Teaching Matters Erasmus Project

Project Title

Teaching Matters

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: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

This project was about education and aimed to compare school systems on specific topics and project based learning methods in order to either develop stricter cooperation (between international schools but also between teachers and students) and to stimulate creative research in teaching/learning . That’s why all activities were divided into two main categories: a general part and a specified part.
First the different school systems were compared. In the first meeting the different school systems were discussed and opinion polls /questionnaires were drawn up about how a series of general subjects are taught . Then specific subjects were identified and in the course of the project two series of lessons were filmed. The first series consisted of lessons of Maths, English as a second Language and literature lessons. During the meeting in Estonia it was agreed that in all schools the teachers would introduce lessons on the Polish poet Wislawa Szymorska (literature). It was also decided to film a lesson on the use of the present perfect in English. So the comparison of teaching practices was carried out through recordings of lessons rather than opinion polls submitted to other schools as originally planned. This method was valued more effective to achieve the project results and more engaging for the students
The second set of videos concerned interviews to teachers over a series of topics that were identified in the course of the first two meetings:
– the education to become a teacher

– recruitment rules and training
– Education for special needs
– the use of new technology
– Bilingual education and CLIL (use of a second language for teaching content)
– Counselling
– Discipline keeping

All the videos were seen and discussed by both students and teachers in mixed groups during the meetings. The iCalt questionnaire and self produced questionnaires were used to compare the different teaching/ learning methods.
The participant students were then asked to use the information collected to reflect upon the different school systems. The presentations tackled several topics:
1. Canteen/ nourishment 2. English teaching and how some subjects are taught in each school) – 3. Use of new technologies 4. Rules/prescription
The different school presentations, videos and project groupwork activities were used to come up with new suggestions about learning and teaching. Presentations on the Do’s and Don’ts, the perfect teacher, the Perfect school system, school brochures were discussed and made.
All the documents were uploaded on a Project Folder on Google Drive. All the movies were uploaded on a project YouTube channel TeachingMatters2015 and a compilation of all videos was made as a final product. .
In order to motivate the students several initiatives were developed in different countries to make lessons, reflections and learning more fun and more attractive. The main idea of the project was :”Can we learn from each other? The answer was “Yes, we can”.
So the Students visited a foreign school during the meetings and socialization activities were carried out in order to get the participants get to know each other better and learn more about the country, its culture and education. The two lesson series and materials will be made available for all other schools and the rest of the school, teachers and students, will be able to use it in order to improve their teaching/learning.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 129745 Eur

Project Coordinator

Het Assink & Country: NL

Project Partners

• Saku Gümnaasium
• Zespol Szkol Ogolnoksztalcacych nr 5 w Zabrzu
• ISTITUTO TECNICO ECONOMICO “ENRICO TOSI”