What are the Future Teaching Skills for teachers and trainers in vocational education? What good practices are there for digitally supporting, providing and enhancing work-based learning in VET education? Since October 2022, the partners of the DEAL with WBL initiative have engaged Digital WBL Ambassadors and Supporters in workshops in different countries, discussing Digital Work-Based Learning (Digital WBL), sharing good practices, inspiring each other and reflecting on competence needs and framework conditions for offering successful Digital Work-Based Learning experiences to VET learners.
In March 2023, we invite one trainer from each institution to an engaging international and interactive event in Karlsruhe: together with the DEAL project team, they are encouraged to support us in closing the Digital WBL competence gap. Based on their experiences in the Digital WBL Ambassador Programme, we invite them to get to know each other, some more good practices, to share Digital WBL experiences in an interdisciplinary setting and to help us design the DEAL with Digital WBL online training course, based on the actual competence and training needs of WBL trainers.
The event will take place at DHBW Karlsruhe, in the North-West of Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe, in the sunny Baden region in the South-West of Germany and close to the French border, will hopefully welcome you with the first sunny days as well as its castle and park to visit. Home to the Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal Court of Justice, Karlsruhe is also called the City of Law in Germany – but thanks to universities such as the KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), it is also a friendly student city – and UNESCO City of Media Arts, and thus a good place to discuss the future from a digital perspective.
So what to expect from the workshop? On Monday, 13 March, you will arrive in Karlsruhe and meet the other teachers and trainers as well as the DEAL project team at DHBW Karlsruhe. We will start the afternoon with getting to know each other, one’s fields of work and expertise and experiences with Digital Work-Based Learning – and also challenges in providing Digital Work-Based learning experiences. The project team will share some research findings of the first year of this international initiative – and we will get to know and also try out some more good practices of Digital Work-Based Learning. We will probably close the working day with a digital guided museum tour related to Karlsruhe as the UNESCO City of Media Arts. As the museum’s doors are closed on Monday, this is a great example of how digital media can help us discover places and make them more accessible. We will then discover some classic German cuisine and would be happy for everyone to join us at dinner in a German “Brauhaus”.
Tuesday, 14 March, will be dedicated to make you interact with the project team and, in several interactive workshops, co-design the next steps of the initiative with us. What are the competence needs for designing good Digital Work-Based Learning experiences? What are the challenges? Where do you need support? What would you like to learn? How would an online course look like that meets your expectations? And what are your take-aways from this workshop? After having lunch together at DHBW Karlsruhe, we hope you can take home some new ideas and tools for your own teaching and learning contexts and some contacts that will last.
For joining this international experience in Karlsruhe, please contact your DEAL contact person.