Four Cs for the 21st Century – Curiosity, Cooperation, Communication and Creativity Erasmus Project

Project Title

Four Cs for the 21st Century – Curiosity, Cooperation, Communication and Creativity

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

The project “Four C’s for the 21st Century – Curiosity, Cooperation, Communication and Creativity” 2017 – 2019 has been a strategic partnership by five schools from Germany, Estonia, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Its main aim was to prepare our students (aged 12 to 16) for the “world of work” by instilling 21st century skills (the 4 Cs) in them, helping them analyse their potential and explore the opportunities at hand as well as enabling them to “think outside the box” and become creative about future career paths in Europe. Furthermore, the project also aimed at improving language and ICT skills and intercultural compencies of the participants. The teachers wanted to learn from each other, train each other in fields their schools have special expertise in and thus contribute to the professionalization of the teachers and their life-long learing process.

With our project, we wanted to improve opportunities of the participants by producing concrete sustainable tools for young people. The basis for our work was the eTwinning twinspace, in which we shared methods and results of activities which support our students’ development of skills and competencies and guide their decision making. Students got to know methods which they can use (SWOT analysis, rhetorics), gained helpful knowledge (e.g. about going abroad, learning styles), researched about jobs and disseminated these helpful tools to others who are in the same situation. They created leaflets “How to…” (“How to develop soft skills”, “Going abroad”), wrote articles about their experience and made creative products, all of which were collected in the eTwinning twinspace. The main results are also accessible on the project webpage.

Throughout the two-years project 318 students and 26 teachers worked together in the eTwinning project on the four C’s. Each topic of the eTwinning project was connected to a learning/teaching/training activity in the same term, where some students from all schools met and worked on the topics in person. The topics were:

CURIOSITY: our students got to know the world of work, job and study opportunities in Europe and examined their potentials
COOPERATION: our students explored soft skills which are vital in 21st century jobs, such as teamwork and self-management
COMMUNICATION: our students developed a career plan, learned how to write a CV and simulated job interviews
CREATIVITY: our students “thought outside the box” by developing innovative ideas how to tackle 21st century job problems

Apart from the students who were registered in the twinspace, many more students dealt with the Erasmus+ project and benefitted from the project results. At every learning/teaching/training activity we organised the accommodation in host families, so that the whole school community – brothers, sisters, parents – were involved in the project and experienced intercultural learning situations as well. On the whole, about 2000 persons were affected positively by this project.

Based on the feedback we have received by the students, we can say that, on the one hand, the objective was met to open up opportunities for our students to prepare them better for the European world of work and help them identify their strengths, weaknesses and wishes for their future careers. They were also grateful to have gained more knowledge and competencies in the field of soft skills and other competencies required for entering today’s job market. On the other hand, the participants also reflected upon their intercultural competencies and realised that they had learned a lot in terms of differences and similarities between students from all over Europe and the intercultural communication between them.

We teachers shared best practice and learned from each other innovative cooperative teaching methods, ICT skills and strategies how to support students in finding their career paths. At every transnational project meeting and during the learning/training/teaching activitites of the students, teachers could enhance their professional competences as well.

The impact on the schools is two-fold: Firstly, the schools got to know new concepts and contents of career planning and helping students to find their way into the “world of work”. Secondly, the participants – both teachers and students – gained intercultural competencies, broadened their horizons and enjoyed the European contacts and international atmosphere within the project. Thus, the participants and the five European schools will benefit from the impact this project has had on their lives.

All schools published articles about their activities on their homepages, presented the project during Open Days and at public school events and regularly up-dated the information in their Erasmus+ Corner. Furthermore, the local press published articles about some of the activities. The results were all gathered in the eTwinning twinspace – which in parts is public – and on the project webpage.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 117065 Eur

Project Coordinator

Schillerschule Hannover & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Pärnu Kuninga Tänava Põhikool
• COLEGIO INTERNACIONAL EUROVILLAS,S.L
• Mendelcollege
• istituto comprensivo 9