Illustration credits: José Garcês @Ilustracionáro, à minha maneira 2015
Educational codesign programs in the school context aim at shaping experiential and experimental learning spaces where young people are encouraged to learn how to learn strategically as the individuals responsible for their own learning, together with the support of adults.
In the organization of these programs we differ three types of engagement:
/ For Youth: Codesign for youth I Top-down initiatives
Adults (youth work practitioners, local authorities) initiate the dialogue to learn more about young people’s needs and ask youth for inputs before planning and implementing any activity with them.
/ Youth-led: Codesign by youth I Grassroots initiatives
Young people initiate ideas for the projects which they can do on their own or with the support of adults;
E.g. Community of practice projects in which two schools from the same local collaborate (e.g. Ilustracionário, à minha maneira);
/ Co-ownership: Codesign with youth I Bottom-up initiatives
Young people take initiative about projects in which they are collaborating with adults, and this process is co-shared and the decision process is co-managed by everybody engaged;
E.g. Adults (youth work practitioners, local authorities) propose a collaboration based on the needs (learning or for well-being) of youth and together co-create the empowerment process (e.g. Recreio dos Pioneiros)
Youth are welcomed to participate as partners in codesign programs and research. Their volunteer roles may shift from being part of a coordinating body, in the case of interest, to being contact points, or ambassadors for the Lab of Collaborative Youth at their schools, but also active members of the community of practice that is implementing codesign practice in their local environment.
Since 2014, the Lab of Collaborative Youth has organized educational codesign programs in two Porto’s neighborhoods (Miragaia and Ramalde):
/ Recreio dos Pioneiros [Pioneers’ Playground] with three different stages (warmUP: April – June 2014, buildUP: October 2014 – June 2015, play: November 2015), conducted with the voluntary participants/students in an elementary school of Miragaia. This program aimed at learning about and from youngsters what it means to be a learner, a citizen, and how we can codesign learning processes together;
/ The first edition Ilustracionário, à minha maneira 1.0 [Illustracionary, in my own way 1.0] in 2015, which aimed at establishing synergies between the students/volunteers of an elementary school in Miragaia and the students of arts and design from the Vocational and Artistic School Árvore. Based on the same local context, it encouraged the formation of the community of practice through the situated learning and the co-creation processes.
/ The second edition Ilustracionário, à minha maneira 2.0 [Illustracionary, in my own way 2.0] in 2017, was implemented in the elementary school in Ramalde. This program was co-developed as a set of educational activities together with the educational school community and their students inside the classroom within specific discipline and module. We aimed at co-creating a learning environment in which each partner-participant could practice their citizenship while codesigning the learning processes and a learning tool – visual dictionary – as a tangible outcome of our collaboration.
Lab of Collaborative Youth 