Upskilling of sChools’ teachers to effectively support ONliNe EduCaTion Erasmus Project

Project Title

Upskilling of sChools’ teachers to effectively support ONliNe EduCaTion

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Pedagogy and didactics; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history. It has affected 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries and all continents. To fight the spread of the virus, schools, colleges and universities have been shut down in the vast majority of EU countries. With few exceptions, courses that had started as face-to-face in classroom environments have been moved online. One of the main challenges faced during this hard transition from the face-to-face to online training, was among others the lack of teachers’ digital skills as well as pedagogical skills with emphasis on (a) the principles of distance education adapted to secondary education, (b) the principles of blended learning, (c) the inverted learning with emphasis on hybrid model and (d) the change of roles and identities of teachers, students and parents in the context of distance learning.

In this context the main objective of CONNECT project is to reinforce the ability of EU secondary schools to provide high quality and inclusive online education. Thus, secondary schools, i.e. students and teachers are the main beneficiaries of the project. The main activities of the project include:

(i) a survey of the landscape regarding the delivery of online education in EU schools during the COVID-19 pandemic aiming to define the methodologies and digital tools used, the challenges and problems raised from a pedagogical and technological point of view and the mitigation steps taken.
(ii) a pedagogical framework underpinning the online delivery of courses in secondary schools in addition to the in-class activities.
(iii) educational scenarios supporting the online delivery of courses in addition to the in-class activities, and especially the courses of Mathematics, Physics and Language.
(iv) A MOOC aiming to equip teachers of secondary schools with digital pedagogies and ICT-related skills to foster inclusive online teaching and learning.
(v) A teachers guide aiming to support teachers to efficiently utilize CONNECT approach for the online delivery of courses.
(vi) An exploitation plan presenting preconditions and recommendations for the adoption of CONNECT main outputs in secondary schools.

The proposed approach will be tested for a period of 3 months at secondary schools by 24 teachers coming from 8 schools from Greece, Cyprus, Italy and France (involving 360 students) in order to evaluate its effectiveness and make the necessary adaptations on the outputs produced. Prior to pilots, teachers will go through the MOOC and a face to face training event.

The project will enhance the potential of the teachers and help them to incorporate digital online technology and develop digital pedagogical competences for online education. Moreover, it will have a positive impact on students and teachers by the following means: improving student engagement, encouraging self-paced learning, affording better access to resources, promoting innovative teaching techniques, enriching teaching practice, promoting teaching career development.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 211997 Eur

Project Coordinator

Regional Directorate for Primary and Secondary Education of Attica & Country: EL

Project Partners

• INSTITOUTO TECHNOLOGIAS YPOLOGISTONKAI EKDOSEON DIOFANTOS
• Académie de Paris
• UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS
• GIP FCIP DE PARIS
• CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE