EBSN - Professional Development Series for Basic Skills Teachers

Objective

Strengthen existing transnational networks of adult education providers by means of mutual learning, peer counselling, and capacity building. Our work entails supporting the formation of coherent and sustainable policies in basic skills.

The aim of the PDS Project is to strengthens EBSN, and especially its members – who are adult education providers – in a number of ways. Firstly, the project poses an innovative target, one that is often overlooked i.e. training basic skills teachers. The elaboration of the project can be considered a mutual learning process in this field which presents our partners with an excellent opportunity to innovate training practices, engage in flexible recognition and accreditation and disseminate experiences in the whole network.

Hence the project is expected to generate new learning and relevant output for teacher trainers, training institutions, and teachers and adult educators too. As for the chosen specific objective i.e. “Specific innovative pedagogical approaches in adult education (e.g. blended learning, personalised learning approaches, educational technologies…)” the current proposal contributes to this by designing, testing and implementing a new type of training one that is based on OERs in the format of massive open online courses as a form of accredited professional development for teachers wishing to engage in basic skills provision for adults.

Target Groups

Our PDS Project support teachers, adult educators, basic skills trainers, and tutors to develop their training skills and methods to help peoples upskilling pathway to ensuring or entering a position at the labour market.

This is directly in line with the recommendation on Upskilling Pathways namely „support the initial training and continuous professional development of staff engaged in the delivery of upskilling pathways, in particular teaching professionals”.

Main Activities

The project proposes an innovative training opportunity for training professionals. Thus the focus is on training teachers to become fully able to address the challenges they have in adult learning focusing on basic skills development and upskilling pathway.

The training format of the EBSN Professional Development Series (OER based MOOCs) makes it possible for trainers to easier access and attend the MOOCs even from remote areas and deal with challenges that affect their target group.