An online community of practice to promote the co-transfer between internship organisations and the Prácticum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education in the employability of future pedagogues
Supported by:
Summary:
The involvement and commitment of the tutors of the internship organisations has been a key element in the pre-professional development of the students. This research proposal addresses student employability by rethinking the knowledge transfer relationships between the University and internship organisations, considering the privileged position of the Prácticum office as a space for transfer. In this sense, research towards the professional projection of students with the participation of internship organisations encourages progress along this path, systematising the analyses and proposals. In this way, the project investigates the role of the virtual space of the collaborative relationship in the co-transfer relationships between the Prácticum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education and the internship centres. One of the innovative aspects of this research worth highlighting is the involvement of stakeholders (university tutors and institutions) already at the stage of defining the research design.
Objectives:
The project aims to investigate the role of a virtual space of a community of practice in the co-transfer relationships between the Prácticum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education and the internship centres. For this reason, the project pursues the following general and specific objectives:
Objective 1. Redefine the relational framework of co-transfer between the Prácticum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education and the internship organisations, through the dynamisation of a virtual community of practice.
Objective 2. Rethinking ways of improving the employability of students of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education in the virtual community of practice.
Methodology
The complexity of the subject matter and the global character of the stated objectives justify that the methodology of this project follows the principle of the complementarity between qualitative and quantitative techniques in order to find responses. This descriptive-comprehensive study combines qualitative and quantitative methods in a mixed methods design, based on a multi-phase study.
3
Phases
- Phase 1. Survey study: Application of an online questionnaire to tutors at the UB and tutors at the practice centres.
- Phase 2. Creation of the Community of Practice. Mixed design. Implementation of the community of practice under the elements prioritised in the previous phase. Analysis of the impact of the community of practice through co-transference and the redefinition of the relational framework between the internship organisations and the Prácticum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education.
- Phase 3. Proposals: collection of proposals arising from the previous analyses, aimed at improving the employability of future pedagogues and the creation and maintenance of the community of practice.
Impact and expected results
- Consolidation of an authentic architecture where all the agents collaborate together in a common project that, ultimately, facilitates the employability of the students of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education.
- Creation of a shared online space, according to the opinion of the tutors of the organisations and the Prácticum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education, detected in the previous research.
- Joint definition of the construct of co-transfer, with the active participation of the visions of both the internship organisations and the University of Barcelona, which is specified in our project in the Prácticum office of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education, thus constituting an authentic co-transfer office that responds to the needs and corresponds to reciprocity actions from the internship organisations.
Transfer
A dissemination plan is proposed internally and through national and international congresses relevant to research in teaching innovation and through different journals specialised in areas of innovation and research in innovation, for example:
- A communication at the Congreso de Docencia Universitaria e Innovació (CDUI) (Congress on University Teaching and Innovation).
- A communication at the International EDO Congress.
- Article in the Revista d’Innovació i Recerca Universitària (REIRE) (Journal of Innovation and University Research).
- Article in the journal Higher Education or similar.
- Conference at the University of Barcelona to explain the experience with the participation of several tutors from the internship centres.
Lead researcher