Motivation Through ICT’s and Innovative Educational Methods Erasmus Project

Project Title

Motivation Through ICT’s and Innovative Educational Methods

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Historical context
Registered in a semi-rural environment, our school has a relatively homogeneous population in all points of view. Nevertheless, we have noticed – and we continue to notice – a certain lack of interest in the school thing on the part of some of our students. Therefore, a few years ago, several teachers supervised by the headmistree began to think on the issue and tried to provide various answers. One of these was to launch an Erasmus+ project, taking as problem the motivation at school and as a hypothetical solution the use of innovative teaching methods as well as the use of ICT in our classrooms.
Now that the theme of the project was defined, we had to find partners with similar problems to ours. Indeed, our project idea was to collaborate with colleagues from various European countries to find practical solutions together. So we posted an ad on the eTwinning platform, and we quickly received a lot of responses. So we did a sorting taking into account the seriousness of the candidates but especially by ensuring that they experience a similar educational situation to ours. Once sorted, we found five partner schools.

Goals
Our initial goal was therefore to ensure that our students regained some motivation in school through the use of teaching techniques and methods deviating from the traditional way, notably through the use of certain information and communication technologies (ICT). We wanted to take advantage of this to create a bridge between the Erasmus + project and the Digital School project, which we won in 2017.
From this main objective came a series of sub-objectives such as those detailed in the application file: innovate its teaching practices, varying learning, improve remediation, etc.

Participants
The audience we were aiming for was twofold: students and teachers. It was decided between partners to make four mobilities over the total duration of the project. At each of them, each school had to involve three students accompanied by two teachers. It may not seem like much, but it seemed more efficient to offer various activities to a small group of people. We could then make sure of the direct impact.
As far as the profile of the participants is concerned, they were chosen among the pupils by drawing lots. We considered that this was the fairest and most equitable way to proceed. We did not distinguish between the socio-economic background, the results or the level of English of our students.

Activities
All activities were reflected in the drafting of the application file so that they serve the main objective of the project as well as its sub-objectives. It was up to each partner school to imagine an activity related to our general problematic. To ensure consistency and similar requirements, the working method was repeated at each mobility. Thus, upstream of a mobility, students had to prepare a presentation work in their own school. During the actual mobility, these same students had to present the fruit of their work. Downstream of the mobility, a survey was submitted to the students involved in order to know their opinion on the course of mobility. Each of the activities required two phases of preparation: 1. A literature search concerning the subject treated; The realization of a visual presentation using an ICT. In the current of the moblilités, the students had then to present orally their subject in English.
In summary, we tried to involve the students as much as possible by entrusting them tasks related to the theme of the subject.

Results and impacts
The results were measured directly through the surveys offered to students and teachers at the end of each mobility. Concerning the impact and sustainability of the activities, it is difficult for us to measure. Nevertheless, we can say that certain techniques and teaching methods continue today to be used in our classes on a daily basis. As a result, we have greatly expanded the audience reached by the project. Teachers have shown interest in some innovative methods or the use of ICT. As such, it can be considered that the project has had, and continues to have, a real impact on a relatively large community.
In addition, all student productions and results have been recorded on our Twinspace page so that everyone can consult them at their leisure.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 128913,03 Eur

Project Coordinator

Institut Saint Joseph Libramont/Ecole technique Bertrix & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Killorglin Community College
• Paikuse Põhikool
• IISS Ettore Majorana Bari
• Agrupamento de Escolas do Barreiro
• OS Gornje Vrapce