Forensics and Creative Theatre Erasmus Project

Project Title

Forensics and Creative Theatre

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Creativity and culture; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal)

Project Summary

The major aim of this Strategic Partnership was to develop pupils’ transversal skills in order to promote leadership in secondary education. To acquire this goal, we decided to use forensics and creative theatre as teaching/learning/training tools. Our main target group involved 15-18 year-old pupils. We believed that our innovative educational approaches would help the shift from old paradigms of teaching to new ones – the 21st century learner-centered multimedia environment, with the teacher as facilitator.
Our Partnership included secondary schools from Bulgaria, Slovakia,Turkey, Greece, Romania, Italy and Spain. The partner organisations shared common interests and ambition to enhance cross-culture connectedness, to apply various ICT in the learning-teaching process, to foster leadership and media training, community service, and educational travel. We established a strong and committed Strategic Partnership with an added value to all the partners, whose role in the project was specific. The various profiles of our organisations contributed to the fair distributions of tasks, and significantly enriched our endeavour to provide modern education with innovative tools that would bridge the gap between the restricted curricula opportunities of secondary education, and young people’s real needs for their future educational and career development.
The concrete objectives of this Partnership, that we successfully met, were:
To develop clear strategies, vision and impact of competitive forensics and creative theatre, as innovative educational approaches;
To develop a cadre of young leaders who wouldl share their knowledge and skills with their peers through positive action;
To develop a commitment to transnational cooperation and internationalisation of education;
To foster relationships between young people from different ethnic, religious, and national groups;
To generate more efficient communication in foreign languages;
To share each partner’s innovative teaching methods and good practices, in order to modernise education.
Advanced technology has qualitatively transformed today’s learning and teaching. For the purposes of our project activities, and in particular virtual mobility, we decided to take advantage of Celtx Edge tool, and all suitable ICT. Online social media significantly enriched the educational process because the target groups had regular access to new types of information and knowledge. It also enhanced the sense of European citizenship – teachers and pupils alike learned to work virtually in transnational teams.
Some of the planned activities included: pupils’ presentations in English during forensics international tournaments; creative theatre performances; teachers’ training in transversal attitudes, skills and knowledge. In our blended mobilities all the participants joined a variety of training sessions, webinars, workshops, community-based programs, study tours, and cultural events. Our planned transnational meetings focused primarily on the exploration of educational issues through interactive activities, practical experiences, and other hands-on opportunities. Participants learned more about democratic practices, youth leadership, conflict resolution, problem solving, communication skills, critical thinking, tolerance and respect for diversity, and team building.
Different learning outcomes must be taken into account in education: knowledge, skills, emotions, attitudes, and competences. To achieve our goals, we applied the project method, problem-based learning, peer teaching, the flipped classroom strategy, creative drama methodology, and RMA (the reciprocal maieutic approach). These innovative approaches have intensified the major aspects of education for democracy: citizenship, diversity, human rights, mediation, fighting prejudice, media literacy.
Some short-term results included: giving our target groups of teens the chance to say out loud what worried them, encouraging their critical and creative thinking, expanding their knowledge of English, refining their oral production and presentation, and, of course, providing lots of fun and games in between serious issues. Throughout the project lifetime, all the participants did their best to turn our international collaboration into an enjoyable experience, where everyone felt important.
Long-term benefits have involved several aspects of crucial importance: enhancing positive leadership as a role-model among students; establishing the leading role of pupils’ councils as mediators in the teacher-student-parent paradigm; implementing in everyday teaching the good practices shared from the partners; introducing Europass in school; further cooperation between the partner organisations.
Luckily, this project has become a FACT, and our synergistic efforts have contributed to establishing education among the leading factors of our globalised future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 243815 Eur

Project Coordinator

Profilirana ezikova gimnazia ‘Ekzarh Yossif I’ & Country: BG

Project Partners

• Liceul Tehnologic “Mihai Eminescu” Dumbraveni
• Secondary School of Trikeri
• Gymnazium, Alejova 1, Kosice
• IES Los Cabezuelos
• Fatih Anadolu Lisesi
• Istituto Tecnico Tecnologico G. Malafarina