ENGAGING WAYS TO SCIENCE: EMPOWERING PROJECT-BASED LEARNING FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE EDUCATION Erasmus Project

Project Title

ENGAGING WAYS TO SCIENCE: EMPOWERING PROJECT-BASED LEARNING FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE 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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Natural sciences; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

The motivation of JHVS (DE) and other partner schools (LT, PT, HU) to set up this project is fuelled by the need to get more opportunities to cooperate and provide deeper and more rewarding student experiences beside the higher engagement in the Science learning-teaching process both for educators and students. Focusing on interdisciplinarity while teaching Science should be reinforced by adding the project-based learning approach, as they are a natural fit and highly complement each other. The project is meant to shift away from present classroom practices and instead emphasizes learning activities that are longer-term, interdisciplinary, student-centered and integrated with real-world issues and practice.
This model should help increase content retention, motivation, reinvigorate teaching and recognize the importance of internalizing and contextualizing information in meaningful ways. It will empower students to shape their learning experiences and embed 21 st century success skills like collaboration, creativity, critical thinking which will be needed for students to be effective and help them meet the challenges of the world to come. With this project, the participating schools will provide learning experiences that maximize student potential.

Thus the aim of the participating schools is to exchange experiences and get new ideas to empower project-based learning as an approach for a more engaging interdisciplinary Science education. This aim is also related to the exchange of good practices, improvement and development of activities based on a project approach to be integrated into the curriculum for teaching Mathematics, Physics, Biology, and Chemistry.
The objectives:
-To exchange experiences and good practices, including methodological aspects, of involving students in interdisciplinary Science activities when the latter includes project-based learning as an essential component.
-To induce and support the development of new Science learning activities combining a mini-project based approach and integration of other subjects such as English/Literature.
-To advance a student learning environment and enrich everyday practice in partner schools through the projects of teaching Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and English/Literature and lasting between one week and one month.
-To give an opportunity for Science and English/Literature teachers to learn and benefit from each other’s knowledge and experience.
-To promote project-based learning for interdisciplinary Science education at local, national and international levels.
This will be achieved via organising 7 short-term learning, teaching and training activities both for students and teachers (involving 63 participants in total), creating and collecting project descriptions (also separate lesson, activity plans as the steps/material how to implement the projects) and preparing for the new Science activities (at least 6) proposed by partners. In between the transnational events schools will incorporate and organize project-based interdisciplinary activities for students of age 15-18 (involving at least 80 students of this age from each school), prepare a collection of videos on the activities and feedback from participants as well as E-book with partners’ best practice and create a website of the project.
The teachers will participate in 4 International Teachers’ Rooms on guidelines for project-based learning and using films/videos, Science study circle methodology and cooperation with English/Literature teachers for preparation of activities to analyse science books/articles with students, generating ideas for thematic real-life based interdisciplinary projects and organizing them, as well as applying different assessment techniques. The students will be involved in Film and Science Laboratory, International Science Circle, project week “Discover and Uncover with Science: Every day and Nature Phenomena” activities.
The project will lead to teachers’ professional development to learn how to design high-quality experiential activities for engaging Science teaching and learning. It will add possibilities to experience different cultural perspectives (a variety of ideas, solutions), increased credibility (with schools from four partner countries, choosing project-based learning as a pathway to better Science education will demonstrate that such successful initiatives are not limited to one country), diversity (a shared European educational experience will conclusively result in a higher potential for individual national educational progression in both instructional and learning achievement capacity), higher interest, motivation and inclusion (the integration of project-based learning into respective curricula units and the added European value will help to provide a more constructive teaching/learning process, which will meet both students and their parents’ expectations towards a better and more attractive Science education).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 95378 Eur

Project Coordinator

Johann-Heinrich-Voss-Schule & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Jedlik Ányos Gimnázium
• Pakruojo ,,Atzalyno” gimnazija
• Agrupamento de Escolas Daniel Sampaio