International Academy of Experiential Education

Experiential education as a most effective method in adult education, especially for developing transversal competences (such as social, civic, cultural and intercultural competences and entrepreneurship) has been acknowledged by a number of adult education and training organizations across Europe and worldwide. It is used working with different groups of learners.

The educators and trainers who guide the process of experiential education need considerable professional preparation and background knowledge. Today in our project partner’s countries there is a lot of amateur experiential education happening and a clear need for deeper knowledge and experience that can be fulfilled by increasing adult educators’ access to professional training courses on quality experiential education methodology.

In the communication “Adult learning: It is never late to learn” the Commission urges “to ensure the quality of adult learning programmes: Member States must ensure that teaching methods and teaching staff are efficient and meet the needs of adult learners”. Quality of adult education is a Grundtvig priority too. Thus our project responds to the key policy issues.

Responding to identified needs and priorities our project will produce the following results:

• Principles and training materials for quality experiential education: an overview of existing practices of adult experiential learning in the partners’ countries, common principles for quality of experiential learning, training materials pack of adult quality experiential education methodology.
• Channels for dissemination and exploitation of quality experiential education ideas elaborated within the project: internet site, course participants’ folder (course participants’ individual projects and valorisation ideas), presentations of the project results in conferences, articles in specialised newspapers or news web pages about the project, publicity materials (posters, flyers).

The products will be available in English and the national languages of the participating partners – Lithuanian, Italian, Icelandic, German, French and Dutch.

The main impact envisaged is a strong contribution to the improvement of the content and delivery of adult education by increasing adult educators’ access to professional training courses on quality experiential education methodology.