The workability,
understood as productive dimension component of social life and therefore
citizenship is the ultimate goal of vocational education. At the core of this
type of education is the process of appropriation of the condition or set of
conditions to produce benefits - goods and services. The new vocational
education shifts the focus of the educational work of teaching to learn, what
will be taught to learn what it takes in the contemporary and future world. The
skills while actions and mental operations, articulate knowledge (knowledge,
the articulated information), skills (psychomotor or know-how developed
cognitively) and socio-cultural knowledge and the values, attitudes (knowing
how to be, the predispositions for decisions and actions, constructed from
aesthetic references, political and ethical) consisting of articulated and
mobilized in professional achievements with required quality standards, normal
or distinctively, the productions in a professional area (BRASIL,
2000).
Even though the competences in
a given situation or course may be acquired in both student based learning and
teacher based learning, is the former approach that can bring the more
significant outcomes to the students.
Answering the primary
question, competence distinguishes humans and machines. Machines could be
programmed to make automatic and intelligent decisions (knowing), also it
performs many movements more precise and faster (doing) however, only humans
could feel the emotions and make decisions based on their mind and heart
(being). After visiting one of the fundamental level schools, many of the new
knowledges learned during our classes could be observed. The children are
prepared to be much more than only "boxes full of science's
knowledge" but better part of the society. It was amazing see each child
helping the others, saying good adjectives to their pairs. During all these
activities, they learn math, finnish, english and so forth. Competence is not
necessary only to get a good job and pay the bills, it is a matter of survive,
a way to live in a healthy society.
So, how to learning built a
house considering the approach of competence based curriculum?
Curriculum, from Latin, means path of life, a racing. For an education approach it could be steps to be achieved by a student in its self-development in any area. It includes new abilities, training and knowledge. It used to be focused on disciplines, lectures, however, for the future, it should promote significant professional learning.
Several steps are necessary to build a house starting from the land's choice up to painting and so forth. Wall, floor, window's assembly are necessaries competences to achieve the objective. However, for to learn how to perform all these tasks, we can follow different paths guided by the development of skills that lead to the final product, which is the construction of the house. The curriculum in this process is the master line that allows students to learn in practical way.
Several steps are necessary to build a house starting from the land's choice up to painting and so forth. Wall, floor, window's assembly are necessaries competences to achieve the objective. However, for to learn how to perform all these tasks, we can follow different paths guided by the development of skills that lead to the final product, which is the construction of the house. The curriculum in this process is the master line that allows students to learn in practical way.
The perfect alignment means
that the teacher must be prepared to connect the curriculum, the pedagogical
methods, and the assessment tools and criteria to achieve the intended outcomes
of the learning activities proposed. In this context, all these key components
are in tune and the students can reach an appropriate environment to learn, and
the expertise areas must be aligned with the learning outcomes associated. In
this context, we’ve managed to perceive that both Finland and European Union
are concerned about this alignment, in order to improve the employability. In
this way, the target of the reform of VET in Finland aims to improve the
capacity of vocational education to respond to the skills needed. As a
correspondence in Brazil, the legal basis of vocational education in the
country (BRASIL, 2000) already allows the use of competence based curriculum in
the Federal Network of Education, Science and Technology, although a huge
effort must be made to make this approach come true in the day by day teaching
practice in our schools, considering the scale of the continental country and
the inequalities of the society
In Brazil, after some
interviews with managers and directors of international companies in Manaus-AM (see picture below), it's almost a consensus that technical knowledge are receiving less importance
than competences. Time management, group working and solving conflicts
abilities are some examples of competences required for hiring process. In that
way, schools must provide more than technical training but "human
relationship science". The question is: how to do it in a collaborative
work between companies and schools? HAMK is an interesting example of success
on its business course, where students are guided by counselors in a way that
services are provided by them inside companies. These students feel the
business environment and learn about how they must behavior as a real
employee.
The intended outcomes must be related to the working life, in which the companies or employers play an important role in helping the teacher in the regulation process (the need to adapt the assessment, the learning environments and the professional profile in accordance with que working world). In this sense, it is fundamental to recognize the importance of some key moments of the student's learning life, as observed in the ideas competition in Lahti (Sense 2016) and in Seinäjoki (skills competition). In both cases, stakeholders of the working sector and schools worked together in the assessment of the students, bringing real life into the competence based curriculum approach, far beyond from the limit.
In the example given (the
house metaphore), the connection with the working world is made when the
students meet the real situations, like in Vocational College of Applied
Sciences/HAMK Valkeakoski campus/Valkeakoski Vocational Institute (visited in
20th April), in which we could observe, as an example, that the students are
used to learn how to built a house in practice (learning by doing) and in
accordance with the market needs. Also, the assessments of skills and the
evidence of outcomes are made considering real life situations. Some
pictures are shown below:
In competence based curriculum
the learning environments are not restricted to the classroom. On the contrary,
work environments, companies, entrepreneurships and adapted classrooms with
pedagogical design are useful in the teaching learning process. The learning outcomes
can be assessed continuous
So, competence really seems to
be a human inherent caracteristic, mainly because of the feelings involved in
the learning process. Then, competences can be used to put humans and machines
in different places. In this approach, the learning outcomes in vocational
education teaching are much more true and significant with a competence based
curriculum.
"Developing competence is a hard working process and takes time but it is something for lifetime"
REFERENCES
BRASIL. Ministério da
Educação. Educação Profissional. Referenciais Curriculares Nacionais da
Educação Profissional de Nível Técnico. Brasília. 2000. 136 páginas. Il.
Available at <http://portal.mec.gov.br/setec/arquivos/pdf/introduc.pdf>.
Acessed in 18th May 2016.
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