Lessons Learned during COVID: Transferability of Best Practice in European Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Lessons Learned during COVID: Transferability of Best Practice in European Education

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

At one-minute past midnight on March 16th 2020 an unprecedented event occurred within the whole Icelandic school system. The same had already happened in other European countries and the rest of Europe would soon follow suit. Secondary schools and universities were closed, formal and non-formal adult education as well as sports activities were
cancelled, and rigid restrictions were enforced on lower school levels.

That same morning students at the Secondary School of Asbru in South-West Iceland switched from onsite learning to distance learning. The transition for school administrators, teachers and learners were seamless and for any outside person it was almost unnoticed. They were able to adapt their course delivery, student assignments and assessment without
any major difficulties. The technology was already in place and students and teachers alike were comfortable in using ICT in all daily classroom activities.

The same was true for a number of other schools and training providers across Europe. Some schools, teachers, training providers, individuals and learners were better prepared to act swiftly and adapt to the global pandemic. In these cases, schools were able to deal with the closure of physical classrooms and move quite easily into distance learning and online
courses.

However many or most educational institutions were ill prepared or not prepared at all. They used a long time to conform their education to new circumstances and in many cases are still worrying about how to implement and deliver quality education for their learners. This is especially true for schools, teachers and learner that are either not comfortable with ICT in education or within schools where online training is normally not as common as within more traditional academic courses. These can include – but are not limited to – vocational education and training providers, art and music courses, physical education and training, courses aimed for elderly, courses for people with disabilities, rural communities, education for groups prone to social exclusion as well as minorities and disabled learners.

The project proposed will seek to collect good and innovative practices from the movers and shakers in European education and how they adapted their schools, education, training and teaching activities to the global Covid pandemic. By assembling real stories from educational and training providers across levels, we seek to create a collection of proven reactive methods for dealing with any future situations where schools, teachers and learners have to adapt, change and react to uncontrollable outside forces.

This will also give us an opportunity to look at possibilities to learn from the early adapters and seeks ways to implement good and innovative practices across different fields and levels
of education.

The objectives of the project will be to collect and disseminate these practices, develop and deliver training seminars, as well as organise and test new approaches where teachers and trainers implement these practices within their own fields of education. We will use and document cases where these methodologies and approaches are implemented in e.g. VET
schools, physical education, education in rural areas, course development for disabled learners, physical education and training for the elderly, to name a few.

Project partners come from various educational and training providers around Europe and are chosen because of their extensive regional, national and international networks within the educational community, as well as their experience in adapting and implementing innovative approaches in teaching and learning. In addition, partners have been chosen to serve as test cases in order to carry out concrete innovative practices within their own schools or training provision.
The project will focus on: Gathering of regional, national and international innovative practices; Teacher training seminars; Documentation of different approaches; and Developing open source toolkits. Alongside the project the partners will look at learners and teacher’s digital readiness towards flexibility and adaptability. The impact will hopefully both assist current education and training providers in coping with the new reality for teachers and learners alike, as well as to prepare us for future scenarios where schools have to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.

The benefits will be in short term value for those that need to conform their education and training to current environment and in long term value for all educational providers that need to be better prepared for the future by improving their skill sets, their use of ICT in education and adaptability of their provision, by using innovative and proven methods during the
Covid pandemic. First and foremost, it is about being mentally prepared for any future circumstances, with relevant toolkits and an active network of teachers and trainers ready to share their practice and experience.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 118036 Eur

Project Coordinator

Keilir – Miðstöð vísinda, fræða og atvinnulífs & Country: IS

Project Partners

• ITA-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO
• Árskoli
• UNIVERSITY COLLEGE SYDDANMARK
• ACTION SYNERGY SA
• Galileo.it S.r.l.
• Fisktækniskóli Íslands
• Centar za odgoj i obrazovanje Slava Raskaj Zagreb