<< Background >>Partners want to promote equal opportunities for internationalization for VET students who need special support in their studies due to disability or other reason. For example, Luovi’s strategy focuses on ensuring internationalization skills for all students. As stated in Erasmus+ program we want to promote inclusion and encourage the students with fewer opportunities to participate. Our project has a strong focus on digitalization, too. Project is targeted for students with special needs and students with fewer opportunities. The students who usually go abroad study for vocational qualifications. For prevocational students in Finland there are less opportunities to go abroad, since the studying time is usually only one year. In other partner countries there is a need to promote internationalisation of special needs students as such. The project is aiming to enhance students' competences related to European citizenship, cultural awareness, transversal soft skills and digital skills. In addition, project has a strong social context, and the products will be made together with European partners. Through the core of the project the students will learn skills for internationalization, despite aiming for actual mobility or not. Students will be strongly involved in creating digital tools for internationalization as part of their studies with the support of teaching staff. Original idea has risen straight from the teachers working with students with special needs. There is a need for study module for preparing students’ skills for a mobility. We widened the idea to be able to offer internationalization for all, not only the ones who aim to have work experience abroad. Through our project results it is possible for all students to gain international experiences at their home country. The final structure of the study module can also be used as a preparatory course before actual mobility, the need of this arises from the partners. We plan to develop a new study module, because it does not exist in the prevocational students’ curricula in Finland. Other partners will benefit the module when using it as a part of preparation for mobilities or internationalization at home. The study module is built in interaction among the partner colleges; therefore students will participate actively in the planning, piloting and implementing the module. The digital aspect to be built it is not only digital, but interactive among partners. Students with special needs gain from diverse preparation in several aspects: self knowledge, language, social skills, working life skills.<< Objectives >>Train for international trail aims to improve the possibilities for all learners to feel European and to have opportunity to include internationality to their studies. During the project students involved will gain social competences, self-knowledge, digital skills and enhance their self-expression. Project will provide digital solutions to internationalisation for teachers as well, and a readymade reusable handbook and study module with study materials and guides for teachers on how to get started on digitally based learning environments. The teachers participating will have better knowledge and tools on how to take internationality in action.In this project we will create a virtual trail towards international thinking and offer tools for preparing for an actual mobility. Through our project results the study module, can also be used as a preparation course for actual mobilities in VET - not only in special needs education but also in the mainstream VET. Through the training course and other materials, we will be able to enhance the internationalisation at home (I@H) activities in each organisation. Parts of the study module can be used also just to have introduction of internationality among studies and life skills. The project’s results enable and encourage teachers to use digital tools and most importantly engage students more in internationalization.The network of partners formed by organisations with strong professionality of educational work with students with special needs enables us to create engaging, versatile, and accessible material. The students voice will be the main focus during the project. Young people are active and have a need to communicate with their peers also internationally. We want to train for international trail together in European collaboration, intertwined along vocational studies.<< Implementation >>The students’ participation will be in a big role in the project, and the contribution from the students to student's interaction with peers will be one of the focus areas. Student groups will work transnationally online between the Learning teaching training activities planned. Project launches from a kick-off meeting on Helsinki December 2021, where students and support staff gather with teacher for the first task of defining the mobility game elements. Overall, we are organizing 4 LTT workshops face to face in partner organisations. The target group of students with special needs may not always have the similar opportunities to have a mobility experience abroad and may not have travelled before. The virtual meetings are not enough to cover actual experience on travelling, the LTT: s ensure that students are provided with the experience to share their thoughts and have an input to the project results. By implementing LTTS the students will be able to share collaborate with European peers face to face. We will include 3 students to each LTT with an accompanying person and a teacher ensuring the progression of the project results. We aim to implement working groups between the LTTs, where students collaborate via teams to partner countries. We will validate and evaluate the success, usage and relevancy via feedback questionnaires firstly to gather information for definitions, and also for a feed back after LTTs and multiplier events.We will have hands on project for students, where they take part in creating and developing the game. Content will be created together with European peers and teaching staff. The approach is to have not just digital but interactive and innovative project results. According to the design thinking principles we´ll brainstorm, create, pilot and achieve our goals. There will be five transnational project meetings, TPM during the project. One of the transnational project meetings will be held online. Part of the meetings will be arranged at the same time with the learning, teaching and training activities (LTT), however TPM meetings ensure the overall schedule and tasks on the project. Monthly coordinators meetings online ensure that all the project results are proceeding according to the timeline.1.December 2021 Kick off/ LTT1/ Transnational project meeting, Finland2.April 2022 Transnational project meeting and LTT 2, Spain 3.September 2022, Transnational project meeting, online 4.December 2022, transnational project meeting, Austria 5.May 2023, transnational project meeting (final meeting)To strengthen the sustainability and use of project results we will organise three multiplier events.<< Results >>We plan to make four project results.1)“How to survive Europe” online game. 2)“Mobility-ability” study module3)Mobility handbooks and 4)Mobility-ability journal. The point is that the internationalization reaches the classroom easily with a motivating game and other tasks. The binding factor in the project results is that it reaches the whole spectrum of internationalization among students and staff, with actual mobility or not. Through project results we will promote cultural knowledge and awareness of European values and identity. By gamification, the intercultural skills will be improved, and students can gain international perspective by playing the game and other content. Content wise, the project results will offer engaging, interactive materials and tools to get the students involved, aware and interested on internationalization and European identity. All results will be gathered to Thinglink, easily usable and also flexible on producing different inputs (video, tasks, presentations etc). Thinglink is accessible and easy to disseminate in various channels. Definition and interaction will happen online, so that the project reaches as many students and teachers as possible. Goal is to have at least 100 participants building the project-based results and sharing their ideas on internationalization. In the classrooms between the Learning teaching training (LTT) activities, on the other hand LTT: s gather the content and provide the possibility for transversal brainstorming with peers. In addition, we are going to use different digital platforms to make it possible for the students to gather, to share their thoughts and ideas on the common topic. If spoken language is hard to comprehend or produce, digital solutions provide the possibility for all level students to participate for example by pictures and symbols. Train for international trail ties together a wide range of competences, skills and aspects on internationalisation for the students. Teachers will gain concrete tools and tasks to integrate internationalization to the teaching enhancing awareness also on the organisational level.We aim to reach additional competences measured and evaluated by collecting feedback.Expected impact on students•Flexible teamwork and social competences •Knowledge about European culture, cultural skills •Improved English skills •Better self-confidence, motivation•Readiness for future working life •Learning to use gamification as a teaching method. •How to create a digital handbook, a video content, technical aspects, visual aspects •Creative thinking enlarges while constructing the game. •Improved digital skills •Better ability to reflect and pinpoint the main aspects for internationalization. Expected impact on teachers and other staff •Better understanding on European network and collaboration. •Knowledge on evaluation and definitions of SEN students in partner countries •Use of 360 cameras and applications related to create teaching materials. •Offer solutions and tips on how to support different students on self-expressing. •Templates for further use as evaluation toolsExpected impact on the participating organisations •New pedagogical tools and methods in use •Enhance the quality of learning and teaching. •Flexible and inclusive training•More possibilities for international cooperation.

Peer Review – More Impact, Excellent Results Background:We built the project on the experiences and the feedback received from the Strength from Peer Review project. The aim was to widen the use of Peer Review to new quality areas as well as to pilot the materials, criteria and indicators and the method in new organizations and countries thus improving also the existing criteria and indicators. The project addressed the objectives of the Erasmus+ program by fostering quality improvements, innovation and internationalization. Enhancing mobility is one of the objectives of Education and Training 2020 framework. When planning international activities VET providers must take into consideration national and European policy objectives. Student and staff mobility and development projects are ways to carry out internationality. However, international activities are not always written in the strategies in all the participating countries. VET colleges and students could benefit more from home internationalization activities. Thus, the impact of the activities is not easily to be shown. Continuous quality improvement of VET is a priority in the participating countries. In addition, we wanted to develop Peer Review as an opportunity for continuous professional development of VET teachers as stated in Riga Conclusion 2015 and thus raise the overall quality of VET. Objectives: We aimed at developing and piloting uniform operational principles, procedures and processes that help to achieve the aims set for VET internationalization in collaboration with national and international partners through Peer Review methodology. All the partners of the project agreed on the importance of developing the quality of their services and linking internationality deeper in the core activities of their organizations. Premier helped participating organisations to - get familiar with the Peer Review method, especially the new partners, for others it deepened the competence and new staff members participated - learn how to utilize the method in order to evaluate not only their international activities but also other activities since the method is transferable - improve the quality of international activities - understand the link between international activities and the strategy and development of the organization Participants: The consortium consisted of three Finnish VET providers, two of them were Special Needs Vocational Colleges. Besides, three nationwide organizations from France, Italy and the Netherlands, two vocational colleges from Estonia, one from Slovenia and one from Sweden took part in the project. Ammattiopisto Luovi was the coordinator of the project. The participants were either teachers or administration staff members involved in international activities in the partner colleges The quality managers or persons in charge of the quality issues were reached, too. The secondary target group was the management of the college. Each partner chose two to three persons to be trained as Peers. Other staff, students and stakeholders participated during the self-evaluation and Peer Review Visit phases. Activities: The project included a training module to instruct the partners to carry out Peer Review and to train staff members. Practical training took place at Peer Visits. We organized five transnational meetings to work on the criteria. In addition to on-going evaluation and dissemination, we organized five multiplier events. Premier products are: 1) Peer Review Training module including materials, face-to-face training, on-line training and Peer Visits as practical training exercise. 2) Criteria for home internationalization, I@H. This includes activities carried out excluding mobility, e.g. receiving students and staff. 3) Revised criteria on student mobility including apprentices, staff mobility, partnership projects and international strategy. Impact and long-term benefits: At individual level, the skills and competences of the trained Peers increased. At organizational level, the quality of internationalization and international processes improved. Besides, strengthening and building new partnerships is a result from the project. The link between the organization’s strategy and international activities was strengthened and the impact and efficiency of the international processes became measurable. Participating organizations have more competent staff members in quality issues and international activities. At national and European level, the idea of Peer Review as a tool for evaluating activities and processes is familiar in new partner countries. Peer Review, as a method of external evaluation is transferable and sustainable and can be used in other quality areas, too. As one of us summarized: It gives the VET colleges a clear view on possible developments for improvement. It is a tool to promote international activities and to draw positive attention of the management and the board.