SOSTRA, is an EU funded Erasmus+ Strategic partnership project.
SOSTRA project is responding to the new EU Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (2018) fostering also the development soft skills, often referred to as personal and interpersonal skills, and sometimes to as ‘life’ or ‘socio-emotional skills’. “Our societies and economies rely heavily on highly educated and competent people. Skills such as creativity, critical thinking, teamwork, intercultural skills, taking initiative and problem solving play an important role in coping with complexity and change in today’s society.”
Soft skills are closely connected with employability and competence development, both being important focus areas also in EU 2020 strategy and joint actions linked thereto. EU countries have different methodologies and approaches on the assessment of soft skills and furthermore on training of teachers. The SOSTRA project is seeking an innovative way to intertwine digital badge-driven learning approaches and competence-based education into soft skills development in the field of European adult education.
Six organizations from Finland, Italy, Poland, Romania and Spain are forming a partnership on soft skills. By joint actions the partners aim to support adult educators, training companies, school-based training centres, training consultants and HR staff in achieving a better understanding of the needs and importance of soft skills in their daily activities and of their further development.
Objectives:
◾to recognize the need of soft skills and competencies in partner countries through 2 Delphi rounds
◾to identify and describe 15 key soft skills and competencies in learning outcomes
◾to develop an online self-reflective test for assessing soft skills
◾to co-create an open badge-driven learning process to improve missing soft skills
Outputs:
◾a list of identified and recognized adult educator’s soft skills
◾an online self-reflective test for adult educators for assessing soft skills
◾a competence-based, open digital badge-driven learning process for improving soft skills
◾educational, multimodal material for developing the missing soft skills
Competence-based and open badge-driven process makes educators´ personal competence development more flexible and personalized. With the help of SOSTRA outputs adult education institutions can apply innovative methods in their Human Resource Management activities, especially in recognizing soft skills during the recruitment process.
SOSTRA outputs will be adapted to local needs and contexts including translations in six languages. The technical solutions will be applicable for average users. This aspect is a conscious criterion ensuring the sustainability of the project results.
Project partners:
◾HAMK University of Applied Sciences, School of Professional Teacher Education, Finland, Project Coordinator
◾Formacion Para El Desarrollo E Insercion, Sociedad Limitada, Spain
◾Universidad De Cordoba, Spain
◾Fondazione Hallgarten-Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca, Italy
◾Orange Hill Sp. Z o.o., Poland
◾Centrul Pentru Promovarea Invatarii Permanente Timisoara Asociatia, Romania
