Digital Trends in Adult Education

Bringing back the blog! Apprenticeship education in an online world!

As academic calendars all around the world hurtle toward the fall semester, professors everywhere are scrambling to adapt their lessons to the new realities of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. I, too, am a bit overwhelmed. There are many possibilities, and few clear answers about what the future holds for the “new normal,” let alone education. However, I am also excited by online learning’s potential to revolutionize the way that students and apprentices think of education. While I do not want to overgeneralize apprenticeship and vocational education as strictly instructivist, where the teacher is speaking and demonstrating and the students are listening and watching, a forced shift to online teaching offers the opportunity to experiment with new perspectives and epistemologies.

But first, to (re)introduce myself, I am a trades and technology professor teaching Machinist (429a) and Tool and Die (430a) apprentices at Fanshawe College’s St. Thomas/Elgin Campus. I am also currently serving as our faculty’s program coordinator and have a responsibility to lead our department as we transition through this unprecedented phase of vocational education brought on by current public health challenges. The last thing I will share about myself is that I advocate for progressive curriculum as the Chair of the Precision Metal Cutting Trades’ Curriculum Development Advisory Committee which standardizes the specific expectations for Machinists, Mould Makers, and Tool and Die Makers in Ontario.

So, what kinds of things can we expect to change with online apprenticeship education? Well, the curriculum that we instructors teach to clearly spell out how apprentices are to be evaluated as either partially or entirely project-based, or test/quiz based. Project-based assessments are usually reserved for evaluating machine and equipment use and proficiency, while tests are used as summative tools to gauge comprehension of theoretical concepts. Therefore, the evaluation structure and the types of assessments we use are not likely to drastically change, but how we help our students learn in an online environment will have to evolve!

As we transition our teaching from a physical classroom space to an online one, our teaching activities should change to reflect the digital tools we are using to teach and learn, if only to keep the learning interesting while we are connected to our screens. This is an opportunity for teachers to shift from instructivist to constructivist epistemology; instead of simply accessing knowledge through a digital medium, students and apprentices can use digital tools to construct and share knowledge. Pen and paper notes can become engaging hyperlinked mind maps. Sketches can be enhanced by powerful CAD/CAM software. Students learning individually can now become students sharing collaboratively while making informative web pages and wikis.

I am excited to lead and embark on this new technologically enhanced phase of apprenticeship and vocational education. I love to learn of new ideas and technologies, discussing them with colleagues, and sharing them with my students.