App for Self-reflection of Learning

In this chapter, we will focus on a concrete tool called IM-PROVE. It is a simple application accessible on-line or in app store for iOS and Android.

Basically, it’s the on-line tool that help volunteers in different roles (participants, leaders, trainers…) reflect on what they learnt during their volunteering activities. You can have all the volunteering activities recorded here. See the intro video!

How does it work?

Easily - remember when we showed you in previous chapter the real-life examples and connected them with competences? This is the basic principle the IM-PROVE works on.

Step 1 Sign up on IM-PROVE App
Step 2 The application will lead you through filling in your profile
Step 3 You can enter your first project. The app will lead you through it. You basically put some info about the type of project, your role in it, select few experiences you have already done in the project and put some details to these. After this process, the application will show you, which competences have you developed by these experiences.
Step 4 Then, you can either add other experiences to the same project, add new projects or browse through other functionalities of the application

Find out about other things IM-PROVE can help you with.

To sum up, IM-PROVE will help you realize what you learnt and what you’re able to do, plan your next steps in volunteering, and present your valuable experience on the outside (e.g. on the labour market). It helps you to show, that volunteering is, among other things, valuable tool how to learn important competences for personal and professional life.

Concrete examples, how to use IM-PROVE:

Your CV - Once you've used IM-PROVE to find out which competences you've developed by volunteering, you can easily fill them to your CV. It’s beneficial to show you are aware of your competences and add information of where you developed them - it increases credibility and attractiveness of your CV for potential employers. More info about how to fill in your CV: europa.eu/europass/en.
Your Youthpass - in case you have participated in a project granted by the Erasmus + Programme, you should fill in what you learnt at this project to Youthpass - IM-PROVE will advise you, how to do it. More info about Youthpass: www.youthpass.eu.
Presenting your profile on the outside - if you want, you can activate your IM-PROVE public profile and show the world (friends or potential employers), which competences you have developed by volunteering.
Recognition of the experience - for each project, you can ask for an eBadge, which will be confirmed by the organizer of your project. This eBadge will display on the public profile and will prove you really have the experience your public profile is showing. It raises credibility of this page, especially for example if you apply for a job.
Selecting your personal goal(s) and the competences you would like to focus on - better target your learning and choose the next volunteering activities based on what you actually need to work on.