From I 2 We

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From I to We, enhancing social relations by creativity

Erasmus+ project 

In the time of the pandemic human relationships have been forced to change: face-to-face encounters are restricted or even forbidden. Since a big part of grownup learning and development emerges in interaction with others e.g., in groups, it is important to understand what is the exact quality of relationship that helps us learn.  

Enhancing learning potential in groups of adults 

Good social relations are important for adult learning, and thus adult educators should have the competencies needed to enhance these relations purposefully in learning groups. Adult educators tend to stay in more or less fixed forms of interaction and the learners are used to that also. In unsecure changing situations, like the present, both educators and learners have the need for more flexibility and new options of social interaction, and both are also more willing to try new methods. For real inclusion to happen and the methods to develop learning relationships to be more widely utilised among adult educators, their impact needs to be both theoretically valid and to be researched to form a basis for evidence.  As a professionals, adult trainers and educators, we want to support individuals and groups in the learning process in a new situation like this – how to keep the group living and flexible, and how to use creativity in the group for learning.  

The 6 psychodrama organisations, which are partners in this project, have started to cooperate in theoretical, methodological, and practical issues, and follow the international training standards by NBBE in their institutes. The training methods and processes are well established in practice and the theoretical basis needs to be systematically described both for psychodrama training and for action methods in adult education generally. The challenge and opportunity here is to make all this applicable not only in face-to-face learning but also in online training using different web applications.  

From I to We (I2W) uses collaborative development and co-creation

The goal of this project is to clarify, both theoretically and in practice, how action methods based on psychodrama, sociodrama and sociometry, can best be used to enhance sociometric potential in adult learning groups (both online and offline), and to formulate the concept, develop the training for it, carry it out and measure the efficacy. We will use participatory collaborative development and co-creation as methodology to offer adult educators and researchers a genuine opportunity to participate and have an impact on our project and in their own work.  

Three main objectives of the project are:  
  1.  Identifying theoretical and methodological connections between adult education theories and practises and psychodrama, sociodrama and sociometry, and formulating a joint concept of action methods based on the adult learning process in groups, which develops relations for learning purposes.   
  2. Clarifying professional group leading competencies needed for the new joint concept (both online and offline) and creating the training programme for developing them. The training programme will include trainers’ manual and materials.
  3. Carrying out these trainings in several areas of adult learning and studying the efficacy.
Partner organisations

Our partnership and target group of our project includes adult educators, who are working in following organisations:   

  • six psychodrama training institutes in Nordic and Baltic countries,  
  • adult education centre in Finland,  
  • universities in Tallinn and Tartu in Estonia,  
  • continuous professional training centre in Riga, Latvia,
  • NBBE as an associated partner.  

The final target groups are adult learners who study in these organisations, and professional adult educators beyond our partnership – researchers of adult learning and education, too.  

The project From I to We started in November 2021 and its results will be ready by May 2023. Tartu Psychodrama Institute (Estonia) is the coordinator of this project. The project is co-funded by Erasmus+ Adult Education. 

Partner Organisations