Learningshift | The future of learning

Project summary

Learningshift will set the foundations of a new learning Era and will guide the development of the 21st (and beyond) learning communities, facilitators and learners. The main goal of this project is to provide the context, process and tools for educators to act as facilitators and change makers for the learning (r)evolution taking place. In the Future of Learning, published by the European Commission, the authors highlighted the three key concepts that should guide learning in the future: personalisation, collaboration and informalisation. And despite the terms are not new, the urgency of placing them at the centre of the learning design and facilitation still lacks priority and action. The need and the expectations are clear. It´s now up to the ‘how’ and the process that will guide educators and learning communities on this change process towards a more desired, meaningful and sustainable learning paradigm. As the Future of Learning report states: “For a talent revolution to take place, governments and businesses will need to profoundly change their approach to education, skills and employment, and their approach to working with each other. Businesses will need to put talent development and future workforce strategy front and centre to their growth. Firms can no longer be passive consumers of ready-made human capital. They require a new mindset to meet their talent needs and to optimize social outcomes. Governments will need to re-consider fundamentally the education models of today”. The focus should therefore be on • Rethinking education systems and redesigning a 21st century curriculum; • Incentivizing lifelong learning, ensuring that individuals have the time, motivation and means to seek retraining opportunities across their lifecycle; • Collaboration as a mandatory requirement due to the complexity of the change management needed. Learningshift involves 6 partners from 4 countries covering diverse geographic regions of Europe. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" (Nelson Mandela) and this argument is transversal to all countries in the world. Despite the exceptional efforts made by the EU, education and lifelong learning still varies deeply from country to country and inside European countries. Across Europe, one can find countries referred to as reference models such as Finland; countries with institutions taking the lead of research innovation such as Denmark and countries where the traditional models exist alongside highly innovative experiences that are not part of the mainstream, like Portugal and Lithuania. Thus, the involvement of different EU countries, allows to: • Promote a common European strategy for the Future of Learning • Develop outputs that can apply to a vaster audience leveraging from different points of view and experiences • Widen the dissemination and the impact at European level Learningshift will therefore produce: • a Future of Learning Manifesto, to synthesize the principles, values, competences and pedagogical approach for a 21st century learning experience; • a Future of Learning web based community of practice deployed to facilitate the engagement of the stakeholders and promote the active collaboration, sharing and co-creation of knowledge (user-centered; multiple ways of engagement such as discussion forums; webinars; etc.) • a Future of Learning Academy, designed to provide the context and process for educators to act as facilitators and change makers towards a 21st century learning experience (to be deployed as a MOOC to reach a wider audience and promote future exploitation). Apart from the development of the Future Learning competences, the project intends to contribute to the development of transversal competences (e.g. creativity, communication, teamwork, cultural diversity, ICT, etc.) of educators. The activities also foresee, whenever possible, means of networking to support learning with and through peers and encouraging new collaborative projects between educators/organizations across Europe. As a result of the project’s activities mentioned above, the project should have an impact at several levels: • Educators will have access to innovative and user friendly learning resources to invest in their continuous professional development • Educators will have access to networking opportunities to foster collaborative work and learning with peers • Organisations active in education will have a new tool and knowledge to act towards innovative learning environments • Generally, there will be an increasingly interest over learning topics thus contributing to the raise of new innovative initiatives across Europe • In general terms, innovation in learning will find an easier pathway to enter the public agenda • In the future, as educators and organizations transform their practices, the level of engagement, satisfaction and achievement of learners should increase