Expression of Interest for Capacity Building to design Distance Learning Lessons / ProVte project

About ProVte

The project is designed to support the ambitions of the MEHE and employer organisations to make the VTE provision more demand-oriented and responsive to labour market needs. The idea is to further promote the practice-orientation of VTE, while at the same time encouraging the introduction of a strategic shift towards practice-orientation (work-based learning) in the mainstream VTE system. The main project approach is participatory and based on capacity development which aims to empower key stakeholders in VTE to better understand the obstacles inhibiting the realization of their developmental goals while enhancing their abilities that will allow them to achieve measurable and sustainable results.

Description of the activities to be performed by the STE:

In order to address the need for competent technical teachers, that are able to develop and facilitate technical theory subject classes in distance learning modality, a competent and motivated group of up to 20 Subject Matter Experts (contractual teachers and/or fresh graduates in Civil Engineering or Architecture) will attend a training to develop the same technical and theoretical subjects they are used to deliver in face to face modality, in DL manner.

To assure the uniformity of the courses developed in DL, a platform Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/) for the provision of the DL courses (LMS) and a SCORM compatible application (Authoring application) has been chosen to be adopted in the first semester of the academic year 2020/21. To assure a consistent level of quality of the content and the flow of the DL courses a standard process for the development of the DL lessons has been defined in the concept note mentioned above and shall be conveyed to the teachers.

The activities to be undertaken will include, but not be limited to:

Critical examination of relevant project documentation.

Capacity building of DLL developers:

• Capacity building training course of 80 hours must be divided indicatively in:
  • 30% of training time attending DDL lessons and webinars (first two days must be dedicated to the learning of the Articulate Rise tools and lesson development process)
  • 70% of practical individual work with support and revisions (all participants should develop the same part of the same technical theoretical lesson)
• Prepare, for each day: the outline of one interactive webinar with the formative assessment of the previous day and the presentation of the individual task for the day
• Prepare for the first two days two webinars on the topics of Distance Learning and Articulate Rise features using Articulate Rise resources (video and web-based training made with Articulate Rise)
• Prepare DLL lesson (10/15 min) for the Lesson Development Process
• Deliver webinars using webinars platforms and publish DLL lesson

Follow-up after the capacity building training:

• Follow-up on DLL development through coaching of trainers providing individual support and group webinars throughout the week after the course when each participant will develop the first DLL of the course in technical theoretical subjects (each participant will have a different subject to develop) in construction and few times along the first semester when the developers will prepare and publish a lesson a week.

Continuously:

• Participate in structured meetings with Project Team Leader, Project Team Members, staff of the DGVTE and of other organisations involved in the project as considered necessary. 
• Inform and consult regularly the Project Team Members.
• Provide the report on the participants’ attendance and performance using the reporting system of the LMS platform Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/).
• Carry out all activities necessary for the accomplishment of the required outputs / results.
• Write mission report and required administrative deliverables.
• Be accessible occasionally after the short-term mission through internet for follow-up discussions.

Outputs/Results requested to the STE:

Preparation phase, up to 20 working days (home based in or outside Lebanon at STE convenience):

• Template for a DLL on technical theoretical subjects in construction to be used with the authoring application Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/).
• Detailed training program of the 10 training days.
• 1 outline of 3 h webinar on DL best practices and development process
• 1 outline of 3 h webinar on Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/) features video projection, trial and error exercises, etc.
• 8 outlines of 1h webinar on daily progress during the training
• 1 DLL of 10/15 min developed with Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/)
• 1 DLL knowledge check quiz developed with Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/)
• 2 DLL selected from Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/) available resources
• Criteria for the evaluation of a DLL (50 min) developed by the developers after the training

Delivering phase, 10 working days in Lebanon (if the social and health situation will allow)^[1] from the 31^st of August to the 11^th of September:

• Deliver the 10 days of training composed by webinars, group and individual tasks to participants and live chat technical support

Follow up phase, up to 10 working days (home based in or outside Lebanon at STE convenience):

• Report at the end of the 10 days about online attendance and quiz results (up to 2 working days)
• Evaluate and grade the DLL lesson (50 min each) developed autonomously by the participants after the 10 days training on technical theoretical subjects in construction (4 DDL evaluated and graded per working day)
• Preparation and conduction of discussion webinars along the first semester (1/2 working day per webinar)

Administrative Deliverables:

• Monthly Time Sheets according to the template provided at the beginning of the mission which includes a brief description of task(s) conducted each day signed and submitted to team leader for revision and approval. Holidays, weekends and working days outside Lebanon could not be included in the Time Sheet as working days unless there is a prior written approval[2] from the contracting authority.
• Monthly report according to the template provided at the beginning of the mission accompanying each Monthly Time Sheet and submitted to team leader for revision and approval which describe activities, findings, workshops, etc. completed during the month with reference to coded project activities.
• A comprehensive end of mission’s report submitted to team leader for revision and approval following the structure:
  • Scope and objectives of the mission
  • Approach adopted for conducting the mission
  • List of outputs produced during the mission (including meetings and people met)
  • Description of the outputs produced during the mission 
  • Problems and challenges encountered during the mission
  • Recommendations for the follow-up of the mission
  • Recommendations for the improvement of project implementation
• Documents produced during the implementation of the mission in the form of definitive version (drafts can be included if they are relevant for the implementation of the mission or its follow-up).
• All documents produced should be delivered in hard copy and in digital form using MsOffice applications and the SCORM authoring software Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/).

Expert profile

Qualifications and skills

• University degree preferably in instructional design, learning technologies, or Engineering / Architecture plus 5 years relevant work experience in TVET or Education (minimum requirement)
• Fluency in English language (minimum requirement).
• Arabic language (preferred requirement)
• Proficient in use of Microsoft Office or equivalent open source packages (minimum requirement).

General professional experience

• At least 6 years of working experience in teaching at secondary level and / or in capacity building/skills development and / or in technical training (minimum requirement).
• 4 years of working experience in EU funded projects or International organisations (preferred requirement).

Specific professional experience

• At least 2 years of working experience in creating technical solutions for blended learning (minimum requirement).
• At least one course (duration at least 50 min) developed in DL modality with an integrated package LMS-Authoring (specify the authoring tool used) (minimum requirement).
• At least one course (duration at least 50 min) developed in DL modality using Articulate Rise (https://rise.com/) (preferred requirement)