Develop a practice and implement trainings on Design Thinking for teachers and learners in three exemplary areas that are of immense importance for social inclusion: social entrepreneurship, community work and sustainability management.
Context
The promotion of social inclusion is one of the core topics of the European Union, especially in non-formal education. Adult education providers offer a wide range of opportunities to meet the demands of different social groups while the learning success of these offers depends on the extent to which the beneficiaries themselves are involved in the learning process. A recognised approach that simultaneously focuses on user orientation and working in multidimensional teams is Design Thinking the aim of which is to discover and understand existing needs in order to eventually be able to develop innovative solutions.
Objectives
- Introduce high quality learning opportunities and educational products to adult learning institutions, with a special focus on social and inclusive education;
- Improve the performance of adult learning offers as regards usability and acceptance by learners in the three focus areas of the project: social entrepreneurship, sustainability management and community work.
Activities
- Applying Design Thinking process to needs assessment based on social problems, in order to improve problem solving and capacity building at local level and to bridge a gap in social delivery systems.
- Preparation, design, and development of a learning platform enabling educators and trainers to use the Design Thinking approach in the specific thematic areas of social entrepreneurship, community work and sustainability management.
- Staff training of the project partner organisations in order to reinforce skills on the application of the design thinking process.
Resources
- Interactive learning platform that can be used by teachers and trainers to develop face-to-face or blended learning workshops based on the design thinking process.
- Practical Video tutorial on how to apply Design Thinking.
Impact
- Contribute to Social Inclusion through addressing the stigma/bias/prejudice towards people and communities that have been marginalized by utilizing the principles of Design Thinking regarding empathy, perception, understanding and creative thinking.
- Increase the knowledge, skills and capacity of 3 social actors (learning community, social stakeholders, marginalized people and communities) through the training material and the online platform.
- Contribute towards a sustainable and permanent shift in attitudes through empowerment, support, and engagement through the Design Thinking Methodology offering different perspectives, creative thinking and problem-solving skills, time and stress management as well as excellent opportunities for diverse teams and groups to work together.
- Contribute towards employability, inclusion, and sustainable development in local communities through training.
- The medium to long-term impact of the project on teaching staff will be to strengthen their methodological skills and abilities. The impact on the participating organisations will be to have better trained staff in an area of competence which is a key issue to providing educational quality at a very broad term.
Partners
- Verein Niedersächsischer Bildungsinitiativen e.V. (Germany, coordinator)
- SYNTHESIS Center for Research and Education (Cyprus)
- CESIE (Italy)
- Compass – Beratung, Begleitung und Training Gemeinnützige (Austria)
- Grunnet&Petersen (Denmark)
- Eco Logic (North Macedonia)
- FO-Aarhus (Denmark)
