The Waag team involved in the DO IT project was in Billund, Denmark: home of LEGO and a cradle for ideas about learning through play. We were hosted by project partner Capital of Children (a non-for-profit funded by the LEGO Foundation) and together with them and Fyxxi we trained all pilot partners in co-creation approach, maker education methods and peer-to-peer learning.
DO IT pilots intend to show that Maker Education is a great approach to teach children entrepreneurial skills and to address large social and ecological issues in a relatable way to young Europeans.
Each pilot consists of at least two of what we call 'DO IT actions' (a series of events or workshops).
The pilot partners combine expertise on young entrepreneur education, pioneering in social innovation and roots in the maker movement. And they operate in a wide variety of organisational and geographic contexts. We believe that the expertise that each partner brings to the table will make for a broad repository of tested DO IT actions, to be used by educators across Europe, and beyond.
This wide range in expertise and contexts did however put us to a challenge: to deliver a training that could and would benefit the design of all pilots and cater to everyone’s needs.
These are some of the things we did:
- We co-created the objectives and the programme with the work-package leaders in advance.
- We shared the programme set-up and learning-objectives for the training.
- We dedicated a fair amount of time to self-reflection, awareness of expertise and mapping blind-spots in each pilot-team.
- We gradually moved from instructing participants to a context for peer-to-peer learning.
- We focussed on solving 'design questions', holding off the abstract, philosophical, methodological, management questions for another time.
- We invited people to step out of their comfort zone.
- We practiced the learning-by-doing principle and worked hands-on.
- We shared our approach for each part of the programme for partners to copy and use with their colleagues and stakeholders.
We are currently working on a Design Guide for Maker Education, more info on that will follow later.
