Travel to Active Methodologies, european union bond. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Travel to Active Methodologies, european union bond.

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: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

1.- CONTEXT OF THE PROJECT
Nowadays the deep and quick changes that our current European society is undergoing demand immediate responses by the educational authorities so that citizens acquire skills to be able to adapt and develop in it. Active methodologies, which are the basis of our project, allow us to create educational spaces where individual talent, co-operative learning, digitalization, the acquisition of key competences can all be fostered. Our project, “A Journey to Active Methodologies as a European Union bond” will try to prove how these new components or teaching devices can be the key for a change in the learning process.
After reflection about new educational needs and how to improve the teaching-learning process, a group of colleagues at our school, IES RÍO JÚCAR, started to do some online research, we contacted and visited innovative schools in Spain, we participated in some teacher training, and we began to introduce some methodological aspects in our classrooms. In a few years, the group of teachers concerned with this issue became bigger, and we decided to participate in national innovative projects. This process led us to think that it was the moment to get enrolled in an Erasmus Project.

2.- THE MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
The main objectives of the project were:
• Fostering a model of schools which adapt to the educational needs of our 21st century society.
• Enabling teachers to get the right training through the design and implementation of learning projects.
• Encouraging the acquisition of key competences.
• Creating a space for discussion, deliberation and change at schools through critical analysis and the design of innovative educational practices.
• Sharing and spreading successful learning processes in order to open our schools and show them to the whole educational community.
• Looking into active methodologies in education, analyzing, understanding and reflecting and putting them into practice.
• Thinking over the new roles of teachers and students in order to consider different approaches.
• Analyzing some tools and innovative means available for the creation of new lesson contents.
• Reconsidering traditional assessment methods and evaluating the need to adopt alternative strategies which enable us to assess our students´ progress within the framework of this new methodological approach.

3.- PARTICIPANTS
There were five school participants in the project: Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary and Spain. They were all Secondary Schools except for the Hungarian partner, which was a Primary School. Four of the partners had some previous experience in taking part in Erasmus+ projects on the former Comenius, but our school had no previous experience in these projects, we only wanted to share our initiative in Europe, and analyzing the impact of new methodologies in education in different countries.
A large number of students, teachers, families, and local organizations in the different countries participated in activities related with the Project: doing the activities in the classroom, showing the results to the public (teachers, students and families) in our “methodological fairs”, creating service learning projects or doing training in gamification.
4.- ACTIVITIES
The activities carried out during the project were aimed at changing the teaching-learning process. The main purpose of the project was to give the teachers the necessary skills to develop their task according to our present-day society demands. We thought that this updating would be made by means of active, innovative methodologies, new working methods and tools which we believed would give a better response to those demands. Some of the basis of this new methodological trend are the following: Theory of multiple intelligences, The universal design of learning, Project-based learning, Flipped classroom model, Gamification, Bloom´s taxonomy, Integrating ICT in education and service learning.
So we organized interdisciplinary projects carried out by teachers of different subjects of each secondary school in order to show them in our “methodological fairs”: FEMAC (European Fair of Active Methodologies). We organized five FEMAC editions, where we shared the products of each Project. The experience was highly interesting, enriching and rewarding.
5.- RESULTS AND EXPECTED IMPACT
The results of the Project were the following:
• For students: The Project involved an improvement in foreign language communicative competence, cultural and digital competences; a more active participation in society, an increase of their motivation towards learning, an enrichment through the discovery of Europe as a common cultural space. In the long run this experience can help students open their minds to better opportunities for a professional development.
• For teachers: The Project involves the training in new methodologies according to nowadays society; the improvement in their communicative competence in a foreign language and an up-to-date process in digital competences; an increase in their motivation; appreciation of an open and dynamic educational model based upon cooperative work and the exchange of educational experiences.
• For the students´ families: They took active part in the academic life of their children. Since they had to accommodate students from other European schools, they enjoyed the cultural enrichment it meant and they were a very important vehicle of communication of the culture of the countries taking part in the project.
• For schools: this project meant that schools were open both to their nearest environment and to Europe.
6.- BENEFITS IN THE LONG TERM
We can consider that thanks to the Project that we have just finished, we will have a lot of benefits in the long term, such as:
Locally: The perception of the school as an institution integrated in its community, serving it, as an important agent of dynamization and modernization of the town, open to Europe.
Regionally and nationally: The promotion of the region of Castilla-La Mancha in Europe. The public exhibition of the project, showing it on the Internet and the media.
In Europe: The project has been a chance to discover educational aspects and issues in common with other member countries of the EU. In addition, it meant cooperation with educational and cultural organizations related to our Erasmus + partners.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 130260 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES RÍO JÚCAR & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Publiczna Szkola Podstawowa im. Kardynala Stefana Wyszynskiego w Woli Debinskiej
• GYMNASIO VALTINOU
• Ruzsai Weores Sándor Általános Iskola és Alapfoku Muvészeti Iskola
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO LEONE CAETANI