TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Nikolina Jureković
The international 9-day-lasting training course “NFE- K2S!” aimed at enabling facilitators, trainers and activity leaders in international youth work and in Erasmus + projects to design, facilitate, debrief and reflect on non-formal learning processes and group dynamics of high impact.
It provided the participants with an advanced possibility to acquire and exercise new tools and competences in non-formal education (including the competence to invent/design and facilitate novel sessions and tools based on the needs of a given target group), to identify best practices, and to undergo a coached self-assessment as a trainer resulting in a development and action plan for the professional future.
All of the participants in this training course were less experienced youth workers and youth leaders, as well as members of NGO's that are willing to gain knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to become future youth leaders, facilitators or trainers. The group consisted of 25 participant coming from 6 countries: Croatia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Italy, Greece and Romania.
The were several considerations behind the type and sequence of activities that we have designed for NFE - K2S. The first one was the typical group dynamics that is found at international activities of such duration and intensity, which means that in the beginning a lot of emphasis must be put on creating a good and safe atmosphere, providing space for the people to get to know each other etc, later to enter into an intensive group work process and at the end to also assist a harmonious disassembling of the group. A second consideration is that in the beginning, the input comes mainly from the trainers, during the core part of the TC the main focus lies on the group, and towards the end a big focus is put on reflection and work at individual level. A third consideration is that the schedule is structured among the logical steps for designing any NFL activity: needs of target group, aims and objectives, main elements and programme flow, methodology and learning styles, concrete agenda of activities, implementation, evaluation. Eventually, some other structuring elements we used were daily reflection groups in the evenings as well as learning diaries every morning to put into written the individual learning points.
Participants were able to learn-by-doing and therefore improve their competencies. They saw the differences and similarities in different learning styles and analyzed them in order to develop analytic skills.
During this activity participants learned how to express themselves better, develop their imagination, how to use their creativity and how to find connections with others; how to accept the differences and appreciate them.
http://www.ngbuntovnici.hr/index.php/civilno-drustvo/vijesti-i-aktivnosti/240-neformalno-obrazovanje-kljuc-uspjeha
http://novagra.hr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9693:udruga-enas&catid=74:udrugedrutva&Itemid=71
Another outcome created was a non formal learning manual:
https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/tool/k2s-toolbox.1663/
-Writing project application
-Designing programme flow
-Communication and cooperation with second trainer
-Delivering session, facilitating learning process
-Creating the manual