FuturelabAE workshops

Learners as Leaders: Developing Democracy through Change-Oriented Community Education in Ireland

The workshop Learners as Leaders: Developing Democracy through Change-Oriented Community Education in Ireland was held online 1 March 2021.

The workshop was aimed at adult educators, practitioners, academics, learners, policy makers and providers.

It showcased the Learners as Leaders change-oriented adult learning methodology, the Irish model of community education, and learner voice activities. This event was delivered as part of the Adult Learners’ Festival 2021 #BetterTogether.

Speakers included Professor Ted Fleming, Professor Jyri Manninen, adult learners and community education practitioners. Participants had explored and engaged in democratic methodology and discussed the values needed to foster an inclusive democratic society.

The workshop was organised by AONTAS and the FuturelabAE project consortium.

Read the article on the workshop: If we don’t learn, we will have no democracy

Methodology of the workshop on democracy

As an intellectual output of the event we have produced a description of the methodology used in the workshop. The aim of the methodology is to encourage participants to take up the methods and outcomes and transfer them in their home organization, as well as support other organisations to run similar workshops in their own contexts. The methodology is available in English and French.

Democracy workshop – concept and methodology (pdf)
Methodologie workshop democratie FR (pdf)

Presentations at the workshop

Introduction: Learners’ voices
Ted Fleming, Columbia University: Learners as Leaders, Leaders as Learners: Education for Active Citizenship and Social Change   
Nora Fahy, Roscommon Women’s Network: Case study of change-oriented learning
Jyri Manninen, University of Eastern Finland: Background report for FutureLabAE-project
Francesca Operti, EAEA: FutureLabAE Online Courses

How can we manage the challenges of digitalisation by using change-oriented adult education?

Adult education and digitalisation workshop was held in Helsinki 11 December 2019. The workshop showcased change oriented adult education practices and tools, and reflected how adult education could take a more proactive role in the digital transformation of our society.

The workshop used interactive methods and digital tools to reflect upon how adult education can help to manage the challenges of digitalisation, and discuss how these practices can be transferred to participants’ organisations and countries.  Participants gained an understanding, what is change-oriented adult education and how to use a change-oriented approach in teaching and learning provision, and how it could be taken into account at the policy level.

The workshop was built around the following questions:

1. What kind of challenges and problems digitalisation causes for adults, communities and society?
2. What is change-oriented adult education?
3. What examples there are of change-oriented adult education?
4. How can we use change-oriented adult education as a tool to solve these challenges?

The workshop was organised by the Finnish Lifelong Learning Foundation (KVS) and the FuturelabAE project consortium.

To learn more:

• Report of the digitalisation workshop (pdf)
• Watch the video of the workshop (YouTube)

Methodology of the workshop on digitalisation

As an intellectual output of the event we have produced a description of the methodology used in the workshop. The aim of the methodology is to encourage participants to take up the methods and outcomes and transfer them in their home organization, as well as support other organisations to run similar workshops in their own contexts. Even if the whole concept can’t be applied, some of the change-oriented methods could be used.

Methodology of the digitalisation workshop (pdf)

L’éducation des adultes orientée vers le changement et la numérisation FR (pdf)

Annex 1. Agenda of the digitalisation workshop (pdf)
Annex 2. Description of Seppo-game (pdf)
Annex 3_Timeout discussion at Futurelab workshop (pdf)
Annex 4. Timeout discussion method

Presentations at the workshop

Jyri Manninen, University of Eastern Finland: Change-oriented adult education
Anne Tastula, Finnish Lifelong Learning Foundation: Science over beliefs in healthcare
Jonas Nakonz, Foraus: Policy kitchen, crowdsourcing policy recipes
(Megan Schaible’s presentation not available)

Further information on the events in Helsinki:
sari.pohjola(at)kvs.fi