VOOCS for VET teacher professionalization: Lessons learned from the EU Erasmus+ Pro-VET project

Value and strength of experiences

This MESH guide is based on the EU Erasmus+ Pro-VET project. From 2019 to 2022, a team of Dutch, Finnish, German and Irish (EU) educational professionals joined their Serbian and Russian colleagues (non-EU) (until the invasion) in the development of Online Distance Learning tools. These tools – in Pro-VET known as Vocational Open Online Courses or VOOC’s – focused on various key aspects of state-of-the-art VET teacher professionalization.

This guide introduces the concepts of resp. Vocational Education and Training, Online Distance Learning and MOOCs. For this introduction a modest desk study/literature review was undertaken. Empirically, the guide then revisits the project and reflects upon the joint VOOC development process. We will present Pro-VET’s objectives, set-up and underlying methodology. An impression is given of the VOOCs developed: platform, aims and target groups.

An online survey – undertaken in spring 2022, when the project was near completion – was used to capture Russian and Serbian project partners’ reflections on their VOOCs as well as on general participating in Pro-VET. Altogether, this international project provides a valuable case for other collaborative design teams focusing on Online Distance Learning/VOOCs worldwide.

List of Pro-VET key publications.