Learning – Motivation – Plasticity

Learning – Motivation – Plasticity is an Erasmus+ training course for youth workers exploring how scientific knowledge about learning, motivation and neuroplasticity can be translated into everyday non-formal education practice.

The project starts from a practical question: why do some learning activities lead to lasting understanding and application, while others may be engaging in the moment but have limited impact afterwards? Youth workers constantly make decisions about how much information to introduce, how to maintain attention, when to change an activity, how challenging a task should be, when to provide feedback and how to help participants remember and apply what they have learned. These decisions are often based on experience and intuition rather than on an understanding of how learning actually takes place.

During the training, participants and trainers will explore evidence-based principles related to attention, memory, cognitive load, motivation, perceived competence, appropriate challenge, practice, retrieval, feedback, rest and transfer of learning. They will also examine common neuromyths and simplified claims about the brain and develop their ability to distinguish scientific evidence from popular educational trends.

The project will have a strong practical focus. Participants will bring activities and methods from their own youth work practice, analyse them through the principles explored during the course, redesign selected elements, test the revised activities and receive peer feedback. The aim is not to replace existing non-formal education methods with a single “correct” approach, but to explore how scientific principles can be integrated into different methods and learning environments.

The training will take place in Bansko, Bulgaria, in July 2027, with 4 participants aged 20+ from each participating country. We are looking for partner organisations working in youth work, non-formal education, training and related fields that are interested in strengthening the connection between learning science and practice.