A comparison in curricula via student exchange, Bengtsfors, Sweden – Ehingen, Germany Erasmus Project

Project Title

A comparison in curricula via student exchange, Bengtsfors, Sweden – Ehingen, Germany

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: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

The school in Ehingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (Kaufmännische Schule Ehingen / 900 Students) can be characterized by its highly heterogeneous structure. Students attending the school vary widely in their educational qualifications. There are on the one hand weak students with a certificate of completion of compulsory basic secondary schooling, who then attend the so-called “Berufsfachschule”, but on the other hand highly efficient grammar-school students, who attend the international (bilingual; CLIL) class at the business grammar-school.
On top of that, more and more students with a migratory background attend the school. Teachers challenged by this intercultural reality clearly benefit from professionalization in the areas of methodology and didactics, as well as key qualifications and subject-specific knowledge.
In order to encounter the above- mentioned challenges, the focus of this application form lies on the development of intercultural, methodical-didactical as well as subject-specific competencies. New teaching methods based on physiological findings, which have already been introduced successfully at the Kaufmännische Schule Ehingen (as for instance methods like learning by moving, moving according to methods, teamwork, individual support for students, digitalization and CLIL) should ideally be either reinforced or additionally implemented by further impulses. For that reason, the major objective of the application at hand is fulfilling the demands of fairly diverse students, whether concerning their qualifications or their cultural background, by applying different teaching approaches. Furthermore, we intend to keep internationalizing the school by paving the way for an intended long-dated school partnership with Strömkullegymnasiet, Sweden (amongst other things).

Strömkullegymnasiet is situated in Bengtsfors municipality, Västra Götaland County, in the western part of Sweden. In school, there are approximately 270 students and 40 teachers. The school has excellent academic performance. It was rated as the third best school in Sweden in 2016 and the second best school in Sweden in 2017. ICT has been identified by the school as an area for development with a focus on digital learning, communication and language learning.
Kaufmännische Schule Ehingen in Germany has a similar approach to meeting the enormous variety of different levels of education, even though Strömkullegymnasiet is an upper secondary school, we have vocational programmes as well as preparatory programmes. Also, the top-notch front edge ICT profile Strömkullegymnasiet pursues is a beacon for others to follow, which is why it is a suitable partner for other schools that wish to evolve in this area. There are similarities with students from diverse cultural backgrounds and we need to see how other schools in Europe use different teaching approaches. These are but a few reasons, there are a number of reasons why KSE has been selected as a partner school to implement this project.

Participants in this project are teachers and students from both schools. The members of staff are on the level of master of education and also a bachelor’s degree.

This project is implemented through student exchange.

The schools will be visited two times per party, by a total of 40 involved persons.
The school in Ehingen will visit the school in Bengtsfors on two occasions with a total of 20 persons and the school in Bengtsfors will visit the school in Ehingen two times with a total of 20 persons.
Attendance and participation in classes, seminars, lectures, and workshops, based on selected themes are the main focus of the visits.
To prepare for the exchange, participants are trained in a variety of ICT platforms (Google Apps For Education and Microsoft Suites among others).

Participants track their process by typing log books focusing on what they are learning. The project is continually reviewed at conferences, classes and teacher meetings to assist each participant’s development.

After the project, participants are expected to have acquired skills to improve their education in digital learning as well as foreign language acquisition. All participants should also generally become more skilled in a foreign language by watching and learning from other teachers pedagogical approaches. In the long term, we envisage an improvement in students’ ICT knowledge level in general, and in language-related areas in particular. For teachers, we also envisage understanding (both in theory and practice) of different pedagogical approaches. Finally, knowledge of another European school system and European educational tradition should have increased.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 629 Eur

Project Coordinator

Strömkullegymnasiet & Country: SE

Project Partners

• Kaufmännische Schule Ehingen