DT4VET – Design Thinking Tools for Educators

The "reflective practitioner" has been regarded as an ideal image of a skilled worker in vocational education and training for years - but this concept has rarely been transferred to the field of teachers for vocational education and training (VET). The ERASMUS+ project DT4VET regards DESIGN THINKING (DT) as a key method for triggering reflective practices among VET teachers. DT has the potential to foster transversal skills in particular, such as thinking creatively and critically, taking initiative or working collaboratively. Seven partners from four countries (Turkey, Finland, Italy and Germany) are developing, testing and evaluating a training seminar for vocational school teachers on Design Thinking.

The main objective of DT4VET is to further develop key competences, such as collaborative working, of VET teachers.

On the one hand, strategic/curricular measures are developed to introduce design thinking into the training of teachers. On the other hand, the contents of a seminar on the topic will be developed, tested and evaluated via co-learning between the project partners and (prospective) VET teachers.

The project is divided into four work packages:

1. Compilation of already existing approaches for the promotion of key competences in vocational school teacher training by project partners; review of existing courses and trainings, identification of deficiencies/errors, evaluation and balancing of these data, identification of good practice;

2. Bilateral cooperation between the partner countries through peer learning, with the general objective of improving the responsiveness of VET systems to global trends and the specific objective of developing a seminar on "Design Thinking";

3. Piloting and evaluating the seminar;

4. Integrating successful approaches of the seminar on Design Thinking as a common approach into education systems and current teaching/learning methods.