Why not learning from others? Yeah! Why not? Erasmus Project

Project Title

Why not learning from others? Yeah! Why not?

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

It is a matter of fact that the profile of our students and our students’ families is changing. Some years ago most of our students belonged to wealthy families and just a minority came from more disadvantaged families. Nowadays the reality is the other way around and we face in our classrooms lots of students coming from more disadvantaged environments.
The project “Why not learning from others?Yeah! Why not?” aims to create a diverse learning and cooperative context for our students including disadvantaged students and students with special educative needs, we aim to give each one of our students the same learning opportunities, enhancing communication and helping them to become more active in inclusive environments.
Besides, we have noticed our students have a very low emotional intelligence, they are unable to express what they feel and they cannot control their emotions, and most of the time they use violence to express themselves. Emotional intelligence is important for good communication with others, it is a gateway to better learning, friendships, academic success and employment. Teaching young people skills such as active listening, self-awareness and empathy can equip them to succeed both academically and socially.
Our project also addresses the issue of environment; our students will be enrolled in activities to take care of our environment, we will highlight the importance of recycling (recycling competition), follow good practices when going on holidays, giving objects a new use…
The target group of the project includes students in Primary Education (6-11 years old), among them around 300 students belong to disadvantaged contexts and around 50 with special educative needs.
The project “Why not?” involves six partners, all of them are public schools that provide general education, they are:
1. Colegio Público Ocejón, Guadalajara, Spain.
2. Suadiye Ortaokulu, Suadiye – Kartepe, Turkey.
3. OOU Kiril Pejcinovikj; Skopje, Macedonia.
4. Oberschule Pausa, Pausa-Mühltroff, Germany.
5. Istituto Comprensivo A.Leonori, Rome, Italy.
6. Escola B1 Perancho e Caldeira, Câmara de Lobos, Portugal.

The main objectives of our project are:
1. To focus directly on the issue of social inclusion.
2. To develop key competences, such as improving students’ performance, with emphasis on developing skills and digital competences in specific curricula.
3. To improve our students’ emotional intelligence.
4. To use new technology and devices as learning tools.
5. To promote motivation for learning and school participation through the implementation of attractive learning methodologies.
6. To develop social skills such as cooperation and tolerance through activities that offer them the opportunity to feel important, appreciated and social integrated. Some of these cooperative activities will be linked to environmental issues.
7. To make students aware of the importance of taking care of our environment.
Two short-term joint staff training event and four short-term exchanges of group of pupils will be organized during the 24 months of our project.
Our first encounter will be in Madeira in November 2020. The transnational activity that will be for teachers will include the exchange of experiences and practical innovations in social inclusion and the use of digital technologies in the classroom. Students taking part in this mobility will receive a formative course on Emotional Intelligence. The transnational activities in which students will be involved will aim at working in intercultural groups, exchanging ideas and learning experiences and taking care of the environment.
Apart from these transnational activities, other activities will be carried out during the length of the project, some of them will be held online, on TwinSpace: creating presentations, creating and voting the logo, creating the e-books and the interactive lessons, etc.
All the project activities will lead to the development of the project results, these results will contribute to the educational inclusion of our students, among the project results we include the following:
1. Digital scrapbook.
2. Ebook creative way of learning.
3. E-project magazine. This magazine will gather photographs of our mobilities.
4. An online platform where teachers can exchange good practices and discuss about the social inclusion of students.
5. A course on social inclusion methods for teachers and parents.
6. A book of emotions.
7. A guideline of good practices to take care of the environment when going on holidays.
8. An Erasmus garden/ forest in each partner.
We intend to use further on the materials created during the development of our project (e-books, videos, presentations, guidelines of good practices, cross-curricular IWB lessons etc.) and integrate them in the school curriculum. We also intend to post them on the website of the project, disseminate them and distribute them for free to other interested schools. We will keep the project website operative.

Project Website

https://whynotlearning.edublogs.org/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 179330 Eur

Project Coordinator

Colegio Publico Ocejon & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Istituto Comprensivo A.Leonori
• OOU Kiril Pejcinovikj
• Escola B1PERancho e Caldeira
• Oberschule Pausa
• Suadiye Ortaokulu