Higher education for sustainability urgently needs to convey soft skills. The project TRACCskills puts a focus on "people skills" and explores transformative practice-based teaching tools. During an online workshop on "Soft skills for hard decisons" on 25 January 2023, an international audience gained insights into the project and was able to test transformative methods live.
Higher education for sustainability urgently needs to convey soft skills that empower individuals and groups to review their attitudes and behaviors in the light of planetary boundaries and existing imbalances, as well as skills that enable co-creation of solutions to current challenges across sectoral, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries.
The Erasmus+ project TRACCskills – Transformative, Cross Cutting skills for the SDGs aims to support educators in designing and delivering transformative adult education, both formal and non-formal, to convey competences that cover in a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral way the behavioral aspects of sustainable development. In this workshop, the project partners (COPERNICUS Alliance, Legacy17 and Visionautik Akademie) presented some of the findings so far, including learnings from the pilot course on transformative decision-making from 6-8 December 2022 in Lüneburg.
During 90 minutes, a heterogeneous group of over 25 participants gained insights into the approach of the TRACCskills project referring to the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and the IDGs (Inner Development Goals). They engaged in an interactive group exercise where they could test one method (stakeholder analysis) and reflect on their experiences afterwards. A huge collection of methods and facilitation techniques that can be applied to stimulate processes of transformative learning is available in the "Transformation Toolbox".
Further results from the TRACCskills project will follow soon, i.e. a practice-oriented compendium for use in designing and delivering transformative adult education.
This workshop took place as part of the LearningPlanet Festival which each year brings together hundreds of pioneering organizations working in the fields of education, culture, science, social and environmental impact, as well as thousands of engaged students and youth activists from around the world.
The organizers write: "With over 600 events worldwide, the 4th edition of the LearningPlanet Festival gathered close to 60,000 online participants from 191 countries. Thousands of participants took part in a growing number of local events from Delhi to Phoenix through Paris, Dakar and Bogotá. Thank you to our 500+ partners and locations that hosted us during this week! Your engagement and participation made the Festival full of passionate commitment, joy and hope. As a result, the Festival shaped new narratives around learning in the 21st century and celebrated on-the-ground initiatives that collectively respond to the social, environmental and digital transitions we need to have better futures."
In an exclusive interview on 7 November 2022, with the organizers of the LearningPlanet Festival, CA Network Manager Mario Diethart introduced the CA network, talked about alliances to tackle challenges in higher education for sustainable development and introducwed the TRACCskills project.