The first results of the piloting phase

Different PBL activities have been organized in the last months by the German and Italian partners, all of them with very good results.

The first presentation was made by Mrs. Bröhl from CJD: she presented the PBL activity “Autumn Move” developed at the “REWE” supermarket in Bergneustadt. Nine students from the Sales sector (VET centre in Gummersbach) had the possibility to spend three weeks (6 days/week, 8 hours/day) in a supermarket for a real work experience that gave them the possibility to deal with real customers and to live the first working experience in their lives.

Besides understanding how it really feels to work daily for several hours during an assigned time and to assigned tasks, this helped the youngsters to think about which departments of a market they will see themselves in the future. In addition to getting to know a work routine in such a market, the students had to face specific challenges: physical (standing, carrying, walking), mental (being attentive) and social (talk to customers and staff entails choose the right words and volume).

They were professionally guided and supported by the REWE team as well as accompanied by two of their teachers from the school and their VET instructor.

Among the main benefit for the students, CJD reports: they gained confidence and felt they were taken seriously, moreover the change of location allowed a more open communication.

The second presentation made by Mrs. Fava was about ENDO-FAP experience called “LetsApp”. They took part in a national contest promoted by the Ministry of Education, sponsored by Samsung Electronics Italia and focused on how digital technology can make our life and our work better. 17 students from Graphic sector (Borgonovo VET centre) worked in groups to design mobile applications and create their names, logos and templates. The project started in January and was supposed to continue until mid-March (8 weeks in total), but the COVID-19 emergency stopped it before and they continued working from home in new ways. Through this project students had the opportunity to work on three teaching areas at the same time: information technology, literacy (Italian and Arts) and graphics, whose teachers guided and helped them. Since the project was linked to a contest, the role of the employer was somehow missing even if at a certain point the students were supposed to receive a feedback on the work made. In any case the lockdown led also to positive effects on students: they showed to be creative in solving problems and most of them accepted the challenge and positively assessed the work done even if using different tools.

Last presentation was about ENAC project “Job & Creativity Fair 2019” developed by ENAC Puglia and presented by Mr. Calligaro and Mr. Palma. Job & Creativity Fair is a local convention organized by University of Foggia dedicated to facilitate the student employment by local companies. It’s a 3 days event during which several workshops and seminars take place too. ENAC Puglia was commissioned by the University of Foggia to organize and manage the food area (i.e. restaurant, bar area, etc.): for 3 days (30 hours) 47 students and 9 staff members worked in the Fair providing food and beverage to the public during lunches and breaks. Moreover they also delivered a “private banquet” for 200 special guests. Students had the opportunity to deal with a real order and real clients and, moreover, all teaching subjects were involved. The project required teachers to bring up to date the students about daily activities and tasks and to adapt the school calendar, teaching modalities and evaluation to the new context and, on the other side, asked students to manage economic and logistic aspects. The main weakness in this case was the engagement of the students at the very last moment by the event organizer that led to the lack of preparation  and of the evaluation plan.

After each presentation the partnership had the opportunity to contribute with a feedback using a grid prepared by the Cattolica University. One common observation made by the partners was about the roles of the teachers involved in the projects and the evaluation (timing and tools used). Starting from these first experiences, user partners will continue in developing their own curriculum to be tested for a whole year.