The role of the trainer between tradition and search for a new identity

Abstract

Module training is an answer to the increasing demand of flexibility and individualization of vocational training. On one hand these two trends arise a considerable potential of emancipation, but on the other one they might cause insecurity and dependence, so that the introduction of measures able to recompose the heterogeneity in trainings composed by different units – more or less independent – and bearings of different internal logics becomes necessary. Following our thoughts and experiences at the ISPFP, the educator belonging to the module training format must adopt three roles: the manager, the teacher and the “scaffolder”. The first one has duties connected with the structure of the training and management; the teacher, whose duties normally unfold in a well-defined module, must rebuild the knowledge – not referring to the discipline anymore – following new criteria, for example the outline of an aimed competence. Then, scaffolding gains more and more importance in the relationship aspects (a reference point for the person in the formation process) and supporting the learning procedures (metacognition, use of different formation instruments). Thus, the module structure formation concentrates itself on its methodological and relationship aspects with a specific focus on competence procedures, which can’t be given for granted anymore.
The duties, which characterize the three roles previously seen, can combine themselves in a different way according to the contingent situations and more specifically to the type of module training. This peculiarity of module training faces us up to a series of questions relating to the educator’s identity: if the emerging tendency is the subdivision of the work, requiring the three professional roles becoming more and more specialized in their respective competence sectors, what will be the induced representations and the expectations of the people in the process of formation? What will be the educator’s perception of his own professional identity?