Adult students on both sides of the sea - The learning path supported by technology and counselling

We applied for this project with a focus on building a partnership between Otavia (FI) and Audentes (EST) online schools. Otavia and Audentes are exceptional providers of distance learning. Our school profiles are very similar, so it was a value-based match which enabled us to recognize both individual and shared challenges faced by our organisations in daily counselling and teaching practices. As unique service providers in our countries, this project served as a platform for mutual peer support and addressing the specific needs of our students. This partnership enabled us to deepen and enhance approaches to challenges our students face, such as dropout, mental health issues, solitude, work-life responsibilities, and the unique circumstances of those living in remote areas. There was a need to broaden our perspectives on how our students experience learning and the effectiveness of the support provided. By engaging in this project, we aimed to exchange insights, find solutions, and develop ideas for improving e-learning and e-counselling practices, and enhancing student well-being. We wished to focus on improving the availability of high-quality learning opportunities for adults and enhancing the competences of our educators.

The goal of our project “Adult students on both sides of the sea - The learning path supported by technology and counselling”, shortly Audavia, was to build and strengthen collaboration and partnership between Otavia and Audentes. Peer support was important for us to reach our objectives: to share, update and improve e-learning and e-counselling practices, emphasizing on well-being, special education, and individual career paths of students, along with the skills required for the evolving future working life. Our key priorities were developing the competencies of our online educators, making adult education more accessible, and fostering a more inclusive and supportive educational environment. Our goal was that with the help of the project, we will improve student well-being, fluency of studies, student flow and successful guidance of students for future work transitions or educational transitions.

e-Learning: We developed digital pedagogy, enhanced fluency of studies and improved learnability, with consideration to SEN. As an impact, we expect improvements in the fluency of studies and enhanced post-secondary transitions. e-Counselling: We developed e-counselling practices and tools to serve the identified needs (including SEN) of our students and to ease their learning paths. We worked on systematic approaches on counselling practices. As an impact we have well organised and holistic counselling. Cross-national collaboration meetings: Online (18 times) and face-to-face (2 times). On top of this, an online project event was organised allowing wider participation from both organisations. Meetings played a crucial role in enhancing collaboration providing a beneficial and constructive platform for interaction, development and exchange of practices. Both partners enhanced project visibility publicly and within their organisation. A well-thought dissemination and visibility of project outcomes within our own organisations was necessary to ensure that we reached the pursued outcomes of the project.

The concrete project outputs and results are products of cross-national collaboration, workshops, exchange of practices and ideas, active in-school development and cooperation. The final results, however, formed to serve the particular needs of each participating school. The results reflect the specific needs of each school. Otavia: - A toolkit on counselling practices and tools to help offer adequate counselling for students with different life situations and specific needs. - A pedagogical toolkit for teaching and course content design staff, containing new ways of introducing well-being skills and self-reflection to students and to include this theme in the students’ learning experiences. Audentes: - A counsellors' manual to offer guidelines for the counselling process during a study life-cycle. - Updated procedures for SEN students along with a template accessible to teachers, providing recommendations on support for SEN students. - A self-reflection questionnaire for students, aimed at assessing their readiness for independent e-learning. - An agreement with teachers on possible forms of social learning and methods that can be employed in various e-courses. - Three beta versions of courses and a design book for teachers.