Discovering International Creative Experience

<< Background >>In all of the schools involved in this project (including the associated partner schools in Iceland), we had students who had never left their own country and were very hesitant to go abroad due to their lack of experience. As schools, we had limited opportunities to address this problem. Ideally, we wanted to give these students more exposure to international contacts, but motivation was often a major challenge.We saw how motivating role-playing could be for this target group, which is why we ran this project to find ways to support our disadvantaged learners more effectively. In the schools, we still did not have much experience with role-playing, which is why we needed a project like this—to try it out, develop innovation, and learn from the experience.We believed that the effects it had were so valuable that they easily justified the funding. We were essentially giving disadvantaged learners the support they needed to have fair chances in their careers, and this was a principle that all of the involved schools strongly believed in.<< Objectives >>In the last years, we gathered a lot of experience in using fantasy role-playing games with young people to train various skills and motivate them. With this project, we had the objective of helping disadvantaged people at school develop stronger language skills, including writing skills and communication skills. Another objective was giving them international experience and international connections, since many of the students we targeted had never left their own country.<< Implementation >>We ran a number of workshops at the partner schools in Germany and Estonia and at the associated partner schools in Iceland, where we taught the students writing skills and then connected them online for a whole school year to work on a role-playing adventure together. At the end of the year, we met in person in Iceland and played through the adventure together, focusing on intercultural skills, teamwork skills, and social skills.<< Results >>The project had two main results, one tangible and the other non-tangible:The tangible result was the role-playing book containing adventure scenarios that the students created together. Having a common result that they all worked on and could be proud of was an important connecting element. We published it as an e-book and distributed it freely. The other result was the personal development of the students, including their language skills and social skills as well as the international experience that had a large impact on their mindsets.