The Future of Education

This paper describes the experience of developing, and piloting, a Non-Formal Academy, for building competences to work in international and virtual teams targeted to higher education students and young graduates. The Non-Formal Academy was developed under the scope of the European Project CATCH-IT and involved the collaboration of educators and students from Portugal, Denmark and Poland. The learning approach consisted on a stepwise approach to engage students in international and collaborative teamwork, with the purpose of making them acquainted with the demands of such working contexts, that are both timely and relevant in today’s labor market [2]. The motivation for the development of this research work stems from the multiple calls for the development of transversal competences to equip young people to address the evolving contexts of work that are increasingly multicultural and augmented by technology [1]. This calls for the development of specific competences, such as cultural intelligence for effective international collaboration, as well as the ability to work in technology mediated contexts, that often support the work on internationally distributed project teams. The teaching and learning model developed for the Non-Formal Academy involved, a preliminary phase devoted to the organization of students into diversified groups, and the development of thematic project proposals related with the development of international careers and international business, in each of the partner countries. Afterwards the students were engaged in a stepwise learning model to support the development of their projects in four steps that aimed to expose them to international and collaborative working contexts in a progressive manner. The steps included: 1) the conduction of fieldwork in each of the partner countries; 2) the interaction between the students and international experts, in each of the partner countries; 3) collaborative work in virtual international teams, supported by  computer mediated communication; and 4) groups of students selected in a competitive manner from the work developed in the previous phases, were engaged in a small cross-exchange period across the partner countries, to finalize their projects in a face-to-face manner with their colleagues from three participating countries. The experience allowed for the development of the Non-Formal Academy model, and enabled a rich teaching and learning experience that exposed students to the demands of work in international teams and contexts. Students involved in the process perceived important benefits from the experience, and provided key feedback information to  the experience it replicable in the future.

Keywords: non-formal learning, transversal competences, international competences, virtual teams;

References:
[1] Halász, G., Michel, A. “Key Competences in Europe: interpretation, policy formulation and implementation.”, European Journal of Education, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 289-306, 2011.
[2] Vance, C. M., Sibeck, G., McNulty, Y., Hogenauer, A. “Building global competencies through experiential coursework in international travel and tourism.” , Journal of International Education in Business, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 30-41, 2011.