A Commitment to Learn
Learn to Change promotes learner autonomy in a democratic and safe learning environment, in which trusting relationships are a core feature. Participants are involved in processes of professional and personal development, through the design and implementation of their own projects and we link the learning activities to their everyday practices and work contexts.
Our training approach is based upon key principles drawn from a combination of our experience of working with hundreds of teachers, and our knowledge of research into effective forms of training and education (Huber & Mompoint-Gaillard, 2011).
Our approach to training is based around the central ideas of experience, challenge and reflection. These are interconnected; people need to work from their own experiences or be given new experiences. At the same time these experiences need to be subject to serious reflection and open to challenge. This is achieved through active participation in a cooperative and collaborative learning environment, learning through discovery and experience. If we are serious about wanting to bring about change, participants need to experience different and alternative approaches to education. Thus there are reflective webs of action-observation-debriefing-enquiry. These are intended to deepen learning through internalisation and personalisation.
Our approach means we are centred on the learner, working from their existing attitudes, beliefs, values and practices to move forward. We also recognise that people work in specific contexts, and that attempts to develop new practices have to be sensitive to the individual needs of participants. As such, part of our approach is to empower participants to devise their own solutions to issues, rather than impose new ideas and practices.
