Collaborative, authentic and personalised pedagogies – ways to creating inclusive and excellent VET?

Globally, vocational education, particularly initial VET at the upper secondary level, is faced with a demanding task: national authorities as well as the global players (such as the OECD, the EU, the World Bank etc.) are expecting VET to stimulate economic growth, and lately, particularly in the EU, to support the digital and green transition. Nothing less than excellence is expected. In VET, high quality teaching and education refers particularly to the improvement of graduates’ employability. Learners should develop transferable skills and competences, be able to solve complex work-related problems, work in teams, be innovative and creative. This is the reason why work-based learning, project and competence-based teaching, collaborative learning and authentic learning situations are advocated. Interdisciplinary and cross curricular approaches are gaining momentum, as well the integration of key competences into vocational education programmes.

Yet, in most countries, calls for excellence are tested by some serious challenges - the relatively low social status of VET and an increasingly diverse student population, in terms of socio-economic brackets, cultural and linguistic background, age, learning needs, basic skills etc. Diversity is a state of play, but it is also a value – something to recognise and respect. In education, diversity is discussed in the context of theories of inclusive education. Inclusion refers to the creation of a school that brings together learners who – despite many differences – all share the ability to learn and develop, and who have responsibility for one another. We might say that inclusion is about supporting individuals but is also building a learning community. In an inclusive school, teachers are able to select appropriate teaching methods, didactic strategies, forms of individualisation and teaching differentiation in order to take account of all learners’ abilities and interests.

These challenges are being addressed by the ETF’s Creating New Learning Initiative project, particularly the assignment called Collaborative, authentic and personalised pedagogies in initial and adult vocational learning in Serbia. In her blog Building community for the development of innovative teaching/learning: the induction experience, Slobodanka Antić described the nine innovative projects that Serbian vocational teachers have designed. Analysing the projects, it seems to me that the projects are characterised by two main ideas – that of interdisciplinarity and of collaboration. The teachers formed teams and collectively designed these interdisciplinary projects. Most of the projects will confront students with authentic work challenges, which will require students’ creativity and innovative thinking. The students will:

• Create a three-day tourist itinerary;
• Develop a face cream for teenage skin;
• Create a digital restaurant menu of organic food;
• Design a company website;
• Construct a “digital” bench.

Some of the projects focus primarily on problem-solving skills and application of knowledge. Students will:

• Apply the Ohm's law to design a simple circuit;
• Analyse the influence of the acid rain on the various materials;
• Investigate the safety procedures on airports and describe them in the English language.

Such interdisciplinary, problem-based learning projects might not be seen as particularly innovative, at least in some educational systems. However, this is not the case in Serbian vocational education. On the contrary, vocational education programmes in Serbia distinguish between general education subjects and vocational education subjects, that further distinguish between theoretical and practical classes. Teachers are professionals in their specific fields of studies and each teacher delivers their learning programmes individually. Only rarely, do teachers cooperate in the planning of common teaching activities. The result of this compartmentalisation is that students are able to master the content of individual subjects relatively well, but they are not guided to bring together knowledge and skills (key and vocational competences) of different fields to solve authentic, work-related problems and complex tasks.

I am struck by the desire of Serbian teachers to make much greater use of collaborative learning and team work. Both the collaboration of teachers as well as of the students. The teachers envisage different models of student collaboration, and their project plans specify many learning outcomes related to the communication and collaboration competences. The notion of learning communities is particularly emphasised, including the inclusive approach of students learning together and helping each other. Many projects specify that  heterogeneous groups will be formed in order to enable mutual help.

As mentioned, inclusive education is about community, but inclusive education is also about focusing on individual student’ needs, aspirations and career interests. In other words, it is also about individualisation. So far, individualisation as an important instructional principle has not yet been elaborated in these projects. Nevertheless, these projects will, I believe, help teachers to recognise individual needs – so that they may be able to explore how these can be addressed during the project or in the future.