Future is in our hands was a project that wanted to prepare its participants as well as the organizations for the future. It aimed on giving an opportunity for initial and continuous professional development of VET teachers, trainers and mentors as well as to promote innovative approaches to provide key competencies and work-specific skills to the learners. Future was not only dealt with through the themes of the Future labs but offered a testing lab to elaborate new learning environments. To accommodate to the change of the working life new ways of working within teams and organizations was seen as crucial. The project wanted to foster innovation and underline the importance of “soft” skills such as collaboration, teamwork, creativity and learning. That is why the four Future labs were based on team pedagogy. This project enhanced the creativity, innovative thinking and flexibility in multidisciplinary groups. The key to the succses was to offer the teachers participating in the project an intensive three days training on the methodology. It also helped with strong bonding within the teachers participating in the project. The main purpose of the project weeks was to activate the students into learning to learn in a more informal setting, in the four FUTURE LABS organized in this project. The themes of the Future labs were based on global megatrends and challenges of the future working life and were chosen in the first project meeting. The Future labs were held in each of the participating country. The problems that the students solved were based on interviews done in each of the participants’ home country and work places relevant to the field of study. Each of the weeks offered a chance to investigate the topic in a relevant company. For both parties to gain understanding on each other’s needs. The future labs gave a learning opportunity for 80 learners on cultural awareness, communication in a foreign language with methods where everyone’s contribution is equally important for the final result and success. Both participating teachers and students truly were in a “pressure cooker” for one week to produce a solution; out of their comfort zone and forced to step out of their traditional roles.

CROSSOVER: CReating new concepts On SuStainability training in cOoperation VEt and labouR market. Context/background of project/RelevancySustainability affects more and more all levels of real life and work. Energy savings and taking care of the limited natural resources, energy reducing and recycling materials are serious topics for politicians, researchers, employers, and (future) workers. For developing innovation (new ideas within sustainability) and being able to implement them, the student’s specific competences, which they obtain within this project, are needed. Knowledge providers (Universities, Higher education, VET) have to cope with these challenges: developing useful expertise and translate it in realistic training concepts together with the partners on the labour market, to be able to provide future workers (higher Education, Initial VET) with the appropriate competences (objectives). In addition, we must do it in a close to praxis way to make the transfer for the students visible and clear (methodology).There is no doubt that sustainability is the essential challenge for our world. Especially European countries have to show responsibility and to take over the role as a wide-awake paragon. Despite of these circumstances the curriculums in our European countries have not given an appropriate response to the topic sustainability. The topic is merely partly anchored in single subjects and has not been developed in a wider context. With this project, we build up an entire concept implementing our CROSSOVER principle. Potential long-term benefits & dissemination platformEvery part of our European community has to be involved in order to find long-term solutions that work. Besides students & teachers, we have integrated companies, non-profit organizations and councils to our project. The basic idea of CROSSOVER is to adopt the system of constructivist epistemology. This means that every perspective will be welcome to ensure an entire solution. Our new concept includes a curriculum that enables other colleges to integrate the topic sustainability. A drop box full of 25-student-tested easy-to-implement lessons on sustainability. These lesson-suggestions will be shared on Facebook, on a blog, and printed in a paper brochure (5000 pcs), which will be sent out to relevant institutions in each country. As the development and process is accompanied by different institutions (both business colleges and technical schools) it will be accepted broadly. This project is a process that will be carried on after the project itself, on Facebook, where other schools/teachers/institutions can comment on the existing materials, but also add further suggestions. Tailor made inspiration courses will also be offered to interested teachers/schools.Number and profile of participantsAll in all 158 participants will take part in this entire project directly. 108 of these participants will be students from both vocational secondary schools (VET) and secondary technical schools. 10-20 different teachers (the 5 project contact persons + 1 extra teacher from each school) will be involved. In addition to these mobilities, business partners will be involved and participate as sparring partners, reflection bodies and co-judges together with the students in the transnational meetings and throughout the whole project. All the students participating in the project will be between 16-25 years on average. The students will be selected carefully through personal interviews and must have a certain interest in the topics and the tasks in order to ensure the best possible outcomes of training courses & student evaluations. To ensure success with the international transactions certain English competences are requested as this will be the cooperation language.Description of activitiesIn this project creating awareness on student level is the first step. An orientation will make the students aware of how sustainability affects their own branch and therefore their own future professional life (new materials, work processes). Secondly, in the project, students/staff will develop new training concepts for Initial VET. During the whole process in each country a regional network of employers and/or knowledge institutes (official silent partners), having a lot of expertise and prestige on sustainability, will participate as a reflection group during the process. On European level, two international meetings will be organized on which the (midterm and final) results will be presented, discussed in workshops and – after reflection - finalized in (midterm and final) reports as input for the next phase. Students will take the leading role in presentations and discussions.Leaving certificatesEach school will include the received CROSSOVER courses in the student's leaving papers. The student created reflections and assignments will be added to the individual student portfolios as well.

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The project idea was developed as part of the cooperation between Bildung im Ausland, Hemut Schmidt Schule and ROC van Twente. These institutions work together on mobility projects since years - now we want to widen our cooperation and put a new focus on the pedagogical work. With the background of digital learning having more and more influence on the way of teaching and learning we wanted to see how this challenge is faced in schools and teaching institutions abroad, learn from the tools and methods our colleagues use in other countries and gat to know the pros and cons of new technologies. Moreover teaching entrepreneurship is a topic that the institutions involved deal with - there is even an international project that is run by three of the partners since years. That is why the idea of this partnership project was to combine digital learning, entrepreneurship and internationalization - all of them highly important topics to prepare young people to their work life and to become self dependent, self reflected, digitally qualified and open minded persons.The objective of this strategic partnership is to compare, reflect and learn on the way how the partners teach and train regarding entrepreneurship and how they use digital media in their work. Moreover this project aims to integrate entrepreneurship as a field where you have to teach key competences such as independence, self-reliance and self-initiative and - of course - foreign languages. On the one hand we would like to foster digital competence of teachers, trainers and students by exchanging and using different tools, methods and software. Also with the help of the project we want the students to improve and practice their English skills in real life situations as well as their communicating and presentation skills, to foster openness and to improve their team work skills. On the other hand also teachers are asked to exchange in a foreign language, to work with colleagues with different systems and ways of teaching - that means that also the teachers and trainers will be asked to show tolerance, open mindness and flexibility. There are five partners involved in the project and of each partner there are two experts in charge of the project. Moreover we plan two student mobilities with 24 students per flow - 48 students in total will have the possibility to take part in the project and to learn digital competence and entrepreneurship as part of an international exchange.During the project period the students will work on establishing their own Start Up. They will have to use different digital tools and methods to communicate with each other and to prepare their results to present them on transnational exchange meetings. Here the students will meet each other face to face and they will have to present their results, compare and discuss them with their international colleagues. In face to face situations they learn how to interact with other students, how to present themselves, recognize similarities and differences in working and living and simply get to know each other.The whole process will be accompanied by transnational project meetings where the experts exchange on their teaching methods, get to know new tools and software and evaluate the process of their students. As a result of the project we expect a reflection on the use of digital media in training situations as well as in teaching entrepreneurship. Also we want to learn about different ways of teaching and training and make the students feel the use and impact of digital media with regards to their training. This is part of their preparation to their further working life. Furthermore with we aim to improve communication and speaking abilities, creative thinking, team work and knowledge of the international labour market not only with a focus to the students but to the teaching staff as well. The impact of the project is to review existing teaching and training methods, to work on new curricula and to integrate digital methods and tools in daily teaching situations. On a long term basis our aim is to make web based learning a part of teaching and training but with the awareness to pros and cons of this technique. Everybody using digital tools has to do this as a competent, reflected user - this applies for teachers as well as for students.

"<< Objectives >>The project Growing New Sustainable Networks (GNSN) aims to enable international mobility to a wide range of students and to implement crosscultural experience to the curricula of VET. As a result of the project we would like to present a manual that combines all the important steps as well as competences that are needed to provide high quality and sustainable mobilities in VET.<< Implementation >>With the development of a module ""International mobility"" we want to implement Internationalization to the curricula of the schools training courses. We offer a tool to teachers and trainers that enables everybody to provide work experiences abroad. Thus we help to make VET more attractive and competitive in comparison to higher education.<< Results >>The result of the project is a module that can be integrated to VET in a wide range of institutions. This module will help providing international work experience and prepare VET students to the need of the global labor market. The participating institutions will have access to a wider international network of VET providers (including companies) that they will use for their courses back home. Finally the knowledge on VET systems abroad will help to prepare students to international careers."