Erasmus+ strategical cooperation project EFFECT
2019 – 2022
The project “Efficiency in adult learning and training” (EFFECT) was implemented during September 2019 to April 2022. Four educational training companies from Estonia (Kasvulava and Loome, DevelopDesign), Latvia (Spring Valley) and Slovakia (Topcoach) developed a curriculum and toolkit for adult educators as a result of an Erasmus+ strategical cooperation project, which aimed to contribute to the challenges with adults who are low-educated or with out of date skills. (Read more about it under “About the project idea”). The project partners shared a common view, that learning efficiency can be increased with the learner centred approach in the learning process.
Project outcomes
In cooperation with project partners a curriculum was developed for the teachers/adult educators.
Pilot courses for teachers/adult educators were taking place for testing the curriculum.
About the project idea
Low skilled and educated adults participate in lifelong learning less than other groups of adults. This is an important issue for most of the European Countries. According to European directions and Member States policies a lot of attention is paid to bring back adults that have dropped out from the compulsory education. Many countries have recently worked out plans and activities to get low skilled adults back to schools to end their undergraduate level. The raise of importance of lifelong learning changes the roles of compulsory education organizations (adult gymnasium, vocational institutions etc.) and universities. These are more or less used to teach youngsters with the methods that are common and used in for decades. But the number of adult learners is raising. That means that the structure and character of learners in compulsory education is changing and it needs changes in teaching level. The issue of learning methods and its adaptation to adult learners needs and expectations is crucial. That means that a lot of those adults might have had different experiences and lack of success experiences in school level, also the level of basic skills, communication skills and studying skills should be refreshed and supported through the learning process to ensure the graduation. For the project partners it is important to raise the knowledge of teachers about the effectiveness and different methods possibilities these might have for the learners results if the methods are professionally used by teachers.
The aim of the project and expected outcomes
The project main objective is to encourage teachers in schools to raise the efficiency of learning processes by adapting their teaching approaches to adult learner centered.
The project will continue almost for 2,5 years and the idea is to bring together the private sector knowledge and best practices with the end result of a curriculum and toolkit for training adult educators in formal education system. During the projects the partners will also pilot the developed curriculum. So there will be around 100 adult trainers/teachers involved in the piloting courses in Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia. Participating teachers will be more motivated, methodologically prepared and open minded to adults in their training groups. The focus building up this curriculum is on adult learning efficiency. The adult trainers knowledge and methodological approaches are crucial for achieving more learning efficiency. The methodological development is focused especially on how to support developing general skills, including for example social skills, learning skills etc.
Blog
Learning material: Critical thinking
Author: topcoach team (Veronika Korim & Sona Štefkova) What is critical thinking? It is a way of thinking and questioning things around us in order to make better decisions. It can be defined as the ability to think clearly and rationally, and to understand the logical connections between ideas. It is the ability to enter into a process of independent [...]
Learning material: Make Group Processes Work for Learning!
Author: Kadri Kõiv, adult educator, DevelopDesign® Adult learners value the exchange of experiences with fellow learners. In course feedback participants often express gratification over new contacts, exchanges of ideas and ideas from peers. However, the opposite has certainly happened as well. In a group there may be those who enjoy the attention, often take the floor, and fill the time [...]
Learning material: Learning Starts with Mapping
Author: Kristel Jalak, educator-consutant, DevelopDesign® In his book A Short History of the Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson gives an example of the explanation of the M-theory of quantum physics to the so-called common man, “The exyrotic process begins in the indefinitely distant past with a pair of flat empty brains arranged in parallel in a curved five-dimensional space. The two [...]
About the project
Partners
The project was carried out by four educational training companies from three countries. The initiators and partners from Estonia were Kasvulava and Loome (DevelopDesign®), from Latvia Spring Valley and from Slovakia Topcoach.
Funding
The project was funded by ERASMUS+ programme (2019-1-EE01-KA204-051582).
The project was ongoing from 01.09.2019 to 30.04.2022.
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