Course Description

Language of Instruction:English|Category: Vocational Qualifications: Career & Vocational

Professional development for teachers is moving away from the stand-alone event to the realisation that there need to be processes and structures in place to ensure continuous, just in time professional development. This course is a first step towards promoting a culture of professional development through the coaching of colleagues.

The course is aimed at the under-served vocational training area where the emphasis is more on tools for demonstrating processes and practical skills rather than the more academic skills of research and analysis. This course is not just about integrating ICT in normal teaching practice but also addresses the problem that often, teachers using ICT are lone voices in their institution to. The course does this by also training you to be a coach to colleagues in your own institution.

This course is ideal for you if you are a practicing VET teacher looking to not only learn more about integrating ICT in your everyday practice but also wish to share your skills with your colleagues. It is important that you already have basic ICT experience, creating digital documents, searching the Internet, transferring files from one medium to another and so on.

You should consider this course if you:

• Can find your way round the major word processing and presentation programs
• Regularly use the Internet as a source of information for your teaching
• Are beginning to be overwhelmed by the pace of new developments in your subject
• Need to implement e-portfolios
• Need more differentiation in the classroom
• Want to try out at least one digitalized teaching session
• Are willing to teach and learn from your colleagues who may be in another institution

This course will help you to:

• Systematise and extend your existing pedagogical use of digital tools in vocational training
• Learn coaching skills so that you can coach your colleagues
• Learn by doing : the course is designed to teach coaching skills through the use of Web 2.0 tools

Course content:

VITAE – The intercultural journey

The VITAE course takes you on an intercultural journey to make you feel more confident in the digital world and to equip you to take colleagues on the same journey.

Unit 1: The way we do things around here

In this unit you will use a useful Web 2.0 tool to work in small groups to:

• Examine the VITAE learning outcomes and identify which are the most relevant to you
• Generate a statement of your current ICT integration skills

Unit 2: Our values and beliefs about teaching

The use of digital tools in class often leads to a shift in focus from the teacher to the learner. In this unit you will work in small groups using digital communication tools to:

• Take a teaching styles survey to understand what you are prepared to accept and what may be more challenging
• Complete a coaching simulation

Unit 3: Preparing for the journey (diary & packing list)

In this unit you will:

• Look at examples of different levels of ICT integration
• Explore an important tool used in coaching, the GROW model
• Start to document your learning journey in an e-portfolio

Unit 4: Culture Clashes (their values & beliefs)

Using digital tools raises many issues regarding privacy, appropriate behaviour, persistant digital footprints, teacher and learner roles and the boundaries between work and play. In this unit you will use a storytelling tool to:

• Explore some of these conflicts or culture clashes and meeting strategies to deal with them
• Explore how to deal with digital culture clashes in peer coaching

Unit 5: Speaking with the natives

In this unit you will meet some digital natives to see what you can learn from them. You will do this by:

• Exploring relevant Communities of Practice
• Direct contact with a best practice educator
• Exploring relevant edublogs
• Use of social bookmarking

Unit 6: Try their dishes and customs

In this unit you will choose one tool which you think may be useful to you in your current work and familiarise yourself with it. You will:

• Choose a relevant tool from a best practice repository
• Be coached by your teacher in your chosen tool's pedagogical uses
• Make a screencast video to explain the tool's main features to a colleague

Unit 7: What do I want to take home with me?

In this unit you plan your own learning activity incorporating appropriate digital tools (ie a lesson or series of lessons). You will be:

• Thinking about the tools you have already used in this course
• Getting some ideas from external sources
• Peer coaching a partner on this course in their learning activity plan
• Evaluating your coaching skills

Unit 8: Telling the folks back home

You have now planned an integrated ICT learning activity and have experienced being coached and coaching your peers in their efforts to integrate digital tools into their teaching. In this unit you will:

• Try out your planned learning activity in the classroom
• Begin to implement coaching of your colleagues in your institution

The last four weeks of the course are for implementing coaching, completing the e-portfolio and preparing for the final presentation which will be an online conference in WiZiQ

What’s in the box:

• 12 weeks course
• There will be regular meetings (7 in all) once every two weeks to track progress and deal with problems encountered by students (in addition to the normal LMS channels)
• These meetings will be held Monday-Wednesday-Friday only and between 9 AM to 12 PM or weekends between 9 AM to 12 PM and 3 PM to 6 PM -GMT+2)
• The course includes links to the latest relevant pdfs
• Assessment for this course lies in the compilation of an e-portfolio, including a classroom report of an ICT integrated lesson

About the teacher:

Anne fox is a partner in the UnderstandIT project which is updating the original VITAE course developed by a previous European project “VITAE”, of which she was the coordinator. She is one of the lead developers on the original project and has also played a major part in the current update. She is an English teacher and teacher trainer. Her specialist area in teacher training is the inclusion of ICT and intercultural awareness in everyday practice. She has been involved in international educational projects for over ten years in various roles from project partner to project coordinator. In projects she is usually heavily involved in didactic design and piloting and/or quality assurance. She has presented at several conferences including Online Educa Berlin and IATEFL. She has also presented for several online conferences. She has facilitated many courses, usually in Moodle and have used WiZiQ for synchronous meetings in several of these. She is the co-host of the award-winning podcast “Absolutely Intercultural.”