Adults education is considered one of the less structured, ill-defined fields in terms of practices and competences that professionals should behold to operate within. This is particularly the case of intergenerational and family learning; the problem of the “private” sphere of learning, as well as the very informal nature of this type of learning requires more research to understand how to shape practices and which skills the educators should have. In this initial phase of our research, we contend that Learning Design, as practice that supports educators in capturing and representing the own (situated) plans of action within educational interventions, can be a key element to develop educators professionalism, towards quality and effectiveness of adults’ education. We support this assumption with the introduction of our training approach, where adults’ educators are invited to implement a creative/reflective process of five stages; every stage introduces tools for representing as part of the Learning Design approach; furthermore, trainers are encouraged to go beyond representing, by sharing and commenting other trainers’ designs. According to this approach, two elements of professionalism are promoted: At the level of the single educator, and at the at the level of the community of adults’ educators.

1. Abstract
Adults education is considered one of the less structured, ill-defined fields in terms of practices
and competences that professionals should behold to operate within. This is particularly the case
of intergenerational and family learning; the problem of the “private” sphere of learning, as well
as the very informal nature of this type of learning requires more research to understand how to
shape practices and which skills the educators should have. In this initial phase of our research,
we contend that Learning Design, as practice that supports educators in capturing and
representing the own (situated) plans of action within educational interventions, can be a key
element to develop educators professionalism, towards quality and effectiveness of adults’
education. We support this assumption with the introduction of our training approach, where
adults’ educators are invited to implement a creative/reflective process of five stages; every stage
introduces tools for representing as part of the Learning Design approach; furthermore, trainers
are encouraged to go beyond representing, by sharing and commenting other trainers’ designs.
According to this approach, two elements of professionalism are promoted: At the level of the
single educator, and at the at the level of the community of adults’ educators.
hase Description
Understanding the
context of practice
Objective: to collect information and reflect about the driving forces in the context of educational practice.
Tools to represent/think about the design approach: Design Narratives and Force Map
1
.
Design thinking to provide solutions for...: The context as changing, fluid space of learning. The enlarged context of
learning in the intergenerational case: adults’ goals of learning and children/teen goals of learning differ, but can
dialogue in an enlarged context of learning.
Representing the
educational process
Objective: Plan the intervention beyond the procedures, reflecting on the pedagogy.
Tools to represent/think about the design approach : The Four Leaves taxonomy and its 4 steps (information, laboratory,
assessment/evaluation, personalization).
1
Design thinking to provide solutions for...: a clear and concise representation as part of the process of Learning Design
to allow discussion and peer-reviewing on the quality of approaches before putting them into practice.
Implementing
practices and
networking to
improve the
educational
sustainability
Objective: A process of implementation that is continuously monitored from peers, participants and external
stakeholders (institutions engaged in the practice
Tools to represent/think about the design approach : Check-lists, mental maps, blog and private trainers’ log.
1
Design thinking to provide solutions for...: ability of telling a story that makes the whole approach accountable and
shareable.
Evaluating practices Objective: A participatory approach to understand learning achievements and the educational impact
Tools to represent/think about the design approach : the learning/key competences map.
1
Design thinking to provide solutions for...: understanding effectiveness as part of the educational process.
Making the approach
transparent: opening
practices
Objective: To understand the importance of Open Educational Resources in strengthening the pedagogical and design
thinking.
Tools to represent/think about the design approach: templates and a virtual platform to shape/upload the own educational
work.
Design thinking to provide solutions for...: sharing educational practices in search for quality within the educational
process.
Table 1 – Promoting design thinking along an educational intervention as creative process: phases and elements
Background
The quality of adults’ educators practices is a challenge,
that requires high skills and professionalism, as well as
more emphasis on the definition of the areas of
intervention of adults’ education. The foundational works
of Knowles, Freire and Mezirow (Raffaghelli, 2013),
which theoretical efforts went into the direction of
defining adults’ education as field of practice, emphasized
the idea of adults’ education as conversational practice,
based on learners’ reflection to transform the own
conditions of life; this means that adults decide to learn
when there are significant events in significant contexts.
The educators’ professionalism, or the capacity to react in
uncertain situations according to expert patterns of action,
should harness the potential of a conversational
approach, mainly informal.
In this initial phase of our research, we contend that
Learning Design, as practice that supports educators in
capturing and representing the own (situated) plans of
action within educational interventions, can be a key
element to develop educators professionalism, towards
quality and effectiveness of adults’ education.
Conclusions
In our approach we attempt to develop design thinking
skills, as the result of exploring forms of capturing and
representing plans and practices. The five phases of
adopting conceptual and procedural tools, as part of
designing for learning, should hint adults’ educators in
their efforts to provide solutions to ill-structured
educational problems; this is the individual side of
professionalism. However, we go a step beyond,
targeting also the process of representation as
opportunity to peer-review and learning with impact on
professionalism (as field of practice). Lastly, in our
approach, technologies (the adoption of transmedia to
make the own practice accountable and shareable, from
the virtual learning environment to the blog and the
production of an open educational resource) mediate
the whole process of Learning Design. Whether this
approach will succeed in tackling the complex issues of
the adults educators professionalism, will be the next
step of our empirical study.
The Case: a
transnational project
A case study is a methodological approach that aims to deepen the
understanding on the developments of a situated phenomenon, seen
in its uniqueness and originality, as an “individual unit” (Stake R. ,
1994) or what has been later called a “functioning specific” or
“bounded system” (Stake R. , Qualitative Case Studies, 2008). The
valuable contribution is hence the thickness of descriptions and
information obtained regarding the problems posed and the
developments of the situation. The boundaries of our case are given
by:
a) The educational process and strategies to improve adults’
education, in the context of the LLP-GRUNDTVIG project
“Adults Learning for Intergenerational Creative Experiences” ;
b) The transnational and eLearning approach. 6 institutions from
IT, RO, UK, EL, CH built a course and an educational
environment (on moodle) provided the space to reflect about
practices and share ideas, during 6 months of implementation.
c) A professional learning community composed by 23 adults’
educators and a team of 6 adults’ education institutions
attempting to shape new approaches (Adults Learning Pilot
Programmes or ALPPs) to promote the idea of adults as
educators as well as the value of creative languages to mediate
intergenerational/family learning.
In this setting, we will focus the instruments adopted to promote the
educators design thinking, which is composed by five phases. Along
these phases, the educators were invited to adopt tools to represent
and understand the creative process. Table 1 shows this approach
through its elements, while Figure 1 represents the process along a
timeline.
The relationship between design thinking and
professionalism can be depictured as follows:
a) At the level of the single educator: The more the
educator improve her skills for design thinking, the
more she will be able of planning and intervening in
ill-structured problems, providing creative educational
solutions
b) At the level of the community of adults’
educators: the more educators are able of designing
for adults learning, the more they can adopt tools to
represent, share and discuss the own practices,
reinforcing a field of professional practices, which is
also part of the adults’ educators professional identity.
Technologies are a mean in the process of
Figure 1 – connections between the phases as part of an approach to professional development
The educational intervention as creative
process requiring design thinking skills
[Learning Design] is a
methodology for enabling
teachers/designers to make a
more informed decisions in
how they go about designing
learning activities and
interventions which is
pedagogically informed and
makes effective use of
appropriate resources and
technologies (Conole, 2012:
8)
Analisys
a) Trainers’ Competences Map as
counterpart of the adults Key
Competences/Learning Map
b) Trainers’ Log
c) Social media as collectors of evidence
on the ongoing practices
d) The crystallized practice: an Open
Educational Resource within the field
of adults education
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SUPPORTING DESIGN THINKING AS A BASE
FOR ADULTS’ EDUCATORS PROFESSIONALISM
Juliana E. Raffaghelli
j.raffaghelli@unive.it
SCIENTIFIC COORDINATION: PROF. UMBERTO MARGIOTTA
International Center for Educational Research and Advanced Training
Department of Phylosophy and Cultural Heritage
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice - Italy
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