My TALE continues ....

Among the biggest takes from TALE are the space and time given to me to reflect on my experiences and build stronger competences as a trainer together with a group of wonderful people and skillful professionals from all over Europe. However, my TALE does not finish with official end of program.

It is in TALE that I got fascinated about the self-directed learning, being described as "a process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others," to diagnose their learning needs, formulate learning goals, identify resources for learning, select and implement learning strategies, and evaluate learning outcomes (Knowles 1975). The willingness to experience even more intensive self-directed experience, I took the chance to join the Sauve Scholars Program, providing resources, opportunities, space and time for self-directed learning.

E-learning is another topic that I started exploring in TALE and eventually to do a learning project on it. I am planning to explore further the topic theoretically and practically through my traininers. I have a feeling that its potentials still have to be opened for me.

I often feel "torn" between (a) universities and world of theory and formal education, and (b) youth work, trainings and world of practice and nonformal learning. I have a strong feeling and beleif that there is so much potential for both formal and nonformal education to benefit from each other and yet very little of this potential is explored and even less used in a daily basis by trainers, teachers, professors and educators. As an academic trainee at McGill University in Canada, I was nicely surprised to see professors actively using nonformal methods while teaching. But this is rather an exception in the world of education, than a rule. Having found two colleagues in TALE - Sven and Olga, I felt even more excited to explore the possibilities of bridging and linking formal and nonfomal education. This part of the TALE is yet to be continued ...

My TALE Continues ....