"<< Objectives >>Project ""Successful Communities of Practice (CoPs)"" aims to:- Gain insight in good practice and challenges of CoPs;- Learn how to promote CoPs even among target groups not being aware of the possible value of CoPs;- Develop the competence of the project team to transfer the results and to promote the creation of further CoPs;- Learn how to promote participation and self-directed learning among participants;- Promote the value of CoPs among adult educators and staff of institution;<< Implementation >>During the lifetime of the project, the following actvities are planned:- Research of good practice and literature review;- Establishment of two CoPs;- Creation of comprehensive guidelines about setting up and running CoPs in English and German;- Dissemination activities.<< Results >>Upon completion of the above-mentioned activities, the following results are expected:- Impulses for the establishment of further CoPs;- Strengthening sustainable networking of learning adults -> increasing social capital;- Long-term relationship building between organisers in AE and learners;- Peer learning, participation;- Encouraging informal learning;- Strengthening learning that is independent of time and place;- Contribution to contemporary knowledge management -> connectivism."

Adult education is an important factor contributing to economic well-being and social inclusion in Europe. In many cases regional and national umbrella organisations as well as professional associations, universities and large education providers take on the task of providing adult education staff with sufficient high quality opportunities to maintain and extend skills they need to support and bring about positive economic and social developments. Those efforts are usually directed at (free-lance) teachers as well as pedagogical, administrative and executive staff in the organisations. These institutions thereby attend to the important tasks of quality assurance and professionalization of staff in adult education and they contribute to the development of the field of adult education as a whole. Train the Provider afforded staff training providers the chance to address some of their most prominent issues, search for solutions and exchange good practices with peer organisations from other EU countries. Main participating organisations:1. Lower Saxon League for Liberal Adult Education (GER): regional umbrella organisation responsible for centralised staff training programme 2. Hellenic Adult Education Association (GR): national professional organisation implementing train-the-trainer-programmes and developing key competences 3. University of Pitesti (RO): university active in adult education staff training 4. Folkeuniversitetet Øst (NO): adult education provider with internal staff training programmeIn addition, partners invited professionals and experts from the field of AE to their project meetings to gain further insight into strategies and practice from different angles. The transcultural approach offered partners the chance to gain new perspectives on the most pressing issues from their day-to-day working contexts. These included lack of national standards, high cancellation rates, low motivation among trainers to get further training and designing more relevant programmes for target groups. The discussions resulted in four short papers published via the project site (see below) as well as a short journal article published at https://www.futureacademy.org.uk/files/images/upload/EDUWORLD2018F004.pdfFour papers correspond with the Work Packages:A1: Reflexion, formulation and exchange of structural educational problemsPartners compiled a collection of central challenges they are facing in their day-to-day work and for which they were looking to brainstorm for solutions. Additional input was given by experts from regional organisations active in AE (LUH, Bildungswerk Ver.di, Landesverband der VHS in NDS). A2. Comparison of existing staff training programmes and identification of good practicePartners derived common ‘main topics’ from A1 and embedded them in the individual national AE systems they work in. Through the comparison, differences emerged in terms of standardisation and quality control, types of providers, target groups as well as ways of identifying their needs, evaluation of training results. Partners identified which mechanisms promote and which mechanisms hamper quality work in their institutions. Additionally, the consortium designed an online survey to gain further insight into these topics from a wider range of AE agents. An article outlining and contextualising the results was published as an OER (see link above).A3. Identification of relevant topics and target groupsPartners identified good practice examples from their current programmes, naming formats, methodology, target groups and learning outcomes and compiled the data into a table for consultation by third parties. These examples address the challenges outlined in A1 and give partners (as well as other AE agents) inspiration for their future programme development. The resulting cannon of good practice serves as reference to other AE staff training providers interested in expanding or improving their programmes. A4. Formulating benchmarksPartners identified success factors for their best practice programmes, outlining how others could adopt approaches they deem successful. This allows for comparison between partners’ approaches, programmes and target groups. The document can be consulted by other agents in AE to compare their programmes against and find inspiration for their development. The results have had and will have considerable influence on the partner organisations involved which have all found topics and approaches they are planning to adopt and try (see document for A4). Thus, lessons learned during the project will impact the quality and implementation of future programmes, creating staff training that is more focused on applicability and trainers’ real needs. Furthermore, the results have been distributed through partners’ networks and thus benefit the AE staff training sector as a whole. All results are available for download via https://www.aewb-nds.de/themen/eu-programme/train-the-provider/

Description above already in English.

Across Europe 55 million people aged from 15 to 65 (technical report PIAAC, 2013) struggle with reading and writing and are, thus, unable to be a part of Global Village. Operating instructions, product packaging and package inserts - everyday life becomes a permanent challenge without sufficient reading and writing skills. People with reading and writing difficulties need a lot of strength and creativity to get along. They often develop sophisticated strategies so that their problem is no longer noticeable at school, at work, in a sports club, when shopping, when visiting a doctor and even among family and friends. As a result, they often feel excluded from social, cultural and political life. The quick development of digital technologies, which get more complex from one year to another leaves also those behind who was actually supposed to use those technologies widely. Using online banking, health apps or finding and understanding information on the internet suddenly becomes a challenge. Neither reading, writing nor mastering digital applications works well with low literacy.Adult basic education offers a variety of opportunities to cover the digital and literacy gaps. Nonetheless, there is a lot of catching up especially with regard to the implementation of digital formats in educational content and the inclusion of people's realities into didactic concepts.The project ABEDiLi – Adult Basic Education Digital Literacy is aiming to enhance the digital skills of the literacy educators. ABEDiLi aims at enabling teachers and trainers to combine and balance the usage of analogue and digital media in their teaching, giving them the tools to transfer digitalisation conceptually and didactically into their classrooms.The goal of this project is to empower adult basic educators, faced with seemingly endless array of choices offered by digitalisation processes, to identify useful options and concepts and to incorporate them into basic education and media education strategies. The two subject areas, basic skills and media literacy, will be linked to facilitate an innovative teaching design, which will enable adult educators to effectively implement digital media in their literacy classes. Media literacy as well as basic skills content is considered equal and complementary to teaching literacy and numeracy skills within the framework of the project.ABEDiLi strives to empower the adult educators starting from the digital newcomer all the way along to digital pioneers.By enabling teachers to utilise the possibilities offered through digitalisation processes, students will ultimately also benefit, as they will be able to increase their level of media literacy in a structured way.To achieve this, versatile European experience, perspectives, and materials will be collected in the form of e-Pool, compared and analysed in order to develop an international “Train the Trainer (TtT)” concept as well as “Digital Educational Escape Room (DEER)”. e-Pool is the first step that implies gathering, analysing, bringing into system and categories of all the used digital tools and materials by partner organisations. Partners will share their experience on intensive use of digital tools before and during Corona times with all their dis/advantages. E-Pool is created in Google Education Apps and the final product will be offered as OER. In the second step two IOs will be developed almost simultaneously on the basis of the e-Pool results. They are: a) “Digital Educational Escape Room (DEER)” is an innovative teaching method with the consecutive 2-day training for educators. The participants will be able not only experience the DEER but also learn how to develop the one for their class’ demands;b) “Train the Trainer” is the modular training concept in the form of blended learning where the adult basic trainers will be introduced into the notions and definitions of digital world, experience the digital tools themselves, work together on site and online in order to become successful multipliers. Course is aiming at facilitating the educator of the future with flexibility and methods knowledge while using digital tools in a rapidly changing and demanding world.The final step is designated to summing up all the conducted activities in the form of the Handbook. All the experience during the testing phases with their ups and downs will be considered and put into the guide for trainers of ABEDiLi. The ABEDiLi’s IOs will be developed in two dimensions: a) European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) as well as partners’ practical experience. These will facilitate the creation of a concept that combines the best ideas from Europe and can be used without frontiers.b) the “Framework for 21st Century Learning,” i.e. using the four specific skills known as the “Four Cs”: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. All the IOs of the project will be available as OER on EPALE and in Go

"In most European countries, (non-formal) adult education is inadequately funded. In contrast to the formal system, the sources of financing are fragmented. Allocation of public funding can come - depending on the respective country and region - from different ministries, regional and local authorities as well as communes. Furthermore, employers and public employment services play a central role in the financing of adult education. In many countries and depending on the providers and the individual situations and learning needs of the learners, the learners themselves contribute through fees. Different funding mechanisms target providers and learners to enable them to provide learning offers or to participate in learning.Whilst the cost of many learning offers remain an obstacle for many Europeans (especially younger or older people or persons with low educational attainments as highlighted by the Adult Education Survey), funding for adult education has been under increased pressure due to the financial crisis, leading to a cutting of funds for education even in traditionally well-supported countries such as Finland. This is in contrast with a clear need to increase participation in lifelong learning. The PIAAC results have shown that at least 20% of Europeans lack basic skills, and the benchmark for participation has decreased in the last few years rather than made progress. The Thematic Working Group on Financing Adult Learning European Commission tackled this issue in 2012/13. The FinALE project was a reaction and follow-up on this work. The consortium started from the belief that there is a need to look into this topic from the point of view of civil society and to update what has been achieved to make proposals for policy and financing practice that focus on providers and learners. FinALE aimed to answer the following questions: why do we need to invest in adult education? What are the indicators for funding? Where is investment needed? Which instruments work? Which funding mechanisms can engage (more) new learners? The objective of the project was to provide a set of analyses as well as policy recommendations targeted at policy-makers of all levels (European, national, regional, local, communal) and at providers to be used as information and advocacy tools.Through a mix of different methods, including peer learning among the partners, quantitative and qualitative research, desk research, and consultations of stakeholders, the partnership monitored and analysed adult education policies and funding instruments and made recommendations on how to improve them. The main target groups were policy-makers, adult education providers and organisations as well as other stakeholders, such as research institutes, social partners etc. Feedback from these target groups were collected at the multiplier events of the project and through mapping and consulting key stakeholders, establishing an expert group on the financing of adult education in Europe as a ""by-product"" of the project. The outcomes were published in the FinALE Advocacy Toolkit (online publication), the FinALE Executive Summary (online and printed publication), the FinALE research paper on Where to invest, the FinALE paper on financial indicators for adult education, and the FinALE website (www.financing-adult-learning.eu). All publications as well as further information on the project and the topic of financing adult learning will remain available for consultation and download on the project website. The insights into the funding of adult education gained as well as the policy recommendations developed in the project equipped adult education organisations and providers with tools for their own advocacy work, and policy-makers with a better knowledge about key challenges in the financing of adult learning. While a short-term impact on adult education organisations as well as policy-makers can already be seen as the products are referred to and used in presentations, on official platforms etc., the consortium expects the main impact of the project to be visible on a mid-term and long-term perspective. The outputs are contributing to improved efficiency of public expenditure and investment in adult education as well as more effective adult education policies by drawing on European best practices and establishing a set of financial indicators for monitoring and evaluating use of resources."