The APRESO Research Center assime with the CARVET research center, is a partner in NERDVET, a project co-funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ program and coordinated by the Italian consortium of vocational training institutions ENAIP NET. The project “NERDVET – THINK SMART! ENHANCING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS & MEDIA LITERACY IN VET” aims to design, develop and test an Educational Toolkit to support IeFP teachers and trainers in improving critical thinking and digital literacy of students in initial vocational training. In doing so, NERDVET will promote the development of innovative methods and practices to make the world of education more inclusive and capable of forming more informed and critically aware citizens.
The partnership of the project brings together seven partners of which, in addition to the APRESO-CARVET group representing the University of Verona, there are five vocational training institutions and a so-called umbrella organization from 6 countries of the Euopean Union; Italy, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands.
Going into specifics, the NERDVET project aims to develop an educational strategy for IeFP students to improve their critical thinking and digital literacy. The “vehicles” for achieving this goal will be teachers, trainers and other school personnel, who will be trained to use the educational toolkit produced by the project. This toolkit will combine techniques and methodologies that will strengthen students’ ability to critically read and interpret large amounts of data and information in order to make informed decisions. The purpose of NERDVET is to design and implement a model to organically integrate critical thinking and digital literacy skills as learning outcomes within IeFP training programs through a “critical learning approach.” This involves the development and testing of an Educational Toolkit to provide trainers with the skills, methods, teaching techniques and learning resources needed to effectively address critical thinking and digital literacy issues during their lessons.
The APRESO-CARVET research pair has a pivotal role in the project as it has so far been responsible for developing both the research antecedent part of the project and the development of the techniques of the training program that will be proposed. In doing so, researchers from the APRESO-CARVET group have taken an interdisciplinary approach by combining cognitive psychology, pedagogy and adult education studies and paradigms proper to occupational psychology resulting in a holistic model of promoting critical thinking and media alfebatization centered on so-called self-nudging.
To stay updated on the NERDVET project, please refer to the project website.
Also at this link you can access the Research Center’s recent scientific publication related to NERDVET.