Francesca Carmagnola Participatory Learning and Working in Vocational and Educational Training Francesca Carmagnola, ENGIM Piemonte, Italy

In Italy, ENGIM manages 23 Training Centres and one Study Centre. It has 4 operational centres in Piedmont which offer training and guidance services in the fields of industry and craftwork, the service industry and ICT, catering/bar and health care. ENGIM has in our centre only around 50 employees full time and around 700 learners.

Francesca Carmagnola ENGIM TORINO Training courses for young people & adults in these fields:  Environment  ICT  Personal Development and Project Management  Care and Health  Catering and Food sector (kitchen) EU PROJECTS  IEE: Sustainable mobility  Grundtvig: Language for migrants  Leonardo: Training for SMEs

Francesca Carmagnola Our challenge: creating partecipation and improving collaboration and knowledge exchange between co- workers and between students. This is what we do. But how we do it? Between co-workers fosters innovation Between students supports learning PARTECIPATION

Francesca Carmagnola Partecipation between co-workers fosters innovation Partecipation as collaboration between co-workers Collaboration is a process defined by the recursive interaction of knowledge and mutual learning between two or more people who are working together, in an intellectual endeavor, toward a common goal which is typically creative in nature. (Wikipedia) )

Francesca Carmagnola The process of collaboration is often associated with ‘teamwork’ The main idea of collaboration … is of working together… sharing of planning, making decisions, solving problems, setting goals, assuming responsibility, working together cooperatively, communicating, and coordinating openly (Baggs & Schmitt, 1988). Collaborative Process  Team Creation  Idea Generation  Decision-Making  Work or Production  Evaluation

Francesca Carmagnola A “proper” team should be made of:  Small numbers of people - < 12  Complementary skills in group members  Common purposes for working  Performance goals agreed upon  Shared working approaches  Mutual accountability amongst all members (Katzenbach and Smith) How to improve the collaboration in a team to achieve better performance results?

Francesca Carmagnola Command and controlConsensus-driven Formal and closedInformal and open Fear of making mistakesExplore and evaluate Improving collaboration requires a cultural change OLD STYLE CULTURE NEW STYLE CULTURE

Francesca Carmagnola … as well as a behavioural change Old-style worker New-style worker I interact with the others when I have the time I use only the I interact with the others often and self-initiated I use several tools

Francesca Carmagnola A Community of Practice is a network of individuals with common problems or interests who get together to explore ways of working, identify common solutions, and share good practice and ideas. (Steve Dale Director Semantix) Team creation = connecting people Community of Practice

Francesca Carmagnola CoP are not a way to bring new knowledge into an organisation, but an opportunity to support and increase the knowledge that is already available in the organisation.  CoP put you in touch with like-minded colleagues and peers  CoP allow you to share your experiences and learn from others  CoP allow you to collaborate and achieve common outcomes  CoP accelerate your learning  CoP provide the opportunity to innovate and create new ideas starting from existing knowledge Communities of Practice: features

Francesca Carmagnola Communities of Practice in ENGIM  Meetings facilitator  Pre-defined duration  Pre-defined number of meetings  Clear action plan with activities  Pre-defined shared goals to be achieved  Pre-defined maximum budget  Different roles, competencies and responsabilities  None chief but only shared leadership

Francesca Carmagnola “We didn’t get out the average of our competencies, but the preeminences of every single member have been brought to the light” The meeting facilitator states that… How the success is possibile? Shared goals and common interests Preserved working environment Greatly motivated team Open network

Francesca Carmagnola Which tools to foster collaboration into CoP?

 / Mailing List  Telephone Meeting  Presentation Tools  Document storage and exchange Basic tools Then web 2.0 and social software came providing greater support for innovation

Francesca Carmagnola (Steve Dale Director Semantix) Social software provide the infrastructure for innovation

Francesca Carmagnola Social software provide the infrastructure for innovation in ENGIM

Francesca Carmagnola Main outcomes  Behavioural change: thanks to the easiness of the partecipating tools every member of the CoP partecipates in the creation of content  Reduction of the digital divide  Continued and growing enthusiasm for collaboration  Many self-organising networks

Francesca Carmagnola Partecipation between students supports learning 51% students study both on books and on web materials. Only 41% of them use only books! (AIE Research, 2010) Don’t forget that our customers are the students!  Students are no more passive but active protagonists of the creation of content to be shared.  Tools like Blog, Wikis, Podcast, RSS are commonly used.

Francesca Carmagnola And the trainers?  The trainers need to change their role from “dispenser of information” to “generator of knowledge”  Young students are bewildered when they come in a typical environment of the XIX century that still characterizes the educational establishment  Learning can benefit from sharing of content and free access to information, typical of the new frontiers of Web 2.0  The biggest challenge, for trainers, is to interact with the digital generation.

Francesca Carmagnola Which tools to foster partecipation between students?

Francesca Carmagnola Social software provide the infrastructure also for supporting learning in ENGIM

Francesca Carmagnola Main outcomes Still to be confirmed but… We are still alive…and in good health!

Francesca Carmagnola Thank you for the attention Questions