"<< Background >>""Knowledge of and about science are integral in preparing our population to be actively engaged and responsible, creative and innovative citizens, capable of working collaboratively and fully aware of and conversant with the complex challenges facing society"" (Science Education for Responsible Citizenship, EC, 2015). At the same time, social inclusion is one of the most profound aspects in today’s society where the school population is becoming more and more multicultural (due to migration flows) and different in terms of disadvantages, in one word highly diversified (UNESCO Guidelines for Inclusion, Paris, UNESCO, 2005; OECD Education Working Paper No. 227, 2020; Ambrose, S., Bridges, M.W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M.C., & Norman, M.K. 2010; Lawrie, G., Marquis, E., Fuller, 2017). ThINKER LAB partnership intends, to broaden the educational offerings available to students weaving learning paths less tied to technical aspects and more connected to co-construction learning processes based on a laboratory-based approach.<< Objectives >>ThINKER LAB general objectives:1. to increase the social inclusion of young students (14-19 y.o.);2. to increase students' STEM skills through active inclusion methodologies and working techniques based on Tinkering and the creation and use of low-cost fablabs with recycled materials.ThINKER LAB specific objectives are:1. to increase the skills of teaching staff with respect to the use of inclusive methodologies for learning;2. to increase the skills of teaching staff in using didactic-pedagogical strategies to facilitate STEM learning in inclusive environments;3. to increase students' competences in the field of technical/scientific micro-language, through the TechnoCLil methodology;4. to increase teachers' and students' digital skills, utilizing low-cost laboratories employing recycled materials and co-built simulations;5. to increase the internationalization capacity of the partnership, through comparative and cooperatively constructed studies, in order to achieve ""European"" results.<< Implementation >>To reach the previously stated objectives, the partnership has divided the project in 4 Work Packages: WP1 Project Management and Coordination (transversal phase);WP2 Monitoring and Evaluation (transversal phase);WP3 Dissemination and Valorization of Results (transversal phase);WP4 Implementation of ThINKER LAB Results.Concentrating the attention on the implementation phase, partners will collaborate through different and consequential actions (legenda: A.x = Action. x): A.1-A.5 Identification of the most suitable methodologies through Desktop analysis of successful European case histories and national Focus Groups comprising teachers, students and parents;A.6-A.11 Creation of the ThINKER LAB digital platform (Social area + Repository);A.12-A.15 Creation and uploading of the digital platform content and creation of the low-cost laboratories;A.16-A.19 ThINKER LAB HACKATHONS (use of the digital platform content and tools as well as the low-cost laboratories);A.20-A.23 Development of the Teacher’s Handbook (guidelines for student engagement involvement and inclusion through low-cost laboratory activities);A.24-A.27 Development of the Student’s Handbook (guidelines for student engagement involvement and inclusion through low-cost laboratory activities).<< Results >>R1. ACTIVE METHODOLOGIES AND TECHNIQUES FOR INCLUSIVE AND PARTICIPATORY TEACHING (=ThINKER LAB methodologies);R2. EUROPEAN PLATFORM ""ThINKER LAB COMMUNITY FOR AND ACTIVE AND INCLUSIVE LEARNING"";R3. TEACHER’S HANDBOOK;R4. STUDENT’S HANDBOOK."

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The skills set and role of VET teachers is being outpaced by development of working life. Jobs and occupations are changing so much that the VET institutes do not even know how the change affect us and how we should react. In general, VET organizations can be heavy and clumsy in being adaptable. In order to succeed in future, VET institutes need to change and be more flexible like the companies. The pace of innovation and changing skills requirements across all sectors of work life is fast, and the expectations of learners change rapidly. However, many education institution staff still hold traditional attitudes to the role of teachers. At the same time the clientele of VET is becoming more diverse: comprehensive school leavers (post 16 years of age) form only a part of the students of VET institutes, where as the main groups are adults with no previous secondary education, people wanting to change profession, professionals aiming to strengthen and deepen their professional competence, unemployed people and immigrants or asylum seekers. The profession of vocational teacher is constantly in transformation and solutions need to be found.We have five partners from three different countries (FI, UK, NL) that are secondary or tertiary level VET institutes and a school of professional teacher education. The participants of the project activities can be managers, HR staff and teachers. All partners have participated in multiple EU projects over the last few years. All the organisations are concerned about the need for VET providers to find ways to ensure that the skills of teachers meet the needs of the working life now and in the future. VET providers need to find ways to improve teacher professional learning. We all are facing the same kind of challenges and phenomena across Europe. Therefore, in this project, we want to share views, challenges and good practices on how to provide new skills for our teachers also on a European level. We are going to have three workshops during the project. Each workshop addresses a certain issue connected with future skills of teaching. Planned topics for the workshops include life long learning; interaction between companies and education institutes; dealing with changes in work life and how to respond in a flexible way; and adapting to student diversity. The information from the workshops is then collected in the form of articles, digital tools and knowledge bases, and put into an on-line tool kit. The result of the project will be that the participants gain new ideas to ensure and improve teacher professional learning. VET providers will have found ways to ensure that the skills of teachers meet the needs of the working life now and in the future. VET providers have found ways to improve teacher professional learning. We will have shared knowledge of the education challenges and phenomena across Europe. It is anticipated that the workshops will support throughout the project the partner institutions to carry out testing and implementation in order to develop their own methodology in staff training. By the end of the project, management and HR departments will have created a clear vision on how to best train their staff and implement these changes in the areas of life long learning; interaction between companies and education institutes; dealing with changes work life and how to respond in a flexible way; and adapting to student diversity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the reality of the education sector and has highlithened the need to transform the existing training systems to meet the current challenges. Just like all other education institutions, VET providers are facing the necessity to reinvent their learning environments so that digitalisation expands and complements the education process. Shifting from school-based education to learning via online platforms and the need for digital content have revealed not only the shortage of the digital technology at schools but also a significant lack of digital skills of teachers and trainers. Even before the COVID-19 crisis teachers in many countries reported the need for ICT training (OECD, 2019).The e-VET project seeks to establish a transnational partnership focusing on the needs of VET providers in view of the digital transformation of the education sector. The project partners will research and analyse the existing digital training solutions, methodologies and techniques for distance learning in order to identify the ones that are easily adaptable and transferrable to different VET training programmes. All the findings will be compiled in the Guidelines for Delivering Remote Teaching in VET.The project contributes to the Covid-19 situation by improving VET teachers’ digital competences not only to use the most up-to edge technologies but also encouraging them to be creators of the digital content which meets the best educational and pedagogical requirements. The project partnership seeks to create the so-called soft results - development of digital skills and guidelines, which could become a valuable resource of educational institution and in the long run ensuring quality and inclusive teaching and learning in various situations, e.g. remote learning due to various reasons such as quarantine, sickness, Erasmus mobility, revision, apprenticeship.The project forms a Strategic Partnership to support digital education in the EU aiming at:-Improving teachers’ digital competences to empower them not only to use various ready-made digital resources in remote and hybrid teaching but also to encourage them to be creators of digital content of vocational curricular by providing a practical training on using various apps, software and learning environments.-Developing the guidelines that will facilitate provision of remote/hybrid training for VET providers.-Implementing short-term transnational training activities for trainers of VET institutions who will be able to use the acquired knowledge and skills for the development of digital content and implementation of remote/hybrid training.-Establishing preconditions for the creation of international virtual learning environment and development of the joint VET programme among the partner organizations.Main target groups addessed:- VET teachers and trainers;- VET students;- VET providers;- Stakeholders (employers, associations, chambers).

"The proposed project is based on the objective of ERASMUS + Adult Education ""to develop innovative outputs and undertake intensive dissemination and exploitation of results in supporting, extending and developing educators' competencies"". The Project will develop adult educators’ competences within both the community learning centres and further education institutions to deal with diversified groups of learners, making use of new technologies and teaching outcomes.This project also seeks to address the Erasmus+ horizontal principle ""Inclusive education, training and youth"" by seeking to provide a critical insight into promoting equality and inclusion developing tutors to address diversity and integration in (formal and non-formal) delivery to learners who are local, migrant, refugee and asylum seekers. This also underpins the priority of the Paris Declaration. This project ultimately promotes inclusive education and training within local communities fostering a culture of respect and mutual understanding. The specific objectives of the project are:•Improve the digital competencies of marginalised older learners,•Support the recognition of flexible modes of learning including digital, employability, language and citizenship through an online platform,•Develop an effective outreach, guidance and motivation strategy which encourages low-skilled or low-qualified older learners to develop and upgrade their digital skills and other key competences (language learning) and/or progress towards further and higher qualifications and in/or employment, •Promote Erasmus+ among all citizens and generations, including by offering activities ofeducation and exchanges of experiences to older learners, with view to building and adding solidity to the European identity. •To work collaboratively with 6 transnational partner organizations based in the UK, Ireland, Spain, Latvia & Finland who have particular expertise in delivery to adult education communities by developing, testing, adapting and supporting the embedding of innovative materials and practices;•To develop innovative materials for adult tutors/practitioners which will be initially delivered to 25 adult tutors through a transnational training course to support the delivery of flexible modes of learning including digital, employability, language and citizenship •Following this, the 20 tutors will pilot the materials with 100 adults learners during the life of the project, giving on-going feedback on the benefits of the materials and any changes necessary;•To build new networks of support for each partner organisation and their tutors developing their outreach, capacity and skills base for future joint collaboration as well as internationalisation.•To share results with wider networks within each partner country •Development of an outreach, guidance and motivation strategy which will encourage older learners especially those from migrant, asylum seeker and refugee communities to engage in adult learningThe impact on the target group - older learners will be:- increased sense of well-being and inclusion for older learners - increased level of digital competence- increased levels of confidence, skills and cultural awarenessThe impact on the Adult Education tutoring staff - increased level of confidence and competence in their pedagogical approaches with older learners new networks of support with other staff in a European context for future joint working great insights into European Citizenship for their Learners and their roles in supporting local as well as diverse groups of learners to become European citizens- increased bank of digital approaches, materials and case studies for use in the classroom/community- increased knowledge of older learners especially those from new migrants, refugees and asylum seekersnew approaches to learning about integration and citizenshipThis partnership believe that the long term impact of this project will be to prevent and tackle marginalisation within a framework of equal opportunities for all but offering a range of innovative digital resources suitable for older learners across Europe."