Abstract:

The aging of the Secondary Education teachers as seen in the most recent statistical data in combination with the rapid advancement of knowledge, especially as far as technical fields are concerned, poses the issue of teachers’ expanding their knowledge to meet the modern teaching demands. Universities can provide this updating on knowledge via methods of e-learning to ensure that training will be a long lasting one and solve practical problems having to do with face-to-face interaction. Our study describes a proposal for the continuous support and organized training of Secondary Education teachers by means of University Open Courses supplemented by ‘Kallipos’ university open academic books. This proposal with its characteristics to be described below aspires to suggest solutions to the issues arising in an attempt to connect Secondary with Tertiary Education.

Last years have witnessed in Greece an increase in the average age of Secondary Education (SE) teachers. In line with this, more recent data show that teachers in Greece have an average age of 48.8 years. The reasons for this case may be the non-renewal of teaching staff due to lack of new appointments and an increase in retirement age, which leads to teachers working for longer hence enhancing the gap between them and students. As a result, they are not sufficiently informed on new developments in their fields, with a negative impact on the quality of teaching. Also training for Secondary Technical Vocational Education (STVE) is even more imperative. It is easy to infer, therefore, that there is the necessity for a continuous type of training for SE teachers, especially for those of STVE. It is obvious that such a type of training has been of importance to teachers of all times but nowadays it is more imperative due to the situation described.

We propose the utilization of Open Courses and Greek Open Academic Books platform already developed to be applied to all the SE disciplines and not only those of STVE. In the other fields, moreover, it is easier to carry it out because the respective material is larger and there are not any of the special STVE issues. Especially for STVE teachers this solution can function as an informal training for Information Technology. Besides, it addresses, as much as possible, the difficulty in the use of computers the oldest teachers may have, giving weight to the simplification of searching and the reduction of the time needed, since the latter can be a hindrance for teachers. Furthermore, it involves in the procedure persons who can solve any problems arising or who can encounter a hesitant or negative attitude on the part of trainees, while the enrichment with elements of synchronous and face-to-face teaching helps overcome any feelings of isolation they might experience.

From a pedagogical point of view, our proposal leads to a more collaborative form of learning, addressing the questions raised in the beginning of our study, and conduces to the change of the mentality of the oldest teachers (whom it mainly aims at) towards a more student-centred direction. It also contributes to OCs obtaining some of the MOOCs features. Finally, our proposal lies in the direction Kortemeyer suggested (2013) according to which open educational resources could integrate and promote the advancements in digital books and MOOCs (which are virtually separated from such advancements) by means of the creation of a global Learning Content Management System.

Keywords:

Secondary education, vocational training, massive open courses, open education resources.