CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND: The project Social Entrepreneurship Empowering Development in Preschools (SEEDS) addresses a need to provide European preschools with innovative teaching methods and tools. There is a need for a new European Entrepreneurial Pedagogy that meets the skill needs of the 21st century European society, and a need to provide children and educators in preschools with inclusive methods of facilitating skills for relevant digital media use and competences for becoming active, participating, critical and contributing citizens, no matter the social background, gender or ethnicity. The project introduces a transnationally developed pedagogy, competence framework, inclusive methods, curriculums, guidelines and tools for teaching social entrepreneurship, mindsets and competences in preschools. Entrepreneurship, mindsets, competences and digital media mastery are central to prepare preschool children for further education and societal life in the 21st century. Moreover, the project introduces the method of experimenting communities as a co-creating action-research development and training method for preschool educators and children. Experimenting communities enable a robust and co-creative collaborative community between researchers, consultants, educators and children as a basis for teaching, communication and development in creative, inclusive and socially oriented ways. TARGET GROUPS: - Preschool children aged 3-6 . Focus on vulnerable children, with unequal opportunities of accessing and interacting with technology, at risk of missing out on relevant learning and participation in social groups and the local community. - Trained preschool educators working with children aged 3-6. - Decision makers/policy officials, organisations, research institutes and education institutions working with preschools. OBJECTIVES: - TEST existing digital and analogue tools based on inclusive pedagogical principles that support children’s development of social entrepreneurial mindsets and competences. - TRAIN pre-school educators and children through active and involving learning and experimenting development processes. - ENGAGE local stakeholders in experimenting development of pedagogical practices for social entrepreneurship and inclusion - DEVELOP a European preschool pedagogy on social entrepreneurship and inclusion in a digital era. - EVALUATE the learning results of the participating children and preschool educators to ensure the quality of the developed outputs. - PHRASE Recommendations for a social entrepreneurial and digital pedagogical framework for European preschools NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS: - 5 project leaders - 10 researchers and developers -1 technician - Aprox. 17 preschools - Aprox. 28 preschool educators - Aprox. 265 children - Key local stakeholders contributing with expertise in creative and entrepreneurial thinking, social inclusion specialists and entrepreneurship. - 90 participants (adults and children) will attend the final conference physically, and min. 50 through online streaming. - Aprox. 400 will participate in local dissemination events (100 per event). ACTIVITIES: - 5 partner meetings - 2 international training workshops - Development of pedagogy and recommendations through experimenting communities in the 4 partner countries - 1 final conference and 4 local dissemination events METHODOLOGY: Development processes using co-creation, action research and experimenting communities with direct involvement of children, educators and key stakeholders, are used to develop and test relevant and transferable methods, tools and frameworks that can be implemented by practioners from educator and preschool level to administrative and policy level to ensure optimal impact and effectiveness for the preschool education system across Europe. RESULTS, IMPACT AND POTENTIAL LONG TERM BENEFITS: The project results in development and testing of a European Preschool Pedagogy for entrepreneurial learning and inclusion in a digital era. Developed methods, curriculums and tools for inclusive teaching of entrepreneurship, mindset and competences and relevant digital media use will enable a new approach to preschool teaching that include new and relevant skills to equip preschool children for the 21st century society. The developed policy recommendations will adapt this approach and the frameworks, methods and tools into recommendations for the preschool area to inspire a common European strategy. Since the need for updating the education system to encompass the new skill frameworks and needs for the 21st century society is widespread and prevalent across Europe, we expect that the frameworks, methods, tools and recommendations will serve as inspiration for all European countries. An effective dissemination strategy will secure that the project results will be widespread to preschools, preschool educational institutions, experts, researchers, municipalities and politicians.
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