Socrates programme based on idea of learning as an individual process

The European Unit of the University of Malta is coordinating a 24-month Socrates programme, "Let me Learn". It departs from the idea that learning is an individual process that each learner continually goes through.

The university said in a statement that it is easily identified that any adult would not return to formal or informal education if since the early years the education system failed to motivate that individual for lifelong learning.

The rationale of this project is the belief that educators can create a listening environment in which they can hear the voice of the learner, understand the learner and be a guide towards the learner's success.

This project, the university said, was needed for the development of a training course developed upon a model which aims to provide adult educators to work out the way in which learners acquire knowledge.

Learners must then be given the tools to develop strategies to succeed in learning.

Everyone can learn although not everyone learns in the same ways, using the same patterns of learning, thus educators cannot teach everyone in the same manner.

We feel the need to develop a course which highlights the interactivity of our mental processes as expounded in the Interactive Learning Model, the university said. An internationally validated instrument, The Learning Combination Inventory, will be used to capture the four interactive learning patterns - sequence, precision, technical and confluence.

These tools will be delivered to trainers and adult learners with the purpose of creating learning environments which truly respected diverse learning patterns, especially those which differed from the trainers' own and which would create awareness and tolerance for them.

The participating institutions are Let Me Learn, Malta University; the Regional Society for the Promotion and the Economic Development of Umbria, Perugia, Italy; the Research Group Gender Interculturality and Mediterranean Studies, University of Rovira 1 Virgili, Tarragona, Spain; the Municipality of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic; the European Access Network, London, United Kingdom; and the Open University of Jesenice, Slovenia.