I C U- a toolbox for optimal teaching Erasmus Project

Project Title

I C U- a toolbox for optimal teaching

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

I C U – a toolbox for Optimal Teaching was a student and teacher based two year project. Project activities were planned for students from 6 to 12 years with focus on the 6 to 9 year groups. We planned to work with 2000 students and 200 teachers from six countries (Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Poland and Spain).
We saw that the tendency of pupils dropping out of schoolwas getting stronger and because of that we needed to keep up with the challenges. We strongly believed that in order to stop this tendency we needed to make pupils feel connected to education in the way that they see that they can gain their goals from an early stage. This would, in our opinion, increase students’ will to learn on higher stages in their education. Teachers worked in different classrooms throughout Europe and they all had some good ideas about how to teach better. We had identified a need to improve the quality of education in our schools regarding the basic skills.

We strongly believed that students only need good teaching methods that suit them to keep up with the others. They need to master the basic skills to make learning more sufficient and to improve the learning process in each child in every level. This procject put focus upon the five basic skills: oral, writing, ICT, numeracy and reading. We aimed to see every child as an individual, to find his or her level and help them to achieve their full potential. That is why we needed to create a Toolbox for optimal teaching of basic skills to be used all over Europe.
The partnership had two main objectives. The Toolbox of methods for increasing the five basic skills and the European dimension. We wanted to collect, try out and improve methods from all partner schools regarding the five basic skills and create a Toolbox for Optimal Teaching. We also aimed to develop links between different European countries. This project activities improved teachers`and pupils`understanding of cultural influences on the provision and the nature of education. We wanted the students to grow into a stronger European identity. The project – based activities were integrated into the curriculum of the school.

The cooperation increased the teachers` ICT, English and professional skills. The students aged 6-12 participating in various activities increased their self-esteem and motivation for learning and improved their basic and transversal skills.
Both teachers and students were engaged in every stage of planning, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of results.

During the project we had many activites for the pupils connected to the basic skills:
Oral skills: themebased songs, storytelling, camera/video/dvd, school play, problemsolving
Numeracy: everyday maths,money, measurement, cooking, time, distance, sports, PE, terms, calculations, creating a market place.
Reading: critical reading, digital reading, advertisement, “reason to read”, competition between schools
Writing: create a book – continuous stories, word of the day,wordgames, use writing to describe learning, writing with different tools (pencil, mail/ICT, sms/phone), book creator
ICT: Mail (personal versus private), chat (ethics, internet safety, anti-bullying), DVD, Skype, games, presentation about countries, show and tell, presentation in our native language.
We had two dolls from each country travelling between schools. They carried a diary for all the pupils to write in about their daily life.
The main result of the project is the Toolbox. The toolbox includes description of the methods, how the teachers can apply them, examples, expected results and what the methods want to affect. It gives the teachers the possibility to make their own teaching more efficient, varied, interesting and innovative. The toolbox has been presented to teachers and other members of school and local government. Also each school has published the Toolbox and made it available to other schools and teachers across Europe for potential long term use and benefits for them.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 81378 Eur

Project Coordinator

Hatteng skole & Country: NO

Project Partners

• Szkola Podstawowa nr 3 z Oddzialami Integracyjnymi im. Adama Mickiewicza
• Osnovna skola Glina
• Escola Josep Veciana
• Itä-Hakkilan koulu
• Uuemõisa Lasteaed-Algkool
• Södermalmsskolan