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The Invention of Guiding

Tampere University of Applied Sciences
1.4.2021–31.8.2023

The aim of the project is to guide and prepare young people for higher education more simply and effectively, and to develop and pilot a nationally distributed model of guidance and education. The key is that the student is empowered by learning, self-development and is effectively directed to postgraduate studies and working life already during his or her studies.

The project seeks, implements and experiments with innovative ways through guidance and coaching, a digital guidance platform and apprenticeship-type concepts. The project brings together and makes visible an ecosystem of guidance, education, and apprenticeship-type concepts that help secondary and college students, educational institutions, and businesses and authorities interact in accessing information for students.

Goal

The aim of the Invention of Guiding -project is to guide and coach students of upper secondary level (high school and vocational college) towards higher education studies in a more simple and efficient manner and furthermore, during their studies at the university support their paths to working life already during their studies. The aim is that the students are empowered and reinforced in continuous and self-development of their skills and competences. This is done by taking into account the individual needs and backgrounds of potential learners in higher education and strengthening their abilities towards these goals. A learning ecosystem is built up by combining guiding, formal education, and apprenticeship agreement -type of learning to strengthen the upper secondary and higher education, their students, educational organizations, companies, and authorities in terms of information availability and usability. The holistic operational model for this ecosystem is developed and piloted in cooperation with the educational institutions. The operational model includes individual guiding and coaching, digital guidance platform and new ways of acquiring competences and learning at work. The target groups of this project are upper secondary level students
(high-school and vocational college and double degree students) in Tampere and Turku Regions. Furthermore, study and career counsellors and advisors and included in the target groups. In terms of high-schools, also national networks are included in the target groups. In this project the implementation of the core tasks of higher education studies are developed towards more working life-oriented forms. Different measures to coach and support the learner’s paths towards higher education studies from upper secondary level and furthermore towards working life are developed and tested in this project. A core action is the development, testing and use of digital, simplified guidance platform which along with other guidance and support methods help in reaching the aims of this project. User-orientation, functionality and accessibility for the students are core requirements to this system.

The following actions and operation models are implemented in this project: 1)     Guidance model, which can be scaled to fit the learner’s commitment and motivation towards studying, continuous learning and entrepreneurial thinking.
2)     Simplified digital guiding platform, which takes into account user’s different backgrounds and starting points in planning their own studies
3)     Sparring, coaching and work life guiding is included in the higher education studies and utilized in directing skills and competences to fulfill the needs of the working life.
The development of the guidance is implemented utilizing the knowledge and experiences of the well-known and widely acknowledged TAMK team coaching model (ProAcademy), where students are active part of the learning community. In addition to individual guidance, student is also involved in team coaching.

The expected results of the project include: 1.     A guidance model for upper secondary, i.e. high school and professional college students supporting their performance, motivation, continuous learning and entrepreneurial thinking.
2.     Digital guidance platform and other guidance models, which are integrated to a guidance ecosystem and
3.     Individual learning module for university students, which is strongly developed to work life needs, so called higher education apprenticeship model. The aim of this holistic guidance and learning model is to support the self-direction, self-confidence and continuous learning orientation of the upper secondary level and university students

Funding source

Euroopan sosiaalirahasto (ESR) 2014-2020

Contact persons

Marja Keränen
marja.keranen [at] tuni.fi