Innovation=Motivation. Against Early School Leaving. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Innovation=Motivation. Against Early School Leaving.

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

The motivation to join this project was clear: There was a need in our schools that is also a national and European aim: to reduce early school leaving using innovation to motivate our students. On the other hand, we wanted to improve the social inclusion of our youth and fight against gender discrimination. Apart from these main aims, we wanted our students to be conscious of the European heritage, especially the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. There was a strong motivation towards the learning of English as a second language, so this will be a fantastic opportunity for students and teachers to improve their ability to communicate in English.

Some of the partners were already involved in other Erasmus+ projects which finished that year, and all were very excited about the idea of starting a new one. Although most of our partners had experience in Erasmus+ projects, it was going to be a new European project experience for our partner school from Latvia.

The items, objectives and priorities of the project affected all the stages and all the subjects in the school, so all the teachers wanted to participate in it, increasing their motivation towards their role as teachers.

We were much appreciated our project was granted because with this project we could help other schools in our countries and in the EU to get the aim of reducing early school leaving. Another reason is that our schools are places in areas with low- medium incomes and for most of our students this was the only way to go abroad and improve their abilities in English, especially when they get the opportunity to travel abroad to meet our other partners.

There were students with poor economic means and we encouraged them to take part in the project and had the chance to take part in the mobilities. Many students of our schools came from families with low income. Therefore, we considered extremely important that our schools get involved in European programmes to offer them the possibility to exchange ideas, widen their horizons, compare, contrast, learn and respect one another.

The coordinating ensured the effective communication between the institutions, by creating Facebook Messenger or Whatsapp groups for the different aspects of the project, another group for coordinators, a Facebook website to share materials, documents, pictures… A Google Drive space was also created.

For the communication among students, the coordinator created a TwinSpace for this project, and every partner coordinator added their students data before each mobility, so they could interact in advance. They could participate in Forums and in a Live Chat.

Before each mobility, we prepared a planning with the activities to be developed in our school, according to the blocks below. Each partner put them into practice and prepared a report on achievements, difficulties and improvement proposals that were presented in the mobility. They will also recorded video showing how they put those activities into practice.

As this year is the European Year of Cultural Heritage, we planned that before each mobility, the host country would work on cultural aspects from its country to present It to the rest, including cultural visits.

During each mobility, a meeting schedule was established. Once the presentations of the students were made, the teachers elaborated some material promoting the activity worked during that mobility. The resources were digitized by the ICT team and disseminated by the team responsible for Dissemination. In all the schools, that material was published, also on the web pages and social networks, as well as on the project website and Facebook. There was also a dissemination of this explanatory material of each motivating and innovative technique at European level, through the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform and social networks.

As a part of the overall dissemination plan, assessing the short and long term impacts was a crucial step in our project, thanks to which to measure achievements and to generate recommendations for future improvements at any project level. If the short term impact was measured while developing the project, the long term impact will have to to be monitored after finishing activities.

Activity blocks were divided in terms:

1. Presenting the project: different meetings with teachers, students, families so they all know the project and they feel an important part in it. International Logo Contest. Presenting our school.
2. Theoretical studies in each school, area and country to compare the results and get agreements on how can we learn from the other schools.
3. School Plan to avoid ESL
4. Digitalization plan.Get acquainted with ICT tools. Establish and disseminate a decalogue of good use among students, teachers and families.
5. Innovative approach; Flipped Classroom, Cooperative work, Project Based Learning…
Advice on the dangers of the internet.
6. Agreements and dissemination of conclusions.

Project Website

https://sites.google.com/vedruna.es/innovation-motivation/home

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 156021,1 Eur

Project Coordinator

Colegio Ntra. Sra. del Carmen-Fundación Vedruna Educación & Country: ES

Project Partners

• osnovna skola trstenik
• Cesu Valsts gimnazija
• Springwood High School
• Integrierte Gesamtschule Grünthal – mit gymnasialer Oberstufe-
• IIS Francesco Orioli