Introducing the NEMESIS Online Course! (MOOC)

Social Innovation

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20 Jul 2021

Introducing the NEMESIS Online Course! (MOOC)

By SEI

Everything you need to know to get to grips with Social Innovation Education and how to deliver it!

The NEMESIS MOOC is online

NEMESIS has already brought you the Replication Handbook – a comprehensive guide to help you understand Social Innovation Education (SIE) and how to get it going in your school. It includes everything from the philosophy behind SIE, the benefits for all involved and how to plan and run your very own Co-creation Lab.

As fans of collective action, this handbook is not alone! It works alongside the Resource Bank – a resource that is choc full of activities for you to use and adapt at every step of your lab. There are so many to choose from that you may need a starter menu so schools and teachers already using SIE told us their favourites and we’ve marked these with an N – why not try those ones first?

And finally, the second annex to the handbook includes a wide range of inclusive practice that’s taken place during the 3.5 year NEMESIS project. Teachers and School Leaders from all over Europe who’ve already implemented SIE in their schools shared their insights and practice as inspiration to help new users tailor their approach to SIE and Co-creation Lab (where the SIE magic happens!) to suit their context and students.

Now, enter the MOOC! This Massive Open Online Course is free and available to all. It offers an 8 module course that takes you through SIE from start to finish in both an informative and interactive way. 

Setting off

Start your SIE journey by getting to grips with the theory and philosophy behind SIE – how this innovative pedagogy came about to tackle inequality in society by using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to guide young people in identifying and addressing social issues in their local area. Find out the numerous benefits for all involved such as the opportunity for young people to drive a project to create sustainable social value, connect with a diverse group of people and have fun along the way!

Teachers and School Leaders already using SIE share invaluable insights through interviews and case studies on how to prepare young people to take part, whether that’s through the curriculum, attached to an existing initiative, such as Citizenship Education, or in extra-curricular activities. You’ll get to know the Social Innovation competence framework and choose which competences, such as empathy, collaboration, critical thinking (or a combination of more!) your young people would most benefit from developing and then learn how to put these into action through starting your very own Social Innovation project!

You’ll get examples and suggestions on how to enthuse young people about SIE and links to materials, such as promotional leaflets, that you can download for free to give young people and adults alike a flavour of what they’ll get from taking part in SIE.

Full steam ahead!

The MOOC has a very practical approach so not only will you be introduced to what SIE is but also how to deliver it in your educational setting. After getting to grips with the reasoning behind SIE, the modules take you through how to set up and facilitate a Co-creation Lab. You’ll be introduced to each step of a lab:

  • preparing for the lab
  • getting to know each other
  • understanding social innovation
  • identifying a social issue
  • planning how to address the issue
  • carrying out your project

You’ll get a practical checklist of how to prep for your first lab and will get to know activities from the Resource Bank to use for each step. There’s reference materials for the Sustainable Development Goals and activities to get you and your young people familiar with them. There’s links to the NEMESIS platform so you can find people involved in Social Innovation if you fancy being inspired by real life Social Innovation or there are activities to help deepen understanding instead. Mix and match – it’s up to you!

At the end of each module, there’s a short quiz or place where you can add to your personalised Co-creation Lab plan, so you are ready to go with a plan of action by the end of the MOOC. 

Sharing your Social Innovation Education journey

For each step of SIE, activities and ways of documenting your journey are suggested so you can reflect, share and see how far you’ve come – always a great feeling and super motivating for all involved (see some success stories on the project page).  And you can add your digital story to the NEMESIS Community on the platform to share your legacy and connect with people all over Europe. 

We hope you enjoy the MOOC and can’t wait to see your very own digital stories of how your young people changed the world!

23 Apr 2021

The NEMESIS Game – A serious game to support the creation of the changemakers of tomorrow

By ILI-FAU

The NEMESIS project aims to combine education with social innovation to empower young people to address the social issues of the future and become the changemakers of tomorrow. In order to fullfil this ambition, it is important that young people realise that their efforts are not only important at the micro-level, but also for the common good. However, in terms of self-efficacy, students are not always necessarily aware that their abilities and resources enable them to influence social change in an innovative way. In order to support the students in their expectations of self-efficacy and to sensitize them to the concerns of the social future in sense of empathy, a serious game is being developed.

The game logic is based on a combination of elements from adventure and open-world games. This means that aspects like interactive stories, exploration, puzzle-solving and challenges are combined with free, customized and non-linear parts in such a way that they can be used in the classroom. The storyline of the game brings the player as a citizen to NEMESIS City who aims to increase the well-being and happiness of the inhabitants of this city with your “social innovation power”. In line with the NEMESIS approach, the Co-Creation Lab gives the opportunity to work on emerging problems in collaboration with teachers, social innovators and parents. The general goal is to make the city as happy as possible.

By implementing actions and tasks for social innovation, the player is rewarded with happiness points and can increase the happiness level of the residents. As more tasks are solved, the more satisfied the city becomes. In this way, the value of social innovation in society can be demonstrated to the player. Besides the Co-Creation Lab and the Happiness Points, the city map is an important element of the game. Here the different missions are presented clearly and the player can choose freely between them.

The city consists of different living spaces (e.g. nature, school, village, neighbourhood) and thus offers various possibilities for identification. The player is also provided with opportunities for identification through the selection of different game characters.

To illustrate how a game action looks in particular, the example of the social innovation mission “Public Bookshelf” can be used. The player receives a request for help from the NPC on the city map, which shows the importance of reading, but also the possible limited accessibility of books. The problem is thus addressed by the NPC and identified by the player.

Now it is the player’s task to find out how this issue can be resolved. To do this, the player collaborates with the NPCs in the Co-Creation Lab in form of dialogues and obtains knowledge about the potential problem-solving approaches. Questions and answers help the player to find out more about social innovations and elaborate on the solution to the problem. In this context and as part of the learning experience, the three NPCs – teacher, parent and social innovator – offer the player different role models with different attitudes and ideas. The player now realises, after completing the conversations, that the social innovation of the public bookcase will help him to solve the problem successfully.

Social innovation can now be tried out in a protected environment and the effects and consequences are made more comprehensible. In this way, it can be shown what young people can achieve with their efforts. This involves active engagement with the topic and the emotional experience during the learning process. Information or hints, which are now needed to solve the tasks, can be obtained by NPC communication or exploring game objects. Social innovations are implemented through the collection and combination of game objects.

Now in order to set up the public bookshelf, for example, the player needs the permission of the school principal to set up the shelf on the school grounds, which he will get through the conversation.

The task can be completed by examining and finding objects, such as finding a suitable place in the schoolyard, getting a bookshelf from the caretaker, and collecting books.

The use or combination of objects then makes it possible to set up the bookshelf with the exchange books in the schoolyard. After solving the task, the player will receive feedback, further information no social innovation and happiness points for the City.

Now, the player can start to answer the next call for help and accordingly develop the next social innovation together with the NPCs in the Co-Creation Lab. In order to integrate the game into a school lesson, several missions are available that focus on the implementation of different social innovation projects.

The scenarios covered in the game are based on the Social Innovation Projects developed by the students at the Nemesis pilot schools. This approach values the students’ efforts and illustrates possible social innovation practices to other young people who will be addressed by the game. Other possible missions then deal, for example, with the question of how community members can be made happier, how fast fashion and existing resources can be handled more sustainably, how healthy nutrition can be made available to all regardless of social status, how wildlife habitats can be protected and how inequalities can be reduced. The need for action in these areas is addressed and dealt with comprehensively in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The learning outcome of the game is to introduce social innovation, address examples and highlight the impact on society. These topics should help to achieve the objectives of addressing the issues of social innovation, by promoting students’ self-efficacy expectations and offering a positive emotional learning experience. In summary, the unique and innovative aspect of the game is the topic, the combination of social innovation education and game-based learning. In order to raise young people’s awareness of social issues of the future and to create the changemakers of tomorrow.

Antonia Schorer

Innovation in Learning Institute (FAU)

16 Mar 2021

Social innovation competence development Vol 3: taking action both on an individual and collective manner

By STIMMULI

Having the ability to activate individuals into achieving collective goals while being committed towards a shared vision even if efforts fail to produce results, is when groups become more effective and productive (collective efficacy). During the first piloting period, both teachers and students have emphasised how satisfied they feel to collaborate and thus help others to achieve a common goal. It was affirmed that the benefits of a collective mindset are being experienced by children and adults alike. 

“Students have started using the “we have to” wording, including everyone. They realised that it is not an individual achievement but a collective one” (Director, CEIP Los Albares)

Even if efforts fail to produce results, teachers’ involvement in NEMESIS further reinforced their beliefs that they have to encourage their students and make them realise that they need to collectively keep on trying and that they are capable of acting and delivering results. 

What has evolved out of the first year’s evaluation was the fact that the collective efficacy competence is very much linked and should be looked together with the social resilience one, that is the ability to persevere, stay focused on the vision and be self-directed when witnessing a setback or failure. One of the most important contributions of resilience to people involved in social innovation is teaching them to look at problems consistently and consider the broader impacts of their ideas. 

The evaluation results have shown an evolution in children from a position of passive involvement, “a must be done” attitude, to a real and active involvement, whereby they make decisions, propose and act. When students’ ideas are valued and when they are given the autonomy to raise their voice has shown that this has contributed to developing a sense of social resilience that will make them determined and enable them to stay focused on their mission no matter the setbacks. However, it is not only that, as by increasing their voice, you are increasing their willingness to make efforts in order to apply the new knowledge and ideas developed by them. And this was evident in all pilot schools whereby students deeply understood that what was proposed by them was meaningful and were prepared to go the extra mile and apply their ideas, act upon their vision and bring social value to their mission by developing solutions that match the challenges that society is currently facing (Take the lead for value creation). 

   “They continue because they are clear about it, that their proposal for the future is a clean town, a town that recycles. One of the words that repeat the most is ecology, care of the earth, they will continue until they get it”      (Director, CEIP Los Albares).

On top of that, what has also proven to be important is thinking more about a solution, making in-depth discussions, and listening to everyone about the different actions that could take place. 

   “NEMESIS not only made us think of the different and responsible ways we could help the visually impaired people in our neighbourhood but it was through this period of discussion that we realised of our future actions   and so we made them real and acted towards them by sensitizing our community towards those people so that they too become responsible like us” (pupil, 1st Experimental School of Thessaloniki)

Another notable result refers to the motivation provided to students and the confidence gained throughout their involvement with NEMESIS in terms of engaging with the digital technology (digital social innovation) as well as organizing and mobilizing resources (human or financial) for achieving their vision and turning their collective ideas into action. It has thus been observed that little progress has been recorded on that end. This was mainly attributed to the subject of the projects that each school has decided to work on but most importantly on the age of the students. However, what is needed the most for being able to mobilise any such resources is time, effort and patience.  

“Children in Rockingham school are part of the project, but they are not the one’s activating it because it’s so grown up. The funding aspects and the architect take some of it out of the children’s hands because they can’t do those things, which also reduces the amount of ‘organisation and mobilisation of resources the children can effect” (Jen Wall, NEMESIS observation team for UK).

The ability to effectively communicate and interact with others has proven to be an essential dynamic process of the NEMESIS model as students have been able to communicate effectively and negotiate with all stakeholders, uncovering each other’s needs to enhance understanding and be more effective in creating social value and perform purposeful and impactful actions (social communication). According to teachers’ testimonies, NEMESIS has been a catalyst towards students’ integration in groups, especially those with social and integration difficulties. 

“What we have seen is that it has been especially positive for children with social problems. For some children it has been a path of integration, of enjoyment, of relaxation “(Director, CEIP Los Albares)

The generated adult-child relationship and interaction is thus further improving students’ social communication competences because they are becoming more adept at communicating with adults and adapt their behaviour accordingly to be able to do so. This relationship is also providing the opportunity to everyone involved to be a reflective learner, favouring in this way the continuous improvement of the ideas and solutions provided, as one of the most important elements for creating social value through their actions.

“I would improve what we’ve done this year…everything can be improved … and gather ideas from more students” (pupil, CEIP Los Albares) 

As far as the competence of collaborative planning and democratic decision making is concerned, during the implementation period, it has received a high number of references from students and teachers to parents and other stakeholders involved. What is standing out is the joint decision making that takes place in NEMESIS between different and diverse participants, the level of decision making, being active listeners and most importantly, the leading role of students in the decision-making processes in the co-creation Labs without undervaluing anyone’s ideas and opinions.

“We all do the same, although some of us are older and others are younger, up to 6 years” (pupil, CEIP Los Albares)

“We were really pleased and amazed. We contributed the ideas and adults helped us improving them” (pupil, AE Maia)

All in all, even though the focus on assessing students’ competence development has been different in the five countries, one common outcome is that they see all competences being naturally developed in students through their involvement in the different activities of NEMESIS but in order to be able to witness a complete level of competence development more time is needed.

“NEMESIS is not so much about results but it rather puts kids in situations where they see and understand the problem, they are posing questions, and we are going to find together the solution we want to build. That’s the core. Adults adopt a different attitude and we will try together with kids to find a solution and also make them understand that even if it may not work in the end, they are still capable of acting on things” (teacher, École Ruffi)

And what stands out the most is that it is not only the outcome that matters but the process that you need to undergo and the setbacks you will encounter and be able to overcome as a group and continue, that makes this process valuable and important.

27 Jan 2021

Can Social Innovation Education support social, emotional & mental health?

By SEI

Social Innovation Education was developed to give young people the chance to identify and address social problems in their local area and, through hands on experience for a real-life purpose, enable them to develop the competences to do this now and in the future. 

But Jane Fearnley, CEO of Willow Tree Academy and Louise Greenwood, Rockingham J&I School Leader, saw another opportunity. The values that SIE cultivate such as empathy, responsible thinking and collective efficacy could nurture the social, emotional & mental health needs of their vulnerable children. So, in Rockingham School a NEMESIS project with an additional focus began. Social Innovation Education brought together a group of 7 children aged 8-11 (John, Joe, Aron, Jessica, Heather, Luke and Andrew, all pseudonyms) to focus on the positive goal of changing the old caretakers house into a nurture centre for social, emotional and mental health and work with adults and each other in ways they never had before. Could this approach support their social, emotional & mental health?

 The children came from diverse backgrounds with complex needs including challenging home life, bereavement, low self-confidence, emotional and behavioural problems. They took part in Co-creation Labs from January to July 2019, with some work back in class too. They were supported by school staff as well as the adults that took part in the labs, from the local vicar, local police and councillors to students from the local secondary school. I followed their progress over the year through observations, looking at their work and interviews with staff and a parent and was intrigued by my findings…

Communication

In my observation notes I commented that ‘communication is a really big one that’s being developed through communication with adults, presentation skills, body, face and verbal language with adults. It’s evident through being and talking with them’. School staff noticed this too, especially between children who didn’t usually want to talk to each other:

«Aron, who did not used to enjoy going to school, wrote in his first self-assessment that he is not happy working with lots of people and that his communication needed developing. In the second lab when we began brainstorming in small groups Aron said to me ‘I like the bit of the meeting where we do this’ and Luke and Andrew, who were in his group, encouraged him to share an idea he had had with the whole lab. In the fourth lab when I asked him to draw his idea for how to set up a computer room he immediately responded ‘side-on or bird’s-eye view?’ In lab 4 Joe was very supportive of Aron, who was younger, in groupwork. Joe was patient, listened and Aron responded well. When he finished talking, he gestured politely to Joe and said ‘I’ve not got any ideas, you?’ They then presented their feedback to the lab together and I noted that they were ‘clear and eloquent. Aron was more confident than the last time I saw him present – more motivated and engaged’. In his final self-assessment, he wrote ‘I enjoy working with adults.’»

Confidence

In my opinion, and that of the school staff and local rector, the children seemed to gain confidence. In the first lab I could see that one boy, John, was already very confident but Jessica would only share her ideas through the member of staff who was sitting next to her. The rest of the children mostly listened, smiled and nodded and generally seemed happiest when engaged in small group activities. At the end of the first lab, when asked to give feedback to the whole group, only John contributed. Jump to 4 months later. When asked to give feedback every child put their hand up to go to the front and present! Some had more passive roles, such as holding their poster, but everyone got involved! Jessica even wrote in her final reflection: ‘I am more confident working with others. I am not shy anymore’ and the local rector commented that it was ‘great to see them developing.’

The children’s class teachers and School Leader said they’d noticed that they seemed more willing to share ideas and have a go in class too. In fact, at the UK NEMESIS meeting they showed some of the European partners, who were complete strangers to them, around the school. The partners said they provided enthusiastic, confident tours and Louise noted that they were really chatty and explained everything that was happening in the classrooms they visited. Then the children presented their projects to 30 adults from the NEMESIS team and a teaching assistant said she saw shy Heather come alive and had noticed that ‘in class she’s like a different child because she’s chattier and more confident.’

Maturity 

One of the behavioural and emotional issues identified by school leaders was how reactive this group of children could be, due to a lack of empathy. School staff noticed that throughout the project the children became less reactive: 

 John, who used to be extremely reactive and wanted to work on his empathy, began to think more before he reacted and could manage his own feelings and behaviour by taking time out of class, whereas in the past he used to storm out and not go back. His mother noted this home this change at home too, through his improved ability to form friendships. 

 Aron’s teacher noticed that his behaviour became ‘a lot less volatile as he just used to explode…but he’s more susceptible to being talked down, less confrontational.’ 

 Joe’s teacher also noticed that in the past ‘he might have got quite aggressive or might have overstepped the mark by saying something he didn’t mean’ but ‘he started to process things, he knew he’d said something wrong or had done something wrong’ but he became ‘able to discuss and talk rather than being reactive.’

Empathy

The children seemed to develop their empathy throughout the part of the project where I was observing them, though they needed guidance so going through this process helped them experience empathy for people they didn’t know and situations they were trying to improve. For example, when thinking about issues in their local area John said he saw a dead bird near where he lives. The teacher said that sometimes cats kill them:

 John – ‘we could make a bird cage to keep them safe.’ 

Teacher – ‘that would be like putting Joe in a cage all the time – [to Joe] how would that make you feel?’ 

Joe – ‘bored.’

One member of school staff guided the children from thinking about the Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger to articulating why hunger could be a problem for them, and then another age group, by referring one boy back to a previous experience: 

 Teacher – ‘What did I say to you last week about if you don’t eat your lunch? You can’t focus. If you don’t eat you might get poorly. How might this affect grown-ups?’ 

Child – ‘can’t work.’

School staff said they’d noticed a change in the children’s behaviour as they, especially Luke, were more caring when someone is hurt and according to his class teacher he excelled in a recent project where he had to write an account from someone else’s point of view, so his work was put on display. 

Resilience

The children appeared to become more resilient as in the initial interview with Louise she said that her and the Year 6 teacher had noticed that the children ‘do have a lot of ideas but it takes a lot of coaching to get them to think through the thought processes of where they’re wanting to get.’ They thought a project where the children can see real change happening could be good for developing their resilience. They were right about this – even though the project the children were involved in was long term (at least a year) they were excited to see the outcome. I remember one early Co-creation Lab where a lot of information was given out and I worried that the children might be restless because it wasn’t as interactive as usual, but they were so excited to see their ideas for the project coming to life:

‘it was interesting because we got to see the proper house,’ 

– Heather

‘I really like the house and hope it will be finished…it’s not how I thought it would be – it’s bigger and better. Students would be comfy here’ 

– Joe

‘the last meeting was interesting because we got to see what it [will] hopefully look like in the future’ and ‘I think the house will look a lot better in the future’ 

– Aron

So, could taking part in a Social Innovation project help the children’s social, emotional and mental health? Complex needs cannot be changed overnight and everyone’s different but it seemed that the project supported the children in many ways, according to the opinions of school staff, a parent and my observations. 

So, perhaps Social Innovation Education can not only help develop the change makers of tomorrow and beneficiaries of any project but help those involved develop their social emotional and mental health too. It’s an idea worth exploring!

Jen Wall

09 Jun 2020

Competence development Vol. 1: Identifying opportunities for social and collective value creation

By STIMMULI

Drawings of Willow Tree Academy students reflecting upon the 14 SI competences

During the 2018-2019 academic year, 8 schools from 5 European countries involving 56 teachers, 1030 students and 80 external stakeholders, experimented with different methodologies for embedding Social Innovation Education in their contexts. The impact of these efforts towards the cultivation and progression of students’ social innovation competences has been outstanding. The 14 SI competences have been evaluated in terms of progress achieved looking upon a rich mix of sources of evidence. Research findings showed a positive progression in almost all of them leaving, however, space for some adaptations and refinements. 

This positive progression is mainly attributed to the model’s three core principles: 

1) the student-centred approach to learning, rendering students active and self-determined producers of their own learning, 

2) the co-creation process that fosters intergenerational interactions and collaborative problem solving, empowering thus students by making their voices heard and valued and also, 

3) the transformative social action whereby through their projects, students are able to witness the impact they are bringing about behind little actions that can help the world further. 

This is one of the three blog series that are looking into the evaluation results of the first piloting period in terms of competence development. In this volume we are tapping into the first of the three main SI competence categories, i.e. those which are important for identifying opportunities for social and collective value creation.

Evaluation insights have shown that students have evolved from a position of ignorance to a position of interest and positive consideration towards the activities they were involved in and the ideas they were discussing. As such, they think that their learning makes a difference to their community and the wider world (vision for a better world). As the project and their activities evolved, students were able to envisage a better world by focussing on aspects they find unpleasant. Many students seemed to find it easier to think about ‘big’ problems such as world hunger, but they did not immediately view ‘smaller,’ more local issues as a problem that needs solving. Whenever the engagement of external stakeholders was constant and meaningful to them, students felt more motivated and highly inspired and were bursting with ideas about how to make the world a better place by simply following their examples.

“Mr Alexandros made us imagine our society a whole lot different. With his inspiration and motivation, we came up with so many ideas that we felt we could provide solutions to many social problems in our community” (pupil, 1st Experimental School of Thessaloniki).

Students were able to see the good and bad things around them and come up with ideas and ways to improve them. However, the level of evaluating those ideas and responsibly acting towards accomplishing their goal was not that evident (responsible and critical thinking). This was expected given the different and, sometimes, challenging subjects that each of the schools and classes have been working on. Nevertheless, students have gained an increased sense of belonging and ownership. The fact that they are raising their voice and they have been heard making at the same time decisions of their own is of great value to them and make them more responsible and critical towards the subject they are focusing on.

“Right now, children feel much more responsible because they are the ones that create the programme and they have understood that. So this makes them directly more responsible. And gives them more social sensitivity. I think it is a very good preparation at least starting from elementary school” (teacher, 6th Intercultural School of Kordelio)

On another note, empathy has proven to be the backbone of the project’s model and the starting point of all activities. The possibility of participating, collaborating and helping others has favored the development of empathy in students. It has been observed that without empathy, without being able to put someone’s self into the shoes of another person and sympathise or even understand and respond to their feelings, other competences could not be developed.

Drawing upon students’, teachers’ and parents’ reflections, the cultivation of this competence has also been dependent upon different things, such as the activities that students have undergone, the age of students, their interaction and hands on experience and research with the subject of their project, etc.

“The inspiration and sense of responsibility that all students have shown provided the strength and impetus our project needed. NEMESIS helped us realise how me as an individual, we as a team and everyone else are equals and that we must show respect and empathy to everyone and not only to those in need” (pupil, 1st Experimental School of Thessaloniki)

Finally, having the ability to believe in oneself, identify and assess strengths and weaknesses without undervaluing the opinions of others is of the essence in NEMESIS and is what drives people into building their confidence towards effecting positive social change (self-efficacy).

It was evident through the observations and focus groups that when telling what NEMESIS has given them, children explained that the project has favored their autonomy and their self-confidence and that this enabled them to positively use it for their benefit. They felt they could identify their strengths and weaknesses and use that positively for their project as further explained through students’ narratives.  

“(…) you feel like they trust you, it’s a beautiful feeling” (pupil, CEIP Los Albares)

“Before NEMESIS we spotted things that could be improved but we didn´t know how… after NEMESIS, we became better persons, we achieve more things and we are more imaginative…” (pupil, AE Maia)

They feel that they are treated as people and not as children but as equals. A student from AEMAIA (Portugal) has referred to her own experience, asserting that at first, she was unsure about her role but then her confidence and self-efficacy was building gradually. She was really surprised because initially she expected teachers would tell her what to do but that was not the case.

“(…) they did not treat us like some girls who had an idea but instead as if we were two people who wanted to bring a project to school” (pupil, CEIP Los Albares)

The discussions we had with students, teachers, parents and external stakeholders made us realise that sometimes the development of some competences go hand in hand with the subjects that the different schools are involved in and working on and also the focus of each school curriculum as was the case with the Rockingham Junior and Infant School who have shown a positive progression towards ‘collective and creative problem solving’ as this was one of the six learning skills of the school. There are also occasions whereby competences need to be looked and developed in combination as was the case of the 1st Experimental School of Thessaloniki who was working on facilitating the lives of the blind in their neighborhood. Given that the subject they have chosen includes a quite special group of individuals, students had to work on developing a lot in empathy competence. However, we have witnessed that this competence would not have been cultivated and progressed if teachers had not also focused on making them responsible and critical thinkers. There are thus competences that cannot be developed in isolation and this is something that we will be looking into during the second piloting period. 

 “What matters is the combination and focus on a set of competences that are mutually needed in a given situation” (teacher, 6th Intercultural School of Kordelio)

…to be continued 

26 Feb 2020

Stakeholder engagement in NEMESIS: Lessons from Pilot 1

By Valnalon

NEMESIS conceived co-creation labs as open learning environments. Here, teachers and students join forces with parents, social innovation practitioners and any other member of the local community to collaborate in the design and development of social innovation projects.  You can think of a Co-Lab as the main decision-making structure of the project, bringing together student representatives, teachers and a range of different community actors including families.

Community involvement in NEMESIS

Schools in Pilot 1 have managed to engage a rich mix of community partners.  Parental involvement has been a consistent feature in all Co-Labs, particularly in Primary Schools.  As observed in the figure below the number of parents (Family) attending Co-Lab meetings is only second to teaching staff. Non-Profit organisations (including SIPs) and Local Authorities do also feature prominently in the Co-Lab Member Lists provided by the schools.

 

Profile of Co-Lab members

Stakeholders from non-profit sector outnumber the rest

Piloting schools have adopted an expanded approach to stakeholder engagement that goes beyond Co-Lab participation. In total, schools have established fruitful links and worked alongside 92 unique external stakeholders representing a diverse mix of profiles as evidenced in the figure below.  Representatives from the non-profit sector (including Social Innovation Practitioners) outnumber the rest of groups. The key input and support provided by local authorities is also worth noting and acknowledging.

 

Overall Stakeholder Engagement

External stakeholders were mainly sourced by teachers and schools.

“Contacting external stakeholders takes time, effort. It slows things down. Sometimes you need an expert. It would be nice to have a list of contacts.“ – Teacher, Portugal

However, the need to reach local stakeholders is described by one of the teachers:

“It’s not only geographical proximity,  but personality, feeling the space is shared, sense of connectedness, belonging to the same community (neighbours)” – Teacher, Spain

New possibilities and practices

Quite interestingly and in spite of the fact that most of them were institutions and individuals from the local area, two out of three external stakeholders had not collaborated with piloting schools before NEMESIS. This indicates access to new cognitive and relational resources opening  up new possibilities and practices (Drew, Priestley & Michael, 2016)

Previous collaboration with school

When asked to describe the role played by external stakeholders, schools described it in different terms.  In some cases, stakeholders acted as mentors (26) or as collaborators (18) with quite a lot of contact time with the group of students. Some others brought in expert knowledge (14) needed to deal with specific aspects of the project.  Inspiration is also fundamental in the initial stages and the SIPs appointed by NEMESIS have excelled at this. Last but not least, local companies have provided goods and services.

Main role of external stakeholders

When asked to rate the level of involvement, schools did not only consider contact time. Some stakeholders were considered as highly involved simply because they provided some relevant input to the project once.

Stakeholders’ level of engagement

Difficulties finding an SIP

The difficulties reported by schools in finding an appropriate SIP was one of the main lessons of this first pilot. There are three key reasons or explanatory factors.

First and foremost, the SIP category is problematic in itself. It is hard to find people who define themselves as Social Innovation Practitioners. In order to overcome this constraint, schools have embraced a more inclusive definition that has informed our decision to rename SIP community as NEMESIS community and include all stakeholders that have community and social focus.

The second aspect has to do with relevance. Schools are expecting to find a good match that is in a position to provide expert advice on the topic they have chosen. Obviously this was (and it’s going to be) hard to anticipate in advance.  So while the efforts at creating a SIP community are laudable, they will never meet the unpredictable range of demands arising from school projects.

The local factor has made the difference, evidenced by the strategies devised in schools. So while local community stakeholders are easier to reach, they are also more likely to be concerned and willing to act on issues affecting their communities. Tapping into local community actors does also help to prevent some issues regarding the cost and time of attending Co-Lab meetings or undertaking actions with schools.

NEMESIS enables new, stronger connections with local community

Co-Labs, a central element in NEMESIS pedagogical model, have enabled collaboration between young people and adults to address problems in the school and their local communities and allowed students to have a say in issues of their interest and assume leadership roles in change efforts.

As we have discussed in this article, NEMESIS has enabled new and stronger connections with the local community. A broad range of local stakeholders, mainly sourced by schools, have been engaged in the project. Factors like proximity, relevance and disposition to collaborate on a voluntary basis are key to build a strong NEMESIS community.

Are you a school willing to learn more about NEMESIS or thinking about joining the project? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

18 Dec 2019

Launching the online learning platform: A new shared space to bind the growing NEMESIS community

By ASOCCE / ZEMOS98

NEMESIS’ online learning platform marks a new step in the journey of the project.  The online platform provides resources to teachers and educators interested in applying the model. There they can find practical information, good practices, and online courses for their professional development. 

The platform also works as a hub for educators and social entrepreneurs to be part of an online community of like-minded people interested in education and social innovation. In short, the platform matches schools with experienced social innovators practitioners (SIPs) so that together they can create projects that benefit the local community. The functions of the new platform merit some explaining. And who better to do this than two of the social entrepreneurs who are already stuck into their NEMESIS journey? We sat down with SIPs Natasha Anathisadou and Alex Theodoridis to discuss their experiences of the project so far and to ask how the new platform will prove useful in the progression of NEMESIS.

Matching Entrepreneurs with Projects

One of the uses of this new platform was illustrated by Natasha. She noted how the new platform is particularly well geared towards prospective social entrepreneurs like herself who could be interested in joining. In its earlier stages, members of the programme sought out relevant entrepreneurs to see if they would be interested in joining. The online platform, however, would give prospective SIPs a greater insight into the range of school projects on offer, allowing them the chance to see which one would be the best fit for them as a partner and where their skills and contribution would be of most use. They can also upload their portfolio of work and create a profile that can be viewed by other schools and partners.

NEMESIS Portfolios

Natasha knows the good that can come from marrying a SIP to a project related to their field. She experienced this first hand when she was matched Rockingham School’s project ‘Forever Fashion’ in England. Thanks to the experience she had gained through setting up her own sustainable fashion business ‘Generation Generous’, she was perhaps more qualified than any to help these students realize their plans. The case was similar for Alex, who was matched with a project related to his own social enterprise ‘Boroume’. He distributes excess food from homes and businesses to homeless shelters and those in need. Both noted how the lessons they learned from their social endeavours meant they were able to contribute a lot to their given projects.

“I have lived through the motions of it. I have the inside information”.

Natasha remembers fondly how passionate the children were about their NEMESIS goals and feels proud she was able to be a source of inspiration. Likewise, Alex concurs that his school visits were, for him, the most impactful part of the project. If this is the level of success that has come from the matches we’ve made so far, then imagine what projects we can achieve if SIPs have a platform to select and create projects by themselves!

Natasha Athanasiadou, Social Entrepreneur & Partner in NEMESIS

“SIPs would be able to see open projects where they can offer their help as well as areas of interest that they can contribute to or initiate and run.”

“Ideally, it will be a very helpful tool which will connect them to schools and their students who need their guidance and inspiration in order to become themselves also social innovation practitioners!”

Training Programmes

Furthermore, Natasha and Alex believe the new platform to be worth its weight in salt for another reason: training programmes. That’s right. The platform will serve as something of a guideline. It will be a toolkit that can empower our students, parents and teachers to succeed and to help stimulate ideas that can further develop and improve the programmes that they have designed.

Examples of these training programmes include teacher training modules, a medium for teachers to get a grounding in the NEMESIS ethos. It provides examples of ways to apply the social innovation education model – something that we reckon will come in handy given that this initiative is one of the first of its kind. 

Connecting the NEMESIS community

Last but not least, both Alex and Natasha see the online platform as a way of “connecting a community of changemakers across countries, progressions, and ages to make social innovation a norm in education”. Given that the schools and social innovation practitioners (SIPs) involved in NEMESIS are now spread over a host of different states, this new measure seeks to bind the international NEMESIS community. The platform is available in seven languages* and has a Co-Creation Area where teachers and students can find the tools for work in their Social Innovation projects as well as sharing ideas and content.

This aims to allow all NEMESIS individuals to maintain relations, exchange ideas and ask one another for advice that can help to develop each person’s respective project and, in this way, continue to advance the programme as a whole. This is certainly what Alex believes:

Alex Theodoridis, Social Entrepreneur & Partner at NEMESIS

“For me it’s the exactly its raison d’etre, namely to create a place where the various stakeholders of a different approach to education in the future can meet, discuss, co-create and change young people’s minds about their approach towards society, the environment, etc.”

It is hoped, then, that the platform will strengthen the international NEMESIS community – one that Natasha and Alex perceive to be full of likeminded people and many of whom they would call “friends” by now.

Are you a school willing to learn more about NEMESIS or thinking about joining the project? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

* Deutch, Ελληνικά, English, Español, Français, Nederlands, Português

28 Nov 2019

7th partner meeting in Utrecht

By NEMESIS

Our 7th international partners’ meeting wrapped up three weeks ago, and as usual, it was filled with both insight and inspiration. The beautiful city of Utrecht served as the backdrop to a discussion on the progress of the project and how it is being developed. The event was held at UniC, an innovative school with flexible schedules and personalized coaching, which encourages students to take ownership of their own education and to create their own system of learning.

Over the course of two intensive days, our partners and several schools involved in NEMESIS came together to present some of their discoveries/developments advances and explore new opportunities surrounding our second pilot. Our meeting was mainly focused on the work of our first pilot NEMESIS schools and the new ones that are joining us this year.

Conclusions of the First Pilot: shifting the education system

The results of the first pilot period showed how students can benefit from their involvement in the NEMESIS co-creation labs in terms of their emotional, cognitive, behavioural and agentic engagement.

Focusing on the collective group of students rather than on the individual, our practice is largely derived from participatory design techniques and collaborative thinking. This, in the context of our (evaluation) findings, enables teachers to motivate students, and stimulate their cognitive engagement with the subject matter. They can highlight the connection between different subject areas, create team-based teaching strategies and encourage students to take action. This ultimately improves the relationship between individuals in the school, making for a better environment both inside and outside the classroom.

“For me, it’s absolutely different: working with external partners, dealing with something global, the neighbourhood… it’s not so much about results but about giving kids exposure to the different issues and putting them in the driving seat. We see a problem, we investigate it, and together we find a way we want to solve it. That’s the goal, to work together with kids to find a solution, and in the process to make them realize that even if it doesn’t work in the end, they are still capable of taking action” (Headmaster – France)

The co-creation labs can be viewed as an extracurricular activity that facilitates the participation of families and external stakeholders. However, NEMESIS also presents an opportunity to create links between the project and core schools subjects and coursework:

“In class, we learn about cleaning up the ocean. The fact that this was related, then, to our NEMESIS project really enhanced the learning experience for the kids.   It added a ‘real’ element to the work.” (Teacher, Willow Tree Academy, UK)

Expectations for the Second Pilot: shaping our future

The previous year in NEMESIS, 8 schools, 56 teachers and 1030 students around Europe tested our new and experimental educational approach to empower young people. Once that NEMESIS has proved its potential to be extended to a larger number of new schools, each country started working on their national plans to scaling up the project.

For the new schools in pilot countries, the NEMESIS team is introducing teacher training programmes. This, it is hoped, will help to give them a concrete idea of the NEMESIS ethos and lay the foundations for their participation in year 2 of the pilot project.

The project coordinator, The Institute for Learning Innovation, presented the prototype of the NEMESIS MOCC to the partners, where the teacher trainings, among other materials, will be available on our Learning online Platform by the end of this year.

Exploitation and sustainability of the NEMESIS’ outcomes

We had a very interesting session facilitated by Catherine Brentnall and Jen Wall. This work session was designed for NEMESIS members to come up with how to make the positive impact of the projects sustainable and potentially exploit them further. It aimed to ensure greater longevity of the projects.

To facilitate this, Catherine and Jen used a practice called Cooperative Learning, developed by Jakob Werdelin, It consists of a pre-structured group effort the success of which depends on each specific member carrying out certain tasks at certain times. Cooperative Learning aims to solve questions that often arise during the participative sessions, like the difference in how confident participants are at speaking publicly:

“The learning method that is espoused is true learning — it encourages the development of the inner voice and promotes an ability to speak out loud and engage with others. This issue of individual versus group is as old as the discussion of knowledge versus skills. It brings us back to the discussion of finding alternatives to the aspiration discourse within widening participation.” cooperative learnings works 

We perceive strong potential in the NEMESIS model to help to shape the future of education, to empower students to be change-makers and contribute to a better society. Not only can it embed social innovation in curricular and extracurricular activities. It can also provide a lasting practice for schools who wish to reshape social or environmental systems that perpetuate injustice or lack of participative representation.

Do you want to learn about other schools projects in NEMESIS? Click here.

Are you a school willing to learn more about NEMESIS or thinking about joining the project? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who – as those mentioned here– would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

15 Oct 2019

How students’ attempts to contribute to a better society impact the school?

By STIMMULI

The previous year in NEMESIS, 8 schools, 56 teachers and 1030 students around Europe used a new and experimental educational approach to empower young people. This involved the creation of social innovation projects within schools. Co-creation labs were set up to promote collaborative relations between students and adults where they were tasked with jointly address social challenges in their school or the wider community.

The results of the first pilot period demonstrated that students can benefit from their involvement in the NEMESIS co-creation labs in terms of their emotional, cognitive, behavioral and agentic engagement:

In terms of emotional engagement, students felt that their voice was heard, valued and acted upon. This made them feel important to their school, increasing their sense of belonging there. As a result of the redefined relationships that were formed with adults, students’ confidence was boosted, making them feel like they were not being treated simply as children, but as skilled individuals capable of fulfilling their goals.

“It’s like getting out of the classroom, it’s more real. We are not treated like kids but as people” (pupil, CEIP los Albares).

This increase in their self-confidence also manifested itself as an increase in the children’s maturity.

“I like that I feel more grown-up because I am talking to adults” (pupil, Rockingham) 

On top of that, students came up with the ideas for the projects themselves, making them feel more autonomous and empowered. 

“NEMESIS gave us more independence to do things that we wanted. It made us more able to carry out our projects.” (student, IES El Batan)

The fact that the projects were of tangible benefit to their community further reinforced this emotional engagement. It positively impacted their feeling of connectedness to their communities as well as strengthening their sense of collective efficacy as a result of the new relationships that were formed with adults and peers.

“If the task assigned to the children was to start a business, it wouldn’t have the same emotional charge. It becomes even more evident these days, that we need to give back to the community. Getting children to understand this can have serious emotional benefits” (Teacher, 6th Intercultural school of Kordelio)

In terms of cognitive engagement, students greatly understood the real purpose of their learning. They took ownership of their ideas to drive their projects forward and thus felt more motivated to perform in class because it felt personal, important and relevant to them.

“I can now see my student’s willingness and passion to perform activities that they found boring before. Now they suddenly all want to become “readers” and “writers” because they see the practical importance these skills can have.” (teacher, 6th intercultural school of Kordelio) 

In terms of behavioral engagement, the inclusive environment created by the co-creation labs as well as the support from adults helped shy students to come out of the woodwork and generally built confidence among the class. Moreover, the way students behave towards each other in school has also been positively affected by NEMESIS. In working together towards a common goal, students were required to act maturely and put aside their differences.

“In some cases, I felt NEMESIS was really changing the school culture. Students that didn’t normally speak now behave differently … they have ideas, ask questions… I did not know they had their own ideas; that they thought so critically.” (Teacher, AE Maia) 

Finally, with regard to agentic engagement, it has been observed that students have been very proactive, making constructive suggestions. Such an increase in the students’ agency is connected to the strong sense of ownership and enthusiasm that they have developed in their social innovation projects and the collective effort of the co-creation Labs.

“It’s our project, we make decisions. Before we were told what to do.” (student, AE Maia) 

“We will improve the school. And I will be helping to do it. We will change it. If we all assume our responsibility, we will make it! I believe it!” (Student, AE Maia) 

Do you want to learn about other school projects in NEMESIS? Click here.

Are you a school willing to learn more about NEMESIS or thinking about joining the project? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

26 Sep 2019

The student experience of NEMESIS: cultivating self-positivity in the classroom

By SEI

Having had the privilege to take part in and closely observe pilot period 1 of NEMESIS at Rockingham Junior and Infant School, I realise how important the power of self-positivity is. We all know what it means to be positive, and how this can sometimes be a struggle. So when ‘positivity’ becomes an intrinsic part of someone’s mentality, it can be extremely powerful. While ‘self-positivity’ may not be an element you can tap into in every part of your life, that does not mean it is not attainable. Even if you are only experiencing positivity in one aspect of it, this can be harnessed to permeate your whole mindset!

A new driving force

‘One parent noted that it made her son feel worthy – a powerful sentiment – which I know from my teaching career can increase motivation, engagement and feeling good about oneself.’

During the 9 month NEMESIS project, children took the lead in restoring the caretaker’s house at their school. The trends in behaviour visible over the course of this project were complex and intriguing to say the least! It seemed that the children’s motivation within the programme came from being given ownership over the project. Activities such as teaching adults how to record on tablets encouraged the students to see how valuable and important their work and ideas truly were. One parent noted that it made her son feel worthy – a powerful sentiment – which I know from my teaching career can increase motivation, engagement and feeling good about oneself.

Praise can take many forms

“NEMESIS gives students a voice and we can make decisions” – a NEMESIS student.

As a teacher, I also understand that different forms of praise must be given depending on the child and situation in question. The children’s participation in the NEMESIS project, however, seemed to create a form of praise all of its own. The pupils were left feeling “valued, worthy and important“. This is because, in getting the chance to take charge of the operation themselves, they were not only being listened to… but heard! They were not merely dismissed as token children. As one 9 year old boy commented: “NEMESIS gives students a voice and we can make decisions.” The fact that their decisions were taken seriously became an implicit form of praise – implicit because praise didn’t always have to be verbal. Carrying out the ideas that the children had come up with was praise enough. As the adage goes ‘actions speak louder than words.’

Real life = real feelings

Working on something real to create a positive outcome for yourself and others brings about a sense of achievement, happiness and positivity. Knowing the project was really happening, and not just an abstract concept to write about in class, had a significant impact on the children: ‘it was interesting because we got to see the proper house,’ ‘I really like the house and hope it will be finished,’ ‘it’s not how I thought it would be – it’s bigger and better. Students would be comfy here.’ Children could take pride in the knowledge they were doing good for themselves and others. The contribution that they were making acted as motivation. It encouraged them to carry on…

 

Students at Rockingham School, In Sheffield (UK)

That communal spirit

“I can help alongside other people.”

Working with children and adults of all different ages and backgrounds was a novelty for the students of Rockingham. Despite the Junior and Infant school being a newcomer to the programme, however, the educational programme proved to be a resounding success. The collective feeling of working together towards something positive nurtured good feelings and positive results as the children, and adults, saw how two, three, four… (you see where I’m going with this) minds are better than one! The children all said that they enjoyed working with people more as the project went on while one adult noted the joint collaborative effort to be “very powerful.” It seems it’s not only the children that are motivated by this shared approach to improving the world.

All these important things, feeling empowered, valued, listened to and important, interlink in complex ways, mirroring the complexity of the human mind to bring about that wonderful feeling of positivity. The combination of emotional, cognitive, behavioural and agentic engagement was different in every child, usually comprising more than one element, to produce a combination that made them feel good. This, when sustained over time, can become innate in the child – making them happier, more motivated learners. Imagine if all education made you feel this good!

Author: Jen Wall

Author’s note: the research conducted was on a small group of 7 children aged 6 – 11 years old hence my qualitative findings are not generalisable. I am not suggesting this would be the same for everyone, merely sharing initial insights gleaned from my research.

NEMESIS is a Horizon 2020 project bringing together education and social innovation to empower the changemakers of tomorrow. The project started in 2018 and it will continue until 2021. At the moment there are ten schools involved from five European countries and a second pilot will start in September 2019, for which we invite more schools.

 Do you want to learn about other schools projects in NEMESIS? Click here.

Are you a school willing to learn more about NEMESIS or thinking about joining the project? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who – as those mentioned here- would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor

13 Sep 2019

Teachers’ Training Event in Thessaloniki

By STIMMULI

Some days before the official start of the academic year 2019 -2020, the NEMESIS team organized a teacher’s training workshop in the premises of the 9th high school of Kalamaria in Thessaloniki, Greece. The aim of the workshop was to introduce to new schools and the 56 participating teachers the NEMESIS educational philosophy and set the ground for their involvement in the second pilot year of the project.

The training focused on different aspects of the projects:

i) concepts around social innovation and social entrepreneurship,

ii) the key principles guiding the NEMESIS educational model, namely: the student-centred approach, co-creation and transformative social action,

iii) the project mechanisms that will be utilized in each school to facilitate the pilot implementation such as the co-creation labs and the NEMESIS SI open learning platform.

To avoid long theoretical discussions, teachers from the three Greek schools that participated in the first pilot year of the project shared their experiences and helped the new schools with practical tips and guidance. Also, the Greek SIP Alexander Theodoridis from Boroume helped the participants to better understand concepts around social innovation and social entrepreneurship and the role of the SIPs in the NEMESIS co-creation labs.

Overall, the discussions held during the workshop enabled the new teachers to get to grips with the NEMESIS model but most importantly brought to surface some “expected” challenges for implementing the NEMESIS model in the new academic year. As anticipated, the challenges that were pointed out relate to

i) teachers established teaching practices and the need to change their instructional style, step back and let students lead the way,

ii) difficulties in understanding the wider concept of social innovation

iii) existing attitudes and narrow perceptions towards linking entrepreneurship and school education.

However, the valuable experience and the lessons learned from the first pilot year will help the NEMESIS teams to better address teachers concerns and challenges ensuring an even more successful and enlightening second pilot year whereby more than 30 schools around Europe will try to implement the NEMESIS model in their contexts.

Dr. Aristidis Protopsaltis (ILI-FAU) giving a presentation during the training

 

The NEMESIS team would like to thank all participants and wish them a creative and successful school year.

 Do you want to learn about other schools projects in NEMESIS? Click here.

Are you a school willing to learn more about NEMESIS or thinking about joining the project? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who – as those mentioned here- would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

10 Sep 2019

NEMESIS in the 7EMES International Research Conference on Social Enterprise

By STIMMULI

In 24-27 June 2019, the NEMESIS team participated in the 7EMES International Research Conference on Social Enterprise which is one of the world’s central meeting places for all researchers that are involved in social enterprise, social entrepreneurship and social and solidarity economy research across the globe. 

The first day of the Conference was launched with a Transdisciplinary Forum and NEMESIS was presented during three sessions. In the first session, a fishbowl technique was used and the 20 participants had the chance to get information about the project and reflect upon social innovation in education. In the second NEMESIS session, the OPERA technique was utilized enabling people to reflect upon how could education help society in the 21st century. In the last NEMESIS session, Catherine Brentnall (SEI) gave a presentation on NEMESIS as an alternative to competitive Enterprise Education. 

Figure 1: NEMESIS session 1, facilitated by Catherine Brentnall (SEI) and using the fishbowl technique to discuss about Social Innovation in Education

In the second day of the conference, NEMESIS was presented through two research papers by the project partners Stimmuli and ILI-FAU, focusing on discussing the Social Innovation Learning Framework and the Social Innovation Open learning platform developed by the project.

Figure 2: Presentation of the research paper: “Towards a Social Innovation learning framework” by Irene Kalemaki (Stimmuli)

Figure 3: Presentation of the research paper: “Social Innovation Open Learning Platform” by Dr. Aristidis Protopsaltis (ILI-FAU)

The novelty of the NEMESIS project, as well as the first research findings that were presented, attracted the attention of the audience and fruitful discussions were held on how social innovation education can impact the wider education domain.

 Do you want to learn about other schools projects in NEMESIS? Click here.

Are you a school willing to learn more about NEMESIS or thinking about joining the project? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who – as those mentioned here- would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

28 Aug 2019

Pedagogies for active citizenship: flavours, strategies and tensions

By Valnalon

“Our education systems and schools need to prepare young people to become active, participative and responsible individuals: the complex, multicultural and rapidly evolving societies we live in cannot do with less.”

(Reference Framework for Competences for Democratic Culture  vol.1, p.7)

Few would disagree that preparation for life as active citizens in democratic societies is one of the major purposes of education.  As observed in the opening quote schools are expected to drive “activation”, the process(es) of becoming an active, participative and responsible individual. Yet, the expression “active citizenship” is taken for granted. What does it really mean?

By way of scene-setting, we can locate the different flavours or conceptions of active citizenship along a continuum.

  • “personally responsible’ citizens… ‘public spirited’ citizens who obey the law and pay their taxes
  • ‘participatory’ citizens …. active community members who volunteer and take on leadership and initiative within established systems and structures
  • ‘justice-oriented’ citizens…. concerned for social justice, a desire to improve society and question structural factors that perpetuate injustices

You may have noticed the three categories are not mutually exclusive, but each of them may require different pedagogical strategies.  Woods, Taylor, Atkins and Johnston (2018) took the “justice-oriented” route “where the aim is to equip students with the ability to critically analyse society and address social issues and injustices” and tried to understand how this particular learning journey is best planned and supported in an educational setting.

By observing and talking to secondary school teachers and students involved in a citizenship curriculum initiative in New Zealand,  the authors sought to identify pedagogies with potential for critical and transformative citizenship learning.  New Zealand teachers employed a combination of  strategies to deepen affective and cognitive engagement  in order to win the hearts and minds of students:

Pedagogical Strategies to deepen affective engagement

Teachers encouraged students to:

  • Step into other people’s shoes
  • Access digital media which connected directly with people associated with the social issue (eg.  personal blogs of refugees or homeless people, videos of inspirational actions of others)
  • Connect  with inspiring community members who themselves were already making a difference
  • Select their own social issue to study

Pedagogical Strategies to deepen cognitive engagement

Teachers encouraged students to:

  • deepen the level of critical thinking.
  • work on the root causes of a problem.
  • explore the controversial and contested nature of social issues by considering alternative perspectives

Two tensions came to the fore in conversations with teachers and students:

  • The first tension had to do with the “heart vs mind” conflict or to put it in slightly more technical terms, balancing the right dose of affective and cognitive engagement.   “Feeling inspired or moved to take social action alone did not lead to critical or transformative acts of citizenship,  deep knowledge was also essential.”  Lack of knowledge, low levels of confidence or little prior experience in taking social action may result in poorly conceived social actions. More structured and teacher-led approaches are needed here. Drawbacks? Lower levels of student engagement or  even resentment
  • A second tension had to do with immediate or delayed gratification. “Unless teachers took a strong and intentional focus on critical and transformative forms of social action, there was a tendency toward apolitical and ‘quick-fix’ forms of social action.”   So this is not action for the sake of action, but action that goes hand in hand with a critique of institutional injustices and attempts to leverage policy change.

And while I was reading this I recalled a third tension, the one between” civic-mindedness (construed as solidarity with and loyalty towards other people) and moral responsibility.” (Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture Vol 1, p 44). Should we go with the flow or swim against the tide? Should we always take action, or refusing to act is the best option to confront social injustice?

Dealing with all these tensions confirms the need for highly skilled specialist teachers who are “agile and creative in mastering a wide variety of topics and issues as well as figuring out curricular connections, often on the fly”.  Teachers are adept at managing a delicate juggle that entails  “letting go” and “jumping in”,  keeping students’ spirits high through action while creating time and space for reflection, identifying short-term milestones while not losing focus on long-term and structural change.

Finally, authors stress it is unrealistic to think a single experience, no matter how positive, could churn out active citizens as if by magic.  So, don´t be harsh on yourself if projects fall short of achieving the critical and transformative level you aimed for.  Students will get better at if they are given more than one opportunity to practice social action.  As experiences accumulate,  they will be able to take on more difficult and systemic social issues.

So, what’s in it for NEMESIS?

1.       It helps to clarify what we mean by socio/political activation in our definition of Social Innovation. “Social Innovation Education is a collaborative and collective learning process for the empowerment and socio/political activation of students to drive social change […]

2.       This is more of an open question for teachers in NEMESIS pilot schools.  Do the pedagogical strategies and tensions identified in New Zealand resonate with your experiences in the piloting phase?

 

Further reading:

Wood, B. E., Taylor, R., Atkins, R., & Johnston, M. (2018). Pedagogies for active citizenship: Learning through affective and cognitive domains for deeper democratic engagement. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 259-267.

02 Jul 2019

It’s time for better schools: NEMESIS partners meet in Sheffield

By NEMESIS

In June 2019 the pilot schools, along with the rest of the partners involved in NEMESIS, met in Sheffield (UK) to put in common the experience with those pilots schools that have been implementing NEMESIS. The meeting was held in The Chimney House, a part of Sheffield’s important historic industrial heritage that once housed an elephant named Lizzie during World War One. 

Children guiding us towards a new school model

During our first day, we visited Herringthorpe Junior School, a beautiful school located in Rotherham, part of the Willow Tree Academy. Jane, their Headteacher, gave us the welcome and introduced us to the children who would be our tour guides. As part of NEMESIS, Herrinthorpe’ pupils have been developed a large variety of projects, form a renovation of a caretakers house, to a second-hand clothes market. After their pilots, they are now looking at how they can roll this out across the academy, looking at using the NEMESIS framework in all classrooms and in all year groups from September.

The link with real-life experiences

The NEMESIS educational model was co-designed and tested over a period of 3.5 years by primary and secondary students, teachers, social innovators, businesspeople, researchers and members of the community in France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Holland and the United Kingdom. As well as offering us an important opportunity to reflect on the NEMESIS’s educative model, this meeting also provided us with a chance to ponder its potential to be extended to a larger number of new schools. Teachers from all our pilot’s schools presented their projects, talking about their challenges, unexpected outcomes and advice that they would give to future schools. 

This meeting was the time to see, after all the theory, how NEMESIS is actually changing the realities of the schools. As part of the expected and also unexpected outcomes of the pilot, hierarchical relationships between children and adults are being transformed.  As one child of the Albares School said: “It is like getting out of the classroom, it’s more real. We are not treated as simple kids but as persons.  It’s very interesting to collaborate with people of different ages […] if I think about the future that’s the kind of situation we will be facing […] dealing with different kinds of people that you may not know very well, but with whom you’ll need to collaborate anyway.” 

“We are not treated as simple kids but as persons.” 

Co-creation labs are safe spaces to identify and ponder social problems, but also are processes that allow students to have a comprehensive view of their connection with the others, which motivates them to engage in social action and increase their civic engagement. Students participating in co-creation labs have increased their confidence and sense of belonging and feel more empowered. This empowerment is manifested in underlying psychological processes such as increased autonomy, belonging or connectedness.  Moreover, this empowerment can also be seen also in the rise of self-confidence and more articulate discourse of their needs and interests, especially in those children with a tendency toward shyness or with relationship problems. 

As one the NEMESIS community members, Catherine Brentnall, said, language constructs reality, and those kinds are testimonies that show what is in the core of the NEMESIS educational model: to put the children at the centre of everything so that the become the changemakers of tomorrow. 

And now, what? 

With all the experience gained, the time has come to move on to pilot two, in which new schools are invited to participate. NEMESIS now not only have a tested pedagogical framework, but also the experience of other teachers, parents and social innovators who may have never heard of the term “Social Innovation Education” before and ended up immersed in a process in which their students become more socially aware and innovative.

NEMESIS is a Horizon 2020 project bringing together education and social innovation to empower the changemakers of tomorrow. The project started in 2018 and it will continue until 2021. At the moment there are ten schools involved from five European countries and a second pilot will start in September 2019, for which we invite more schools.

Are you a school member and do you want to implement Social Innovation Education in your school? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who – as those mentioned here- would like to collaborate with a school? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

28 Jun 2019

Three concepts in a boat: co-creation, youth-adult interactions and student voice

By Valnalon

Co-creation is a central piece in NEMESIS model.  Such a fancy word deserves a better explanation. What follows is an attempt at translating it into educational jargon. I’ll be indulging in two conceptual leaps to make my point.

NEMESIS projects aims at bringing individuals from different backgrounds and ages (parents, SIPs, teachers, students) together to accomplish common goals.   As a result NEMESIS  Theory of Change postulates:

  • “Students participating in co-creation processes will increase their confidence and sense of belonging and thus feel more empowered. Empowerment of students is linked to underlying psychological processes such as autonomy, belonging or connectedness.”
  • “The involvement of SIPs in co-creation labs provides inspiration and motivation which will broaden the horizons of students and trigger them to engage in social action and increase civic engagement. […]”

Now, pretending the magic of co-creation will simply happen by gathering people, young and adults,  together is a paradigmatic example of wishful thinking.

 

1st leap: Co-creation –> more and better youth-adult interactions?

The first leap consists in considering co-creation as an enabler of high-quality youth-adult interactions.  We all know it does not always work that way but NEMESIS projects would ideally fall into the Youth-Adult Partnership category in the continuum of Youth-Adult Relationships model proposed by Jones & Perkins (2004).

Adult-Centered Adult-Led Youth-Adult Partnership Youth-Led Youth-Centered
programs that are conceived and driven completely by adults adults provide guidance for youth, but the youth have some input in decision making, albeit limited by adults’ discretion Youth and adult participants have equal chances in utilizing skills, decision making, mutual learning, and independently carrying out tasks to reach common goals programs or projects where youth primarily develop the ideas and make decisions while adults typically provide needed assistance. programs or activities led exclusively by youth, with little or no adult involvement

 

Ok, so this gives us a glimpse on things to look for to gauge the quality of youth-adult interactions. In such a situation,  youth and adults work collectively, engaging in one or more components of a project and fully exercising an equal opportunity to utilize decision making and other leadership skills. But, one may still wonder what’s the impact of high quality youth-adult interactions in young kids competence/skills development. Bear with me for the next conceptual leap.

 

2nd Leap:  more and better youth-adult interactions –> expanded student voice?

Our second conceptual leap links high quality youth-adult interactions with student voice.  Mitra wrote some time ago “More extensive student voice initiatives include collaboration between young people and adults to address problems in the school, with rare cases even allowing students to assume leadership roles in change efforts (Fielding, 2001; Mitra, 2005).”

The impact of student voice intiatives has been extensively studied.  While most research has been undertaken in secondary school settings, Mitra and Serriere (2012) have identified similar impacts in primary school students mainly on the development of Agency, Belonging (sense of), Competence, Discourse and (Civic)Efficacy, or what the authors summarise as the ABCDE of student voice impact.

The ABCDE Impact Framework of Student Voice (Mitra & Serriere, 2012)

 

Collaboration between young people and adults to address problems in the school seems like a good description of what’s going on in most NEMESIS pilot projects (watch this and this) But what’s interesting here is what happens when you reframe these projects as student voice initiatives.

 

So, what’s in it for NEMESIS?

  • Translates “co-creation” into a more teacher-friendly language
  • Sheds further light into theories regarding the potential impact of NEMESIS on students.
  • Provides additional means for assessment/evaluation of NEMESIS pilots, which may be helpful in determining the quality of experiences and areas for improvement.

Further reading:

Jones, K. R., & Perkins, D. F. (2005). Determining the quality of youth-adult relationships within community-based youth programs. Journal of Extension, 43(5), 1-10.

Mitra, D.L & Serriere, S.C. (2012) Student Voice in Elementary School Reform: Examining Youth Development in Fifth Graders. American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 743–774

13 May 2019

With great innovation comes great citizenship…

By STIMMULI

With great innovation comes great citizenship…

How social innovation and youth activism skills complement each other to create the 21st century citizen!  Or what Spiderman’s uncle would say if we asked him about the power of social innovation…

 

Maybe it was Gandalf, the benevolent white-haired wizard of Lord of the Rings, or some presidential decry by Thomas Jefferson, or Martin Luther King’s fiery speeches of resilient dreams… perhaps it was somewhere whispered by the virtuous, paternal voice of Morgan Freeman (otherwise put, the narrating Voice of God), or maybe it was really Spiderman’s uncle… In any case, someone wise once said ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Power and responsibility are two notions worth fussing about, and two that concern us deeply in the NEMESIS project.

How can we think about great power in our times? What constitutes it, what makes it up? What is its source and effect? Today, power is skill, skill embodied, skill learnt, skill developed, skill sprung from the right attitude and the right mindset that moves us forward through new activities and initiatives. Social innovation is in itself a form of power. And what is the basis of any skills formation or mindset? Training and education. The learning process starting by the foundational ‘learning to learn’ capacity – pretty much, like the ‘right to have rights’ is the starting point of all rights claims in a world of increasing boundaries (see Hannah Arendt) with various social groups like refugees and asylum seekers being excluded from basic rights. The foundational starting points are sort of like a charmed talisman, a ring to rule them all… Once this foundation is decoded and children learn how to learn and learners are granted all their learning rights, the rest becomes a matter of time, commitment and effort. But the door has to open first, which is what innovative training and educational programs try to do.

And how can we think about personal and collective responsibility in our times? Sense of responsibility is the mother of all initiative and action. It is the attitude to be able to say ‘I will do this’, the belief to state ‘I can make it’, the determination to declare ‘It is up to me to change this’. Just like Nikos Kazantzakis used to say ‘Ν’αγαπάς την ευθύνη. Να λες: Εγώ, εγώ μονάχος μου έχω χρέος να σώσω τη γης. Αν δε σωθεί, εγώ φταίω’ (translation from Greek: ‘You should love responsibility. You should say: I, I alone am indebted to save the earth. If it’s not saved, I’m to blame’). Feeling responsible means that it is up to you to change the things you don’t accept as just, the things that are wrong, the things that have room for improvement. This sense of responsibility, understood as self-awareness of our powers and responsiveness to them, make up the base of good and active citizenship. Good citizens are responsible citizens who are willing to learn and work with others in new ventures for the collective benefit.

The NEMESIS Social Innovation Learning Framework

Learning is the groundwork of all individual and collective development and learning opportunities should be offered to all people without discrimination. Personal growth and social advancement, as well as inclusive education, are at the heart of every good educational program, as is the case with NEMESIS. And in order to yield results, one needs to have a plan. Just like NEMESIS and its Social Innovation Learning Framework (hereafter SILF).

SILF is the vehicle NEMESIS proposes for the development of the future Changemakers of Europe who will be able to put their knowledge and skills into practice in order to work together towards solving critical problems that our societies are facing. NEMESIS steps in to provide a working definition of Social Innovation Education (hereafter SIE) that highlights what we think, as a team, is essential for the creation of better and fairer future societies. Within this context, we define SIE as:

‘a collaborative and collective learning process for the empowerment and socio-political activation of students to drive social change no matter what their professional pathways. SIE builds learners’ competences to identify opportunities for social value creation, to form collaborations and build social relationships, and take innovative action for a more democratic and sustainable society’.

These three elements, namely, the ability to identify social value opportunities, to form collaborations and relationships, and to take innovative action for the benefit of society, shape the tree trunk of NEMESIS SILF with its three interconnected tree branches that grow stems of skills and leaves of competences, vital for pushing social change forward, transforming lives and activating people for societal betterment. We also highlight the importance of specific values that should underpin all competences since values are essential for shaping a social innovation culture. Simply put, it is not enough to encourage the formation of the high-powered 21st century citizen who has powerful innovative and creative skills, but this future citizen needs to have a responsible and ethical compass if he or she is to wield this power in favor of the common good.

As such, the competences and values we envision in NEMESIS include self-efficacy and social communication skills but also temper them with empathy and the embracing of diversity and democratic decision-making. Our model promotes problem-solving skills and resource mobilization abilities, but also pairs them with reflective learning and social resilience. In its ethical core, NEMESIS aims to encourage the development of collective capacities for taking innovative actions inspired by key values, such as equality, respect, generosity, trust and altruism. When such results become evident through our collective efforts in the NEMESIS project, we will know that our tree is blooming and is about to bear fruits. Youth activism goes beyond charitable and voluntary work for the community, it aims at influencing policy and institutional practices for the promotion of social justice.

We should clarify that the NEMESIS SILF does not aim to provide a fixed and closed learning framework with definitive and prescribed answers or solutions. It aims to include its participants in its creation and development and to provide a flexible set of suggestions that can be taken on by educators, students and community members and adjusted to their local reality and context-specific needs. As Inamorato dos Santos and his colleagues put it (2016: 24), ‘the answers come from the insights generated by the process of interacting with the framework’. The initial NEMESIS SILF constitutes the first step towards the development of the ultimate NEMESIS SILF which will be tested and validated through real-life pilot implementations in primary and secondary schools around Europe during the project’s duration. The results of these pilots will be used to update the NEMESIS framework whereby all respective outcomes will be reformulated according to the directions and insights offered by the participants. In this way, the participating students, teachers, parents, and community members are active components of the design of the NEMESIS SILF.

And how do we do that? The NEMESIS model is activated through Co-creation Labs (hereafter CCLs), open learning environments where different stakeholders such as teachers, students, parents, social innovation practitioners, or any other interested member of the local community, collaborate towards a common goal: to co-create new knowledge, achieve a clear understanding of social innovation and develop relevant competences by participating in the design and development of social innovation projects. Through its CCLs, our NEMESIS project redefines existing hierarchical relations between teachers and students, the old and the young, parent and child, professional and amateur, and empowers young learners to become equal co-creators of the social innovation educational process. The resulting projects can be socially magical and politically enchanting.

28 Mar 2019

What is social innovation education and why should I care?

By NEMESIS

It’s five o’clock, and Óscar – student from year 3- has his hands covered in dust. He’s kneeling in a sunny corner of the playground together with his mother, Itziar, who is rolling up her sleeves before pouring soil into some recycled tyres. The soil has been brought by Luis, father of another student in year 2.

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31 Jan 2019

Social Innovation in Schools. A proposal for the future of education.

By NEMESIS

For the last 30 years, students have been taught the same way. We keep teaching them how to acquire and memorise knowledge, even if what they need in this era of ‘information overload’ are skills and tools that allow them to make sense of that information  – and act accordingly. That is part of what we’re going to discuss in this NEMESIS event in Zaragoza.

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03 Sep 2018

Introducing NEMESIS schools

By NEMESIS

In every journey there is a a group of brave pioneers whose involvement and commitment are essential to succeed. Such is the case in our schools. We are already on the hunt for more schools to be involved, so keep an eye on this page – we will be updating!

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24 Apr 2018

Meet our Social Innovation Practitioners

By NEMESIS

In NEMESIS we are trying a social innovation education model for and with schools to empower the changemakers of tomorrow. For that to work, the combination of teacher and social innovators expertise is essential. In three years, we aim to develop a European social innovator community and engage around 200 SIPs (‘social innovation practitioners’, our code for social entrepreneurs). We have begun working closely with four of them already.

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