Tutorial on CSCL in Vocational Education and Training: The current critical state and future prospects
Dear colleagues,
This is a call for participation in the full day CSCL 2015 tutorial “CSCL in Vocational Education and Training”. The tutorial will take place on Sunday, June 7th prior to the CSCL conference in Gothenburg (Sweden).
Background
Work environments are undergoing radical social and technological changes. Workers need to learn how to operate in such changing environments and the ability to network and engage in shared problem solving activities to tackle the complex problems being faced in the workplace, rather than solely individual skills. Vocational education and training (VET) systems are challenged to prepare current and future workers not only to excel at routine work but also to be able to adapt to complex and changing work environments.
Additionally, in the future, employees with a VET background will participate in various problem-solving processes inside and across work organisations and professions. So far, technology-supported vocational learning has been under-represented in this field of study in the CSCL community. This is critical from the viewpoint of empowering vocational education to better meet the emerging needs of the global workplace. At the same time, in the European level (N=50,369) there seems to be a gap between what is learned in VET and the VET adults ability to solve problems in technology-rich environments (see, Hämäläinen, Cincinnato, Malin, and De Wever, 2014). Therefore, CSCL research calls for innovative approaches to foster VET. This tutorial session will contribute to this challenge by discussing opportunities and the challenges of technology-supported vocational education in different contexts.
Aims of the Tutorial
This full-day tutorial session will demonstrate the advances of CSCL for VET by bringing together recent theoretical and empirical endeavours in this area. Facilitated by experts, participants will actively explore and collaboratively discuss the affordances of different technologies developed for VET. Discussions will identify the challenges and opportunities of conditions for collaborative learning in VET. The goal of this tutorial session is to explore how to apply research-based knowledge to enrich vocational education and workplace learning, as well as how new technologies can enhance VET. Furthermore, the aim is to launch international collaboration to strengthen research on VET and CSCL.
How to Participate
We welcome different kinds of contributions addressing the challenges and opportunities for VET and CSCL. Such contributions can include conceptual frameworks, descriptions of case studies and empirical work, position papers, and future prospects for international collaboration around VET and CSCL to be discussed during the tutorial. We welcome short “vision” paper (max. 1-3 pages, following the CSCL 2015 conference template) by April 31st 2015. The short “vision” paper must include your contact details, your experience, and future ideas/needs related to CSCL and VET. In addition, authors should provide a 100 to 150-word biography to describe their interests (e.g. what main issue(s) do you see in relation to VET and CSCL? What is your vision for international (research-based) collaboration addressing those issues in the future?) During the tutorial, each participant can make a short presentation that includes overview of their interests/work, research questions, findings, open questions, and especially ideas for future (research) collaboration.
Please send your short “vision” paper no later than April 31st 2015 to: raija.h.hamalainen@jyu.fi and beat.schwendimann@epfl.ch.
Number of participants:
We aim for an interactive tutorial session with a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 15 participants. Confirmation of participation will be sent no later than May 5th.
For further information and any questions, please contact the organisers using the following email addresses raija.h.hamalainen@jyu.fi and beat.schwendimann@epfl.ch
Tutorial Organisers
Raija Hämäläinen, University of Jyväskylä, raija.h.hamalainen@jyu.fi
Beat A. Schwendimann, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), beat.schwendimann@epfl.ch
Alberto Cattaneo, Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Alberto.Cattaneo@iuffp-svizzera.ch