TIWOLTE

On these pages I present some suggestions on how to plan courses. The ideas are based on experiences from IWOLTE as well as general experience on short-course planning.Also inspiration and dokumentation from a couses run by Gunilla Ek have contributed to form the background. She has carried through a number of courses for workplace mentors as well as for vocational teachers. Special thanks to Gunilla in sharing her material and experiences.On the next pages I present a model for workplace mentors. I comes from ideas that Gunilla has presented, and involves a three level progression:

Level oneLevel one: A halfday meeting.A short introduction for where you gather workplace mentors , preferably at the vocational schoolbuilding. In a system with vocational teachers having cooperation with the workplace these should also attend. The aim s of the meeting– apart from getting contact and for the mentors to meet other mentors – would be:To inform about the school curriculumTo mark the importance of the workplace learning for the studentTo start a selfreflecting process within the mentors see their role as mentorsTo point to the importance of a joint effort together with the student to improve learning at the workplace.

Method: A mix of short information on diiferent subjects, time for questions and structured smallgrooup discussons.

Level twoThe ideas here stems from Gunilla Ek`s model of education for ”licenced” mentor. Usually this course has been designed to be four halfday meetings, spread out with approx. three weeks in between.

This format you could be modified, but a multimeeting program gives the possibility to inspire the participants to both read and to do some tasks in betwwen. And you could of course also introduce some IKT activity – if the group in question has these possibilities.

Se more on this later.

Level three

In this way of presenting a progression the university cours that was developed and run by the university woud give the motivated mentor the opportunity to dig deeper into matters that ciculate aound mentoring, workplace learning, supervising,, apprnticeship and the like.

This course was developed within the IWOLTE project , is 7,5 ect and is run as an evening course halftime. It has campus meetings att approximately one evening every second week and quite a lot of literature to study.

Suggested contentfor the workplace mentor

Here are suggestions on themes and concemts that could build the total program. In mind is a program that is total at least one day, rather two days, made up by two , three or four meetings.

Suggestions for content:

•How learning in shool is organsized, it´s goals, and the relevant curriculum•The concept and process of mentoring in a learning situation,the role of the mentor, ”schools” of mentoring, the mentoring dialogue.•Evaluation, judging progress, how to mentor progress•The instructional process , it`s pros and cons.•Development psychology concering teenagers and youth

Suggeted contentFor both mentor and voc. teacher

Common concepts and content that to be of use and interest for both the workplace mentor and the vocational teacher.

Processes in learning at the workplace. Learning models, The concept of competence and how to benefit from that when planning learning for the workplace studentThe process of finding tasks that benefit learning – analysing tasks from the point of view of learning.Apprencicesystems – learning as an apprentice.The relatin scjholl/workplace – roles, common understandig, poteitial conflicts, creating systems for cooperationThe different roles of the mentor, the student and the vocational teacher.The method of the three-part dialogue – the concept, it´s form, in´s content and the focus on kommunication.

Suggeted contentFor the vocational teacher

The role of the vocational teacher in a system of extencive workplament.

The indirect way of teachingCompetensce analysis – at tool for anlaysing

tasks at the workplace in order to find ways of learning the points in the curriculum

Educational planning processTo translate goals in the currculum into concrete learnig matters.The vocational teacher as the suppot and educational menteor for the workplace mentorFindings from experiences of different forms and projects of organicing learnign in the worklife.

The ideas presented are suggestions on themes that could be of interes and could be concidered. Of course these are only at the concept level and need to be developed futher.