Exchanging New Ways of Learning and Teaching for High Achievers in a European School Network Erasmus Project

Project Title

Exchanging New Ways of Learning and Teaching for High Achievers in a European School Network

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Assurance; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Thanks to the EU, regional labor markets have developed into a common European labor and internal market, so that employers face new demands that our pupils (P) have to face in their future professional and private lives. These requirements demand competences such as mobility, flexibility and initiative besides media and digital literacy, language skills and, especially at this very time, when the EU faces major challenges – Brexit, the shift to the right in many national parliaments or migration, – tolerance and open-mindedness in order to gain intercultural abilities and to develop a positive attitude towards the values of the EU.
The students, our European project, “BRAINS IN ACTION”, was mainly meant for, form a group, which is expected to shape Europe´s future in a special way and which is most likely to develop into positively European-minded citizens: the high performers (HP). These highly motivated, ambitious and hard-working students between 16 and 18 years of age achieve outstanding results in conventional education, but in many schools are given neither the same level of attention, encouragement nor support as is given to students who struggle academically. Only one of our partner schools (PS), namely BEL among GER, SLO and SWE, had been catering for the needs of underachievers – highly intelligent people who refuse to accept school work – before, thus leaving all of us in in need for school development in the sense of an upgrade in dealing with HP (who differ from underachievers).
A first approach to this was provided by this project. It aimed at differentiating the cognitive and social development of these students in an extracurricular environment, expanding their expertise in specific areas as individually as possible as well as offering study and career options at a European level. Their career opportunities should be highly improved through their increased motivation for even better achievements in school. Thus, by promoting the abovementioned competences for lifelong learning, the P´s learning outcomes should be improved. These changed requirements in the EU not only required intensive preparation by the institution school, but at the same time implied that also their teachers (T) had to improve their skills and knowledge in dealing with HP, especially since these are not necessarily mandatory in the current teacher training programs. Therefore, this project also helped to strengthen the professional profile of teachers by increasing the teachers´ willingness to apply new methods in their daily work, while at the same time developing a greater awareness for different education systems in Europe, further enhancing their professionalism. However, an exchange of supporting measures regarding the promotion of HP between the PS could only take place to a limited extent, since the training also showed that a specific and concrete promotion of HP is, in general, only at the beginning.
Specifically, the goals were achieved by developing framework conditions for this project (and the subsequent one) concerning organization and coordination during the three transnational project meetings (TPM) for T exclusively (maximum 3 T per TPM), besides teacher trainings by experts, whose most important findings regarding the promotion and support of HP were worked out in detail by the cooperation of the international team: These were summarized in an analogue as well as digital reader and made accessible to the public. These T training courses were also carried out during the three project-related teaching and learning mobilities (each with 5 P and 2 T per LTT). During these – and through the cooperation with 17 extracurricular institutions as well as parental support and T-contacts – the P and T were given the opportunity to visit companies (e.g. Munich Airport), museums (e.g. Red Star Line Museum Antwerp, Vastergotsland Museum Varnhem) and institutions (e.g. the European Parliament Brussels), to participate in workshops and lectures in universities (Munich Technical University, Max Planck Institute Munich, University of Louvain, University of Jönköping, University of Skövde) as well as getting to know special professions (e.g. newspaper editorial staff of Mariestad Tidningen) in order to widen their own horizons. And all of this with their improved options for study and career in mind. P were amply able to reflect on their impressions and their individual learning progress by working through self-assessment sheets, by individually designed portfolios as well as presentations which were produced within the internationally mixed groups during all activities and disseminated afterwards by the “Book a Student”-principle at their own schools.

FORTSETZUNG IM ANHANG

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 103750 Eur

Project Coordinator

Oskar-Maria-Graf-Gymnasium Neufahrn bei Freising & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Katedralskolan i Skara
• Prva gimnazija Maribor
• Gimnazjum nr 1 im. Jana Pawla II
• ASO Spijker