Dr. Urs Hauenstein is the President of the International Council of Education and Management (ICEM), the Association of Swiss Quality Competencies and Qualifications (SQCQ), the Institute of Competencies and Qualifications in Switzerland (I-C-Q) and the International Network for Accreditation, Recognition and Dissemination in the UK (INARD). He serves as Honorary Professor for the University Agora Oradea Romania and as Visiting Professor for a range of other Universities in Europe and Eastern Europe. He is an Honorary Fellow at Leeds Beckett University, an Advisory Board Member for Internationalisation to the University of Lincoln and a Senior Fellow of Globethics Geneva.
New Key Areas for the Methodology and Didactics in Online TVET for a Post-Pandemic World
The COVID-19 pandemic only allowed lessons from the home office for weeks. Teachers were confronted overnight with new methodological and didactic challenges. The students in the TVET area, who were still allowed to learn practically in internships or regularly in the company, were also banished to the home office. Practical learning had to pause and give way to theoretical exercises and homework.
In the second half since the lockdown, many companies have now re-opened and the apprentices are also allowed to work and learn in the training company again – with the necessary waste and the necessary hygiene measures. The vocational schools have also started the new school year again in many places after the summer holidays and have again enabled hygiene and distance-adapted 1: 1-lessons.
But what have we learned from this pandemic in terms of methodology and didactics and where are online adjustments in teacher training called for if new disruptions affect teaching and training in the near future?
In this situation in teacher training, it is also hip to ask yourself what role practical learning has in vocational training and how we can still give this learning approach sufficient space in a disrupted time in the future.
So, what are new key areas for the methodology and didactics in TVET teacher training for a post-pandemic world or for a disrupted time?