Steaming the 21st century Glassroom Erasmus Project

Project Title

Steaming the 21st century Glassroom

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: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Five schools have found each other to face the challenges of the 21st century learning methods. On their own the schools had already developed some experience within the field of CLIL, STEAM and/or other innovative practices. They wanted to share and improve these experiences and also gain knowledge and experience within the other fields and enlarge their knowledge about other 21st century skills, techniques, … knowing that technology will play an important role in this digital era (reality even caught us in time). Critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity were important pillars within our search to develop further skills and competences, as well as European citizenship.
We all developed relevant and high-quality skills and competences for both our students and teachers. We developed our existing skills and competences, but we also explored new methodologies within the field of innovative education. First of all we involved all our students and all our teachers. They are all part of the 21st century educational changes and therefore our aim was that all of them benefit from the new and more efficient learning methods. Second, we wanted to open our schools by sharing our experiences and in the end spread the final results in a teacher training course for others to see what we have done.
Although we all felt the need to invest in sciences, maths, engineering, technology and CLIL, we didn’t want to forget about creativity, hence the A of Art in STEAM and the title ‘Steaming the 21st Glassroom’ referring to a poem by Roger MCGough ‘In the Glassroom’.
In the participating schools small groups were selected to do the mobilities organised by the participating schools. The students and teachers staying at home, however, were involved through the lessons at their schools. Some teachers were present during the mobilities, other teachers were given the information through the department meetings. All teachers were involved in this longing to improve their 21st century teaching skills. The changing mentalities of our students and the changing requirements of the job market forced the educational world to pay attention to this in the first place. March 2020: the Covid pandemic came along and we realised that we’ve already learnt a lot to start in a very efficient way compared to other schools.
All this was done within a European context using English.
The different schools developed lessons within the context of CLIL and/or STEAM about a chosen topic. These lessons were prepared before the actual meetings and they were given and evaluated during the meetings. Parallel to these main lessons other methods, skills and methodologies within the field of innovative education were discussed and tested. Ideas from both activities were explored further at home.
The expected results were situated in the field of teachers gaining knowledge about the different possibilities and effectiveness of the innovative lessons. Having been able to experiment with the new techniques colleagues and students enhanced their confidence about these new techniques and felt able to tackle new techniques that doubtless will arise in the 21st century. The educational development will not stop the moment our project ends, but having developed skills, confidence and networks we will be ready for new changes.
Unfortenately the pandemic abrupt changed the project. We were still hoping of postponing all mobilities, so we extended the project. Finally we made the decission to connect the students by making them epals and by doing virtual meetings with the coordinators very soon. Some schools had lots of months of online lessons, which made it harder to involve other teachers and students. Italy finally organised a virtual mobility for teachers and for students concerning 21st century skills.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 121438,89 Eur

Project Coordinator

‘t Saam Campus Aloysius & Country: BE

Project Partners

• FORMACION MAR MENOR, S.L
• Kyrönmaan lukio
• IIS M.Filetico
• Radviliskio Lizdeikos gimnazija