The training course “Learning by Moving” took place in 17-25 August 2015 in Estonia, Parnu, Nooruse Maja. The countries involved in this project were Estonia, Latvia, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Turkey.
The general idea of this training was to provide a chance for people that work with youth (youth workers, youth leaders, educators that work with young people outside formal education settings) to experience and discover elements of various movement exercises and contemporary dance that could be used as a valuable tool for providing new non-formal learning opportunities for youth.
The training course was based on Experiential Learning approach.
It consisted of 5 thematic parts:
1. Practical part: Experiencing series of exercises with movement and contemporary dance, discovering own body opportunities, becoming more self-aware and developing creative way of expression and developing personal motivation to use kinesthetic learning
2. Analyzing the experience: Becoming more aware about the power of kinesthetic expression and learning – learning from own emotions and also discovering it from theoretical point of view
3. Conceptualizing: Exploring opportunities for including more elements of kinesthetic learning and contemporary dance in youth work and discovering what competencies it could develop
4. Developing skills on designing and implementing non-formal learning activities for/with youth that would be based on consciously chosen kinesthetic learning elements that develop concrete competences
5. Sharing experience from the training course and developing ideas on follow-up steps on using kinesthetic learning in youth work in local and international projects
As kinesthetic learning is often one of the most neglected ways of learning, (re-)discovering the power of it and developing skills on how it could be used in the youth work provided a great chance for participants to improve their personal and professional skills and thus make the youth work they do more innovative, effective and valuable for the young people in the future.
