TEACHER TRAINING IN INTERNATIONAL PROJECT CO-OPERATION: EXPERIENCES FROM ADAPTYKES PROJECT

This paper is a description of experiences from international teacher training carried out as a part of the ADAPTYKES project. The basic idea of the project is to analyze the adaptability of the Finnish workplace development model and methods in Hungary and Romania, and develop long and short term training for the local SME managers in these two countries. From teacher training point of view, the project is focused on developing of teachers’ training, coaching and facilitating competencies at Budapest Business School (BBS) and Babes-Bolyai University (BBU) in order to support technological and workplace development as well as social innovations in Hungary and Romania.

The similarities and differences between work organization models, knowledge use patterns and innovative activities of SMEs in the participating countries were investigated and analyzed in the first step of the project. The first step deepened our understanding of differences in operational environments and provided empirical basis for the re-design and reflexive adaptation of the Finnish practices in the two other participating countries and inputs to the content development of the curricula in BBU and BBS.

The paper is focused on the description of planning and implementation, results and findings of second step of the project, the training of Hungarian and Romanian future leader trainers. The training programme consisted of three types of elements:
1) study visits of the Hungarian and Romanian future leader trainers in two sessions at Lahti University of Applied Sciences in Finland (LUAS),
2) the BBS and BBU trainers’ (coaches) training by the LUAS professionals in Hungary and Romania,
3) the completion of a special coach guide.

The study visits included introduction to the Finnish workplace development programme and to the advanced work-oriented teaching methods used in the Master’s degree programmes and workplace development projects at LUAS. The trainers’ training included two types of activities: face-to-face training and online tutoring. As a result of the teacher training phase, a coach guide will summarize the different pedagogical and methodological backgrounds as well as methods and best practices used in the project in written form.

In the third and fourth steps of the project, development of short and long term training programmes for SME managers and development of learning materials for Hungarian and Romanian circumstances, adaptation and localization of the training contents and materials will be adapted and localized in Hungarian and Romanian circumstances. The project’s results will be incorporated into the adult training system of BBS and UBB by developing long and short term workplace oriented training programmes.

After the project’s lifetime, BBS and BBU will continue the development of new, tailored training and methods for sustainable workplace development in diverse SME clusters. Thus, the project impacts on the training culture of the participating institutions and SMEs not only during the project but also on the vocational training culture and workplace management practices development in the target countries over the long run. Indirectly, the teacher training in the project will contribute to the competitiveness of Hungarian and Romanian SME’s, to their capacity to produce technological innovations and to create new entrepreneurship.