Teachers Learn “Action-oriented Learning” by Applying “Action-oriented Learning”

Abstract

Action-oriented Learning (AOL) is a pedagogic approach that defines the role of teachers in supporting self-directed acting and experiential learning in authentic situations on the part of the learners. As a result of AOL, learners are expected to have acquired not only skills and knowledge laid down in qualifications, unit standards and skeleton curricula, but also technical, individual, methodological and social competences and attitudes. Applying AOL to professional learning and training has to go beyond a reform of the professional curricula in terms of content and methods but also needs to provide advanced training of the pedagogical personnel in the vocational education to be able to use this method of teaching. To help teachers to learn and apply AOL, we developed a web-based learning environment with a training curriculum that addressed the situated nature and blended learning. In this paper, we present the development of our web-based learning environment and the training curriculum. Through a pilot study, the technical feasibility of this learning environment and the usability of the training curriculum are demonstrated. The results reveal that it is effective that teacher acquire action competences of AOL by adopting the approach of AOL.