Together – to get there Erasmus Project

Project Title

Together – to get there

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Pedagogy and didactics; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

Together – to get there

Together – to get there is a two years project. Six countries are involved in the project: Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Italy, Spain and Greece.
We think that school is a place to enlarge students thinking and environmental sensitiveness. By organizing and participating this project both students and teachers learn new motivational methods that enhance the development of life skills, mental and physical health, awareness of environment and ecology, critical thinking, research spirit and belonging to European cultural heritage.

The topics of this project are environmental: land, water and air. The methodology is positive pedagogy and the way to teach is team teaching.
We use the positive pedagogy according to Avola 2017. Avola has three themes in positive pedagogy: environment, well-being and learning. We have used all these themes in our activities. (Avola, 2017).

The project starts with the topic Land. Then, later on, we have the topics water and the air. We also include some recycling and sustainable living in these topics because we think it is a start to care about the nature.

The team teaching starts in the first transnational meeting. It means that teacher pairs plan and work together. Every teacher has a pair to work with. What is taught in the classes depends on the age level of the students. With older students it is natural to have deeper discussions and think more globally.

All the transnational meetings last for 4 days.

All the meetings have the same schedule:
1. day planning together
2. day teaching together
3. day learning together
4. day evaluating together

There are many kind of activities in this project :

Together tasks are for teachers. That means team teaching with the current topic.

Coordinators tasks are for planning the project forward and evaluating it so far. After the coordinators meetings we have the whole crew meetings to show what is going to happen next and open the discussion.

We learn! tasks are studying new items. It is time to find out new concepts.

We care tasks are for making change in habits.

We grow task is to learn how to grow but also emphasize the importance of the green planet.

Dissemination tasks will be done back at home. The teachers show the students what did they have seen/learnt in the transnational meeting. The materials are in Teams/e Twinning platform.

Got it! task is for students. They will document what they have learnt according to the positive pedagogy model. I know, I learn, I write and I care. This documentation is in Teams/e Twinning platform.

Ask! task includes Skype sessions between the team teachers and his/her class. The students meet team teachers´class and they have an opportunity to ask about the things they want to know more.

We assume that team teaching is not yet commonly used way to teach in European Schools. We hope that we can share the idea of empowering way to teach together and spread it forward. It is easy to do the team teaching together, step by step. We also think that positive pedagogy or at least parts of it are used in schools, but we would like to make it more visible in this project. All the team teachers will find their own way to teach. Together they are strong!

New teacher friends from all over Europe can be a start of the life-long relationships. It is easy to continue team teaching in e Twinning platform for example. The schools are able to repeat the activities used in this project easily. These “learning by doing” activities are meaningful way to teach and learn. We also think that the students and the teachers learn more English and find it important to learn more and are encouraged to use the language. All the new cultural knowledge is interesting and increases peoples common knowledge.

The whole project ends with the environmental week together in Italy. Before that the schools have had an Earth hour and made environmental promises.
The environmental week is an excellent opportunity to spread the environmental sensitiveness to homes and to the cities.
We have the environmental concern but we have no time to worry. We need positive caring for our lovely planet Earth. Together – to get there!

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 177757 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kaakkurin koulu, Oulun kaupunki & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Osnovna skola Franje Krezme
• CEIP MESTRE PERE GARAU
• Istituto Comprensivo “Carlo Urbani”
• 9th Primary school of Arta
• A’ PRIMARY SCHOOL OF MAKEDONITISSA