In this seminar, teachers, students, and their work placement partners from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Estonia discussed how they have reflected on current work placement practices in each country and developed new pedagogical approaches to meet clients' needs. The project aimed to promote developing customer-centered competencies in higher education by rethinking teachers', students', and mentors' skills in the context of social, educational and pre-school work placements. Addressing the cultural diversity among clients was viewed as a challenge for co-designing versatile service competencies.

1. Open Seminar , 10th September 2013
Pärnu College, Estonia (Ringi 35, 80012 Pärnu)
9.00 Welcome to Pärnu − Coffee, music
9.30 About the PROcompetence project, Kaija
Matinheikki-Kokko, project manager
Presentations by country
9.45 Tarja Tikkanen and Ingrid Lindaas
(Haugesund College, Norway): Learning in a
meeting with clients. Procompetence project
as an extended learning arena.
10.30 Valter Parve Kristi Ollino (UT, Pärnu College and
Shalom Centre, Estonia): New tools and ideas for
organizing the students' work placement courses.
11.15 Pirjo Lahdenperä, Marja-Terttu Tryggvason,
Anne Lillvist (Mälardalen University College,
Sweden): Multicultural challenges and
possibilities in interaction with parents in
school and preschools in Sweden.
12.00 Anna-Riitta Mäkitalo, Titta Hakala and Riitta
Vähä-Savo (Helsinki Metropolia University
and Meripirtti Kindergarten, Finland): Client-
centeredness in Education and Practice of
Early Childhood Education
12.45 − 13 Discussions and Conclusion
Afternoon Organized walk through Pärnu College
For more information, please visit procompetence.metropolia.fi
.

2. In the seminar, we discuss how
teachers, students and their
working life partners have
reflected students’ current work
placement practices in each
country and co-created new
pedagogical approaches,
methods and activities in terms
of clients’ needs
In this project, teachers,
students and work
placement mentors have
been rethinking their
competences in terms of
customers’ need and in the
context of the students’
work placement in the
social, educational and
pre-school education field.
The aim has been to
promote customer-
centred competence
building in higher
education in a partner
network of four higher
education institutions
from Finland, Sweden,
Norway and Estonia
The cultural diversity
among customers
within the work
placement trainings is
considered as a
challenge for the co-
desining of versatile
service competences.