TRACES OF EUROPE!

"The project ""Traces of Europe"" started from a previous partnership, between an Italian and Norwegian school. Starting from the common need of innovation, it was decided to form a partnership able to provide a meaningful exchange of best practices and most effective active methods, suitable to reach the 8 European Key competences 2020.The objectives of the partnership were:Meet the need for professional growth and professional development.Increase teachers pedagogical approaches to ensure inclusion of all pupils with differing needs and full spectrum of abilities.Synthesize and promote knowledge/experience/skills(new and previous)through dissemination on a teacher platform.Leave in each country a TRACE of the partnership that has an impact on all the components of each host institution.By using eTwinning the partnership was composed of 4 additional schools from Romania, Poland, GB and Iceland as coordinator. The partnership could guarantee all levels of education from the age of 4 to 16. GB decided to quit after the approval so their tasks and responsibility were split between Italy and Norway.It was decided to assign a key competence and the related active method to each country according to their past experience and knowledge:Iceland - primary and secondary school - age 6/16 - Mother tongue - Beginning LiteracyItaly - comprehensive Institute with 3/14 - Digital competence - ICT integration/Coding Robotics/ Tinkering + (from GB) Civic Competencies - Social Emotional Learning/ Mindfulness Romania - kindergarten 3/6 - Cultural Awareness and expression - Outdoor LearningNorway - primary School 6/13 - Math and Science - Assessment for Learning/Visible Learning Poland - primary school 6/13 - newcomer in EU paths - Foreign Languages - Game Based LearningALL COUNTRIES - Entrepreneurship - Trained by designing and building the TRACEThe structure used during meetings and intermeetings periods was always the same:BEFORE MEETINGSPre evaluation: knowledge about the specific methodsEach country prepared a presentation about their best practice connected to the competence of the meetingDURING MEETINGSCommunity building activitiesBest practice sharingWorkshop & learning the new methods with an external trainer (Educational agencies /departments/Universities)Open lessons with kidsLesson planning with Learning DesignerMeeting with parents and municipalitiesLeaving a visible trace in the communityAFTER MEETINGS (3-4 months) Dissemination activities among colleaguesExternal dissemination Twitter/Facebook project websiteNew method implementation with kidsMonitoring of the activities and resultsPost evaluationOther undertaken activities were:3 Transnational project meetings:NORWAY - The first to create the evaluation forms, train about the PBL and Learning designer and start the projectITALY - The second for Medium term evaluationICELAND - The third one for final evaluation/graphs/project data/long term impactNORWAY - Final Meeting with children- THE EUROPEAN SCHOOL WEEK when kids from all the partners Countries met together to experience all the methods and European belongingEach partner was also responsible for some tasks implementation:ROMANIA - Flyers and LOGONORWAY - External dissemination on social mediaPOLAND and ICELAND - Evaluation ITALY - Website and ETwinning Twinspace structureAll partners were responsible for the internal and external dissemination activitiesConsidering the results of the pre and post evaluation forms distributed among students/teachers/parents and the constant monitoring provided by all the teachers involved, it seems that the impact is strong, long lasting and spread among all the school community components:STUDENTS - generally increased-sense of European belonging -understanding of learning foreign languages-motivation for learning-ICT skills-peers cooperation-inclusionTEACHERS- level of professionalism & ability to share their own knowledge- level of general and specific methodological competences to overcome difficulties SCHOOL-Innovation-Students centered approach-Inclusion & school climate-8 key competencies integrationHuman relationshipCOMMUNITIES(parents municipalities…)-School consideration and collaboration-Openness to diversity-Awareness of the value of an active School-Participation to the European dimension-Awareness of the role of Europe in their futureDue to the nature of the project, benefits will be long lasting. Partner schools started a total change process that went deeper into schools organization and into teachers’ instructional strategies. Classroom settings changed, putting students at the center of the learning process, frontal lessons decreased to give frequent chances of active learning. Partner schools started building a new educational system that, thanks to a spread periodic dissemination is getting stronger and stronger."