LEARNING ZONE - An easy way to facilitate the Youthpass process

Aims of the tool

AIM & OBJECTIVES

The overall aim of the proposed tool is to Facilitate the Youthpass process in a more creative and structured way, by accomplishing the following objectives:

• Enabling participants to easily understand the way Youthpass is created and their own role in the process
• Creating space for self-reflection and peer-to-peer support when working on the Key Competences
• Gathering the actual examples of the Key Competences as developed during the activity and turning these into content of the Youthpass certificates

Description of the tool

INTRODUCTION:

WHEN:

The best time to start the process is on the first working day of a TC or a youth exchange. Make an intro as part of your input on working methods or intro to reflection groups in the evening.

IMPLEMENTATION:

HOW:

- Tell participants that they are about to fully engage in a learning experience and it will be up to them how much they take out of it. Make sure they understand the different approach used to facilitate that and are able to make distinction between: formal, non-formal and in-formal learning. At this stage it is not necessary to mention Youthpass!

- Give each participant an empty envelope and ask to both put their name on it and decorate it a bit. Alternatively, preparing envelopes can be used as a getting to know each other activity were participants walk around and draw each other’s profiles on the envelopes to represent their owners. You know best how much time you have and can spend at this stage.

- Place all the envelopes in a designated space in the training room. It can be a wall where you stick a big sign LEARNING ZONE or a table or any other, easily accessible space.

- TASK – introduce the task to participants for the next few days of your project: as part of their daily refection (whether done individually or in a group) ask participants to:

* take a few pieces of paper (colourful, non-sticky notes are the best to use!)
* write down the most important and significant learning achievements of the day (one piece of information on one piece of paper). It can be anything related to the workshops during the activity or time spent outside the plenary room. REMEBER! Learning happens everywhere!
* place the notes with your daily reflections inside your envelope
* repeat this process on every day of the TC/exchange

EVALUATION:

WHEN:

On the last day of your activity, just before the main evaluation of the event.

HOW:

- Gather all the participants during a workshop on Youthpass.

- Introduce Youthpass with a short, creative presentations on: what it is, what it looks like, why it is so important, etc.

- Introduce the Key Competences and make sure participants understand the jargon used. Ask them for a few general examples to picture it for everyone. At this stage participants may still think that it’s all too difficult and not relevant to them BUT...

- Divide your participants into pairs or smaller groups (max 3 people). Make sure you use some creative method for that.

- Ask everyone to take their own envelopes, sit down with their pair or group members and share the learning of the week. It is up to them how they do it – they can simply read out information written on the individual pieces of paper. When doing so, participants try to discuss which of the Key Competences introduced beforehand the given piece of information refers to. In this way they support one another in understanding their own learning better and making significant steps towards writing their own Youthpasses.

- In the meantime, while participants discuss the Key Competences, give everyone a specially prepared Youthass form where they take notes related to their Competences (See the example attached). These can be either completed while still at the training/exchange or e-mailed to organisers after the activity.

- Based on the information provided by participants, generate their Youthpass Certificates with the full description of the Key Competences. Remind them that not all the 8 Key Competences will necessarily be developed during the activity!

ALTERNATIVE:

At the end of the activity give participants only the general Youthpass Certificate with their name, description of the activity they attended, etc. In the meantime e-mail the electronic version of the Youthpass booklet to be filed out and sent back to you. This will help you generate the remaining pages of Youthpass and e-mail them to the individual participants. Make sure people take their ‘Learning Zone’ notes back home so as to make the very process easier for them.