Renewing Practices of Vocational Education and Training for Construction Sector in Finland

Description

The current 2+1 model is promoting a transition in organising the workplace learning on the basis of apprentice training contracts. Thus, the status of workplace learners would no longer be that of external trainees (to be hosted as visitors) but of apprentices (with employment contracts with the company). In that particular 2+1 pilot program in construction sector, where Aalto organised a small-scale pilot with the construction sector stakeholders and vocational schools to use AchSo for workplace learning, the 2+1 model consisted of two-year studies at vocational school and one-year apprenticeship training at construction sites. Before joining the 2+1 program, the vocational students had shown their capability to apprenticeship with employment contracts as workplace trainees during their studies and as summer job workers in previous summer in the same construction company. Later, well performed training and studies in the 2+1 program could lead to making a contract of employment after the apprenticeship training period.

In 2+1 training period, students worked and studied as apprentices with employment contracts and completed field-specific tasks according to the school curricula requirements, personal study plans and tasks available at a given construction site. All tasks were not necessarily known in advance, which might cause a conflict between the plan and tasks that apprentices were possible to do. Missing tasks were later completed at the vocational school or at another construction site.

At the construction site, apprentices had personal supervisors who guided their work. In addition, a vocational teacher made occasional monitoring visits. In case of many apprentices doing their trainings at the same time in different locations, vocational teachers may have difficulty in monitoring apprentices’ processes regularly enough.

One part of vocational studies is the demonstration of skills that the apprentices perform during training at a vocational school or at workplace, if the task is possible to do at that construction site and if a teacher is present there. If a teacher cannot attend, for instance because of limited time and many apprentices in different locations, apprentices give the demonstrations at vocational school, which means absence from work and also costs to employer.

Practices in conducting the demonstration of skills varies between vocational schools but always consists of a written plan and demonstration, that are compulsory in all vocational education, and often also a written report with pictures of different work stages that is a requirement from vocational schools. Digital technologies have not been used as learning tools in training with the exception of the use of digital cameras for documenting the stages of work for study reports.

Description

The Learning Layers project touched the field as it was in 2015 and 2016 and inspired 2+1 practices at construction industry and education. The Learning Environments research group at the Aalto University designed and developed a mobile video annotation application called Ach so! particularly for in-situ informal learning at work in construction industry and extended the use of the mobile application to vocational education and training. Ach so! was designed for workplace learning in construction, as knowledge in that field is highly contextual. For such working and learning environment Ach so! was designed particularly for knowledge creation, reflection and knowledge sharing.

Ach so! is an open source mobile application (for Android, iOS) for video recording, annotating and sharing. With Ach so!, users record short videos, add textual annotations to videos and share the annotated videos. Annotations are placed to points of interest on the screen and are displayed in the video timeline for quick navigation. Videos are shared in cloud with groups of co-workers and collaborators or publicly to all Ach so! users. Ach so! service includes a browser-based video player for viewing and annotating videos on other platforms. Special features that make Ach so! unique compared with other applications and connected the app to the needs of informal learning at work were: 1) an easy creation of annotated videos, 2) possibility to add annotations to videos of other authors, which increase interaction between workers, 3) a controlled sharing of annotated videos with selected groups of people, 4) a keyword-based search function that results in videos from an extensive repository of the Ach so! videos in cloud and plays only the selected points of videos according to search.

To collect preliminary evidence, a pilot with ten construction students, their vocational teachers and workplace trainers used the Ach so! mobile application for enhancing students’ learning at work and for improving vocational training practices. The construction company provided full support to the trials by purchasing mobile devices for the students and allocating resources for trainers as a part of training period. During the training, the students used Ach so! for studying safety at work and for documenting their skills demonstrations. They recorded short videos about safety observations and their demonstration of skills, commented videos by adding written annotations and shared the commented videos with their teachers and workplace trainers who added their annotations and so gave feedback to the students. Students and teachers also watched some of the videos together and communicated them though as for learning purposes.

Figure 1: Example of an annotated video on safety at work observations

Description

The Learning Layers intervention contributed to the ongoing 2+1 pilot in construction sector and introduced Ach so! mobile application that construction sector stakeholders and educational actors appreciated. Mobile learning and mobile applications provided working solutions to the current challenges of vocational training, which encouraged the stakeholders to continue the app use after the Layers project pilots. One of the main achievements was conducting demonstration of skill at workplace that was one of the challenges before. By using Ach so! an apprentice did not need to take a day-off and go to the vocational school to give the skills demonstration but was able to do it at workplace by recording an Ach so! video. The video presented the work done with spoken commentary and was shared with the vocational school teacher for getting initial feedback. The teacher added added feedback to the video as annotations by using Achrails Web Player. The evaluation of skills demonstration is still ongoing in November 2016 and the final evaluation and review evaluation will take place later. As planned, annotated videos will partly replace apprentice’s written closing report on the demonstration of skills. Completing skills demonstrations in distance by using Achso! mobile application will be used as an exemplar for implementing the practice at other construction sites and vocational schools as well.

The number of apprentices in the 2+1 program has been small, which has been the reason for small-scale exploitation of the Ach so! mobile application in Finnish pilots. As new apprentices join the program, mobile learning and Ach so! is expected to be used for as a solution to the known challenges in the field. In the coming apprenticeship training periods, apprentices will use Ach so! for safety at work observations, which links the use of Ach so! to vocational studies and learning of good safety at work practices at construction sites. Ach so! will be used also for following apprentices’ working and learning process in distance, which is a solution to vocational teachers’ limited resources for monitoring the training period. Apprentices will use Ach so! for recording and annotating their work, which will be used for the reflection of work processes during training. Similarly, apprentices will use Ach so! for documenting their demonstration of skills, which probably changes the practices most.

To conclude, construction trade and vocational colleges had a growing interest in improving practices of learning and training and work by using mobile technologies. It is expected that technologies, such as mobile devices and applications, provide solutions to known challenges in the field, such as needs for improving practices of work documentation, developing communication between construction sites as sharing of practices, and opening new possibilities to give skills demonstrations at work. Ach so! is worth to be considered as mobile technology solution to launch new learning practices in vocational education and training.