Efficient communication is indispensable in all fields, but in some professions, it can be more difficult to integrate communication activities in one’s work than in others. In the adult education sector, organisations do not always have resources for employing communication staff. At the same time, good practices and successful activities or methodologies in adult education merit wider sharing through social media or conventional media.
The LEK-AE learning toolbox enables adult educators to take the task of communicating about their work into their own hands as well as use the toolbox to train colleagues and other staff working in adult education.
“In our project, the learning needs of adult educators stood at the centre of our work. We developed our learning toolbox around it and did extensive testing of the tools with groups in several European countries,” said Maurice de Greef from the Free University of Brussels (VUB), one of the project partners.
“We were very positively surprised about the success of our training tools in the testing workshops,” said Carlos Ribeiro from the project partner Caixa de Mitos in Portugal.
The LEK-AE learning toolbox enables adult educators to take the task of communicating about their work into their own hands as well as use the toolbox to train colleagues and other staff working in adult education.
“Among the participants were adult educators, but also journalists and media professionals who were interested in our approach and said that they would like to adapt the training materials for their own sector.”
“Our evaluation shows that participants in the module testing sessions found the learning material very relevant for their work, thereby filling a gap as communication and public relation work is usually not part of any teacher training or train-the-trainer programmes,” said Mr de Greef.
The training materials can now be downloaded as an open educational resource on the project website.