g. ERASMUS mobility) and in innovative CPD formats.
blinc focuses on mixed learning modalities and approaches combining face-to-face, project (practical) learning and e-learning. A special focus is on the acquisition and validation of social, personal and organisational competences in different learning contexts for specific target groups, such as NEETs, youth and target groups without an explicit connection to a formal/non-formal learning course, but also learners in Lifelong learning who acquire competences that are hardly ever validated such as people in cultural heritage projects or in cultural integraton courses for refugees or migrants.
Key areas:
We are facing a constant need of Continuing Professional Development in the sector of technology based (blended) learning. This refers on the one hand to didactic requirements, especially if it comes to informal learning, e.g. in training and learning situations for NEETs, volunteers or people learning in mobility. As we work in multidisciplinary teams of trainers, IT experts (programmers), multimedia designers, mentors and coaches, the different staff groups have to update their competences in order to develop and deliver state of the art and innovative training and learning offers. This relates on the one hand to relevant content fields in our European projects, for instance relevant professional and societal sectors (e.g. sustainable development, climate friendly management, CSR), the NEET sector, the enrepreneurship sector and eventually also specific language courses. Certain staff members (e.g. media designers, programmers but also trainers) lack insight and direct experiences with specific content areas and target groups.
We believe that one can, for instance only design reasonably attractive learning offers for school drop-outs if one has had direct encounters and discussed and worked with their supporting personnel. The same applies for refugees, volunteers, ERASMUS students and other mobility learners. As we also work in projects on renewable energy and circular economy there is also a need of CPD of our teaching and Learning Technology staff in this sector and encounters with experts from these domains.
Our clients (e.g. Entreprises, NGOs but also universities) have different demands when it comes to learning technologies, e.g. in regard to the different open source software systems they use. Hence there is a constant need for CPD of our training staff (and learning helpers) relating to specific competences on new learning technologies, assessment and validation
Planned staff mobilities:
As outlined in the development plan we are aiming at competence development in the domains of
- Competence oriented Learning
- Validation of informal and non-formal learning
- Development and implementation of learning technologies
- Development and implementation of sustainable development
- European networking Courses
From the beginning of the project, after having fixed the personal development plans we plan to send our staff members to courses relating to
- Innovative teaching and learning methods and didactical approaches,
- Media design and learning technology support
- Mobile learning and training
- Game based learning
- Storytelling
- Design Thinking SDG,
- Circular Economy
- Data Literacy
- Blockchain
- Simulation and augmented reality
- Business – Academia networking
Job Shadowing
Probably after half a year of project time we will send the first staff members to job- shadowing placements in the host organisations to develop their competences related to:
- Further developing of learning technologies like game based learning, augmented reality
- Enhancing validation and assessment tools and instruments
- Exploring new content field like SDG, circular carbon economy, CSR .
Training and learning assignments
Eventually, our staff members will also perform training and learning assignments. This refers on the one hand to trainings in competence oriented learning and validation and on the other hand to continuing professional developments on blended learning and specific learning technologies; for instance on how to embed comprehensive open source learning technologies in AE networks, VET and HE institutes.
Additionally we plan to develop and deliver trainings in innovative domains like courses for disadvantaged target groups, on CSR and SDG and circular carbon economy.
Destinations:
Our staff members will head for Italy, France, Portugal, Greece.
Target Group(s) of Professionals:
- Trainers, teachers
- project managers and developers
- media experts
- COL designers
Competences:
Competence oriented Learning, Validation of informal and non-formal learning, Development and implementation of learning technologies, Development and implementation of sustainable development, European networking
Preferred Teaching/Learning approach:
Competence oriented learning as outlined below
Preferred Blended learning modalities:
We apply a mix of counselling, self-learning, F2F courses, study visits or job-shadowings and e-learning phases that we provide in our self-learning and development platform.
Evaluation strategy:
We have a CPD system on board which is based on an individual learning plan in connection with a memorandum of understanding signed by HR and employee. It contains the action fields (what to do in future), the learning fields (how to learn that, based on LEVEL5 competence taxonomy), learning objectives and topics.
We have then self-, peer- and HRM assessment to check the achieved results which will be documented in a brief development report.
European dimension :
European dimension is of central importance since we work in Europe and we need the European exchange to inspire our staff members, to develop innovation and to increase their professionalism and self-reflection.
Expected learning outcomes:
The validation is the basis of the QM as described above. The main part is the LEVEL5 taxonomy which is the reference system for our competence oriented learning approach which is described under evaluation. For the validation we use the EU conform steps:
- Identification
- Assessment
- Documentation
- Certification
We operationalised it this way:
- Identification: Setting up a portfolio with a talent scan in which our staff members describe their strengths and potential improvement areas in terms of competences and professional action fields
- Assessment: The relevant competences are assessed with tailor-made entry questionnaires and an interview. The results are transferred in the portfolio.
- Documentation: Based on the results of the assessment an individual CPD-plan is developed and documented. The learning activities will be documented in form of learning diaries and artefacts of results (e.g. multimedia files from mobility phase)
- Certification: Competence developments will be certified with LEVEL5 certificates based on contextualised reference systems.
European validation instruments:
The certificates relate to EQF levels and will be certified by the REVEAL consortium.
