Brain-friendly teaching and learning. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Brain-friendly teaching and learning.

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: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Quality Assurance; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

It is a common saying that teachers are brain changers but at the same time there are numerous examples showing how little we know about or use the knowledge of brain functioning in the context of teaching and learning today. Having so much evidence that today’s schools and public education in general are not brain-friendly in so many cases, we have decided to start a big discussion in the area of neuroeducation in different parts of Europe. It goes without saying that teaching is a challenging profession today. We are bombarded with new approaches, techniques and tools every day. Yet, the most important tool – student’s brain has been ignored for the last decades causing different educational failures. That is why, we should do our best to inspire teachers and make them more interested in the topic of brain-friendly education that combines the knowledge of neuroscience, psychology and education, which can help them optimize both learning and teaching processes and reach the maximum potential of each individual student. It will not only improve teaching quality but will also help students improve their academic performance.

Our main objective, therefore, is to provide teachers with the profound theory supplemented with plenty of practical, ready to be used methods and approaches that will make their teaching much more stimulating and enjoyable for students, who will ultimately become an active part of the educational process. With this transformation, we want to develop our students’ creativity, autonomy, teamwork skills, confidence and responsibility for lifelong learning, which are crucial for their future personal and professional life. On the other hand, we want to make our teachers more innovative and self-confident in their everyday work and international cooperation.

The planned activities will lead to strengthening the profiles of teaching professions and will result in more effective and enjoyable learning inside and outside the classroom, better classroom atmosphere, greater engagement and autonomy of students who will feel responsible for their own process of learning. We also intend to develop a long-lasting international cooperation between our schools and mutual support in continuing professional development of our teachers. Developing interpersonal competences as well as reducing the cultural and language barriers among our students and teachers are also important objectives we want to achieve.

We truly believe that transferring the responsibility for learning from teachers to students will make the latter independent, self-reliant and intrinsically motivated to push their educational process forward, without too much dependency on their teachers. It is a long-lasting process challenging not only for students but also for teachers, who will have to alter their teaching habit of being in the centre of the classroom and start thinking outside the box to find new tools to guide and monitor the process of learning standing at the back. Therefore, all the project activities are student-centered and designed in the way that allows creativity and taking the initiative and responsibility for the results.

Thanks to this project, our teachers will learn how to implement Flipped Classroom, The Escape Room, Discovery Learning, The Mystery Skype Lesson, The Learning Cafe Method, The Game-Based Learning and Problem / Project-Based Learning. What is more, they will have a chance to observe a number of lessons prepared and conducted in harmony with brain-friendly education principles. On the other hand, students will engage themselves in different educational challenges and four different eTwinning projects which will help them prepare for the foreign mobilities. They will also experience all new methods and approaches being implemented by their teachers. We want to share responsibilities for all the project activities with our students aged 9 – 15 from the very beginning. We intend to organize 99 mobilities for students and 52 for teachers from all partner schools.

We are planning to engage in our activities as many students, parents and teachers of various subjects as possible and make the local authorities and whole communities familiar with the ongoing or completed actions. That is why, we intend to use different means of communication such as local press, radio, TV, social media and school websites to reach a wide audience. As a group of five countries from Cyprus, Finland, Italy, Poland and Turkey we have planned six meetings during these two years. The first teacher-oriented mobility taking place in Finland will be devoted to the theory and practice of brain-friendly education and will be a great starting point for the whole project. The next five meetings will be organized in all partner schools where our students will have a chance to meet their new friends and develop their language competence in meaningful and purposeful situations.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 163933 Eur

Project Coordinator

Publiczna Szkola Podstawowa Nr 4 z Oddzialami Integracyjnymi im. sw. Kazimierza Jagiellonczyka & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Kiilan koulu
• 75. Yil Cumhuriyet Ilkokulu
• Gymnasium Aradippou
• Istituto Comprensivo di Lerici