An Innovative Approach to Vocational Education in Turkey

Tolga Yazıcı, PhD

Plato College of Higher Education

President

Plato International

• A group company

• Plato College of Higher Education in Turkey

• International Plato University in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Vision

Plato International has a vision of being an international education provider in using new methods and technologies in vocational education and enable larger group of the students to access education for employability.

Values & principles • Putting students and other

stakeholders into the centre of all activities.

• Performing effective and high quality education,

• Improving the understanding of self-learning and lifelong learning,

• Educating learners to create a learning organization,

• Developing students’ professional qualifications besides the behavioural attributes.

• Collaborating with the business community to create a link between education and implementation.

• Contributing the improvement of knowledge and skills of the workforce by lifelong learning programs.

• Valuing mobility and internationalization in higher education in all functions of university.

Plato College of Higher Education

• A newly founded vocational higher education college

• Partnership with the Ministry of Education

All over Turkey: 14 study centers and 8 vocational programs

• Courses are delivered at the premises of the schools by Plato or school teachers.

• A blended model, face to face and internet based technologies

Benefits • The project gives benefit to women who don’t

want or can’t move to bigger cities to study.

• Contribute to develop qualified woman workforce and increase woman employment in relatively rural areas.

• Develop teaching staff of the Ministry for delivering vocational programs

Benefits • Decrease the cost using the

Ministry premises and staff, more students can afford the vocational education, scholarships.

• Opportunities for internship, learning by doing and practicing.

• The system is quite flexible and enables student and staff exchange between campuses.

• Streaming learning by using different approaches and techniques.

Benefits to the Society

• Promoting vocational education and reaching more people in a wider geographical area.

• Increasing participation and contribution of women and youngsters to the economy,

• Enhancing/advancing entrepreneurship and employment opportunities; reducing the difference in level of economic development between regions,

• Contributing the development SMEs(Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) and regions

Blended Education Model and Tools

• Integrating advanced technologies of distance education

• Being independent from location

• Increasing productivity of the process of education .

• Considering individual needs and learning differences and prefering to use technologies which have the ability to support face to face training and make blended and distant education possible.

• Aiming to reach larger group of people, Plato Collage of Higher Education run “Olgunlaşma Projesi” with Turkish Ministry of National Education.

Model • The courses are designed by the instructor and

instructional designer considering its objectives, applications and students’ requirements.

• Presentation of content, tasks and assignments, activities, resource and assessment are designed and prepared.

Plato Education uses different tools and technologies

1. Face to face delivery

2. Video Conferencing

3. Learning Management System ( Moodle)

4. Contents (Adobe Presenter / Articulate Storyline)

5. Live Sessions (Adobe Connect)

6. Web TV

Face to face delivery

Some courses are delivered through face to face training; the others are delivered through integration of online and face to face training.

Video Conferencing

Students and teachers, in different cities, have the opportunity of being connected. By means of video conferencing system teachers can deliver lectures, communicate with technical schools’ teachers and consult students and local teachers.

Learning Management System (Moodle)

Moodle is the Learning Management System which is a Virtual Learning Environment System. Gives the chance of managing and delivering contents, sharing resources, creating different activities, presenting different assessment and evaluation options.

Contents (Adobe Presenter / Articulate Storyline)

Interactive contents are prepared by using e-learning authoring tools such as Adobe Presenter and Articulate Storyline.

Contents (Adobe Presenter / Articulate Storyline)

• animation

• video

• images

• texts and audio

• screen capturing, and recording

• interactive activities and quizzing and evaluating

Live Sessions (Adobe Connect) In the live sessions teachers and students gather in an online meeting environment at the same time and different places by Adobe Connect To repeat and summarize asynchronous contents, advice and consult students, and question and answer sessions. Share screen, application, document, white board, webcam and microphone, chat, discuss a topic and record the meeting.

Web TV

Video sharing platform.

Videos related to different academic departments which support educational activities.

All the vocational programs are currently Associate Degree (AD) programs.

Plato intends to develop this systems to Lifelong Learning Programs in near future as another partnership project with the ministry.

Thank you.