Jump! Training for Trainers
EBUKI are partners in the exciting JUMP! Project, bringing our skills and network to help achieve the project aims.
Project Leads: Rowland Keable, Becky Little, Tom Morton, Louise Halestrap
2017-2020, Sweden, France, Austria, UK, Slovakia, Germany
JUMP! is a project aimed at building trust and upgrading competence for trainers in ecological building. For this, a new common core curriculum, units of learning outcomes for trainers and tools for these trainers will be developed and tested. Access to the new and existing resources will be improved by the creation of a new common European online portal.
The consortium focuses on earth building and straw bale building, two sectors with strongly developed regional, national and European grassroots networks. Wood, hemp and other natural fibres used for construction which are closely linked to forestry and agricultural which have closer links to industrial processes and organisations with teaching schemes and strategies which usually follow a different logic. Nevertheless, the project’s outputs can be applied in these sectors and we will encourage it’s use in mainstream initial VET training for the conventional construction.
At the heart of the new curriculum and tools is the desire of the consortium to enhance a paradigm shift. As Albert Einstein stated a hundred years ago: “The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Sustainable building cannot be achieved only by new technology.
The new manner of thinking Einstein refered to includes non-technical and non-materialist aspects. We believe that change is a major motivation that drives designers, builders and customers of eco-construction and that change can and should be explicitly included in the learning process.
The second focus of training for trainers that we will develop is on how to access and best use all the guidelines and resources that have been produced thanks to our European networking over the last 15 years.
Currently, building with earth and straw bales is mainly taught by craftspeople outside of the mainstream training pathways of the construction sector. Many small, specialised training providers, often NGOs, have been developing all over Europe for more than 30 years. European cooperation was been initiated in 2002 to create common teaching materials for earthen plasters that remain the most significant part of the market for natural building materials in many countries. From 2008, there has been a noticeable increase of promotion, teaching and building activity for the ecological construction sector. Since 2009, units of learning outcomes for clay plasters exist, based on the ECVET principles. With the growing demand for straw bale houses and for earthen architecture, even in the public sector, there is a growing need for skilled craftspeople and for specialised trainers.
Jump! has four modules
JUMP! is the first time that the earth building and straw bale building organisations have joined in a common project. A first even though there has been a close connection between the earth building and straw bale building networks at a European level. Straw bale buildings are almost systematically associated with earth as a building material in various ways. Many of the training providers teach the use of both materials. In some countries there are separate national umbrella associations for the two materials but in others associations promote both. The development of professional training in straw bale projects took over some of the pedagogical approaches developed by the earth builders and adapted the processes and tools to their context: i.e. teaching modules and competence standards based on ECVET.
So far, the two networks have had different strategies for training and for training for trainers. For earth construction, the training for trainers initiatives started in 2005 but remained rare, mostly non-recurrent and only a few addressing the units of learning outcomes approach. For straw bale construction, the establishment of codes of practice in some countries has enhanced the teaching and therefore the training for trainers in the recent years.
“Contact EBUKI if you want to bring training for trainers to your organisation”
European projects funded under Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig programs have created high quality and consensus based resources for learners, trainers, assessors and training centres for straw bale and earth building. The results and products are translated and scattered unevenly on different associations’ and projects’ websites, including this one.
Despite the growing awareness around healthy buildings, indoor climate and natural, low carbon materials, there is still a huge ignorance in the mainstream construction sector when it comes to earth and straw bales as building materials. The specifics of these materials, the associated design and technology are not recognised. Qualifications entirely dedicated to these processes are rare and only concern continuous training. Training funds are steered by governments at local, regional or national level, generally with little or no understanding of earth and straw bale construction. In building regulations sustainable construction usually means limited to thermal performance. In this global context, trainers in eco-construction are not supported nor recognised. In the context of our eco-construction training centres, they often teach only occasionally, in a particular module according to their professional competence. Most of them do not have a pedagogical background and even their construction skills have been built up throughout their building practice, learning by doing, often after career changes, and not based on formal training. On the other hand, studies have shown that teaching and training in eco-construction is at a high level in comparison to other sectors. So the competence already exists in our networks and cooperation will allow good practice to spread.
“It’s hard to know which single action has changed Ebuki the most, had the greatest impact and driven policy further but the JUMP! Training for Changer certainly has to be a contender.
After completing the ECVET Earth learning outcomes, a project which was seismic to earth organisations that participated and to many that didn’t there was an appetite to go further. Since the learning outcomes were all about training and there are so many different training settings and trainers with much experience in construction but not necessarily with earth, training for trainers was our next destination. Some of the partners were the same, some new but the process shifted from the relative formality of the ECVET project to a new approach in JUMP! which sought to find new ways to seek and discover answers, very much the ethos of the intended outcomes, to shift perspectives from what was to what could be. In the case of Ebuki what could be is a shift from teaching learners to focus more on the trainers. This is really because training learners in a formal or work setting where there are no trainers with the skills and knowledge to continue the training then the process is essentially sterile. Not only is the change significant for us, the more we offer it the more positive the response from teaching organisations, a pleasant surprise.
JUMP! was an opportunity to try many different approaches, from the science to the purely physical, from game playing to role playing. There is a lot of connection between training learners and trainers of course, whether the person has used earth as a material, it may be that a trainee trainer needs to start right at the beginning with the material where a learner already has a lot of built experience. So for Ebuki it is a question of trying to calibrate what the trainers need most and then deliver it with as much person centred approach as we are able. This means focussing on the material as our basic tool for teaching. This approach was some of the most interesting output from the JUMP! process itself and proves itself to be effective across many formal and site situations. The material and the tools are the best teachers!”
Erasmus+ Mobility Schemes
Schemes like this play an essential role in building a national organisation like Ebuki which relies so much on its team and the wider members to participate and be involved in a range of activities. Each mobility participant is both a candidate for becoming more involved in our activities in the future after receiving the opportunity, and an ambassador for Ebuki to our wider network going forwards.
There are two main Eramus+ Schemes Ebuki has used: KA1 and KA2. We have seen both funds play a large, sometimes vital, role in allowing partner organisations to host projects, who may not have had the funding to do so otherwise.
KA1
A purely monetary fund, providing funds Ebuki assigns to an individual for travel, subsistence and training abroad, with some funds used by Ebuki directly for the administration of the contract.
KA2
Funding for development of policy or the identification of best practice for Earth Building across Europe. This is typically in conjunction with a number of partner organisations across Europe, bringing in a variety of understanding and expertise to develop best practice or appropriate policy. These can be a fantastic opportunity for individuals and organisations to understant the wider context of how policy is developed, both in their local area and across Europe. This also helps Ebuki become better informed in ways to improve our own organisation, inspired to try new approaches learnt by individuals who take part in the scheme.
The Training for Change project website holds more information, tools, games and links
The Erasmus+ website has more on the project background
The photos page on the EBUKI facebook page has more images
Relevant EBUKI links
Jump built on the strong foundation of the PIRATE project.
-
Training in building often focusses on materials and practical methods but less is known about holding the emotional and motivational space
-
Training for Trainers
-
Funding from Erasmus+ (KA2)
Team of 30 people across 8 project partners
-
Developing a programme of training through gatherings in 6 countries
-
Intellectual outputs for trainers in the form of modules on teaching, sustainability, co-operation and assessment. There is a toolbox which includes games and a training programme that can be rolled out.
-
Re-focus a lot of our training towards training for trainers, rather than learners, putting the emphasis on broadening the access to earth building within existing places of learning, including building sites.
-
Number of Further and Higher Educational Establishments offering Earth as part of their curriculum
Jump approaches utilised throughout the charitable activities of Ebuki and therefore wider into the earth building world