The participating schools objective is the promotion of horizontal priorities and field-specific priorities that are relevant for the working environment. This is complemented by training and learning activities in the cooperating countries and is supposed to enable access for our students to highly qualified jobs within the EU and the international job market. As the Generation Z is our target group and regarding their future job search, the students shall be sensitised to leave responsible traces in social networks with the main focus on Facebook and LinkedIn. A media ethical support will be accessible for all participants during the project term. Best-Practice examples of partner schools will be shared to increase the competences of the 120 students by using new teaching methods. Those students come from internationally focussed vocational schools and secondary schools with the main focus on IT, gastronomy and tourism, science, agriculture, health and excellence promotion. Our main focus lies on blended learning in English as the lingua franca with the help of the CLIL Method: Content and language integrated learning on our Moodle-platform and at transnational activities, social networking with responsible traces on the internet and promoting equivalent methodical and personal competencies as well as social skills. We have built our strategic partnership on the innovative experiences of the participating schools in these specific fields of competencies. The participants will be mixed into internationally co-ed groups and each group will be coached by a teacher. At their own pace the students will achieve solutions to problem based tasks in the following modules: “Europe and Asia: The EU-project countries and Turkey: Geography, history, religion, literature, arts, innovation, school, university, working environment and personal branding. If they need support, the students can always turn to a member of the international team or one of the coaches. The deadlines for their tasks are milestones of the project implementation. The tasks are then screened by the coaches and if needed the tasks can be amended during regular classes. The whole learning process is transparent to the students; they receive feedback at the latest by the end of each module. By guaranteeing equal opportunities to each student, disadvantaged students as well as excellent ones will be individually supported and challenged. It is a novelty in our partnership that we will use mobile computing for teaching purposes. If there is a need to clarify the tasks during regular classes, the students are encouraged to bring their own devices to get access to relevant information. The students shall define which methodical, personal and social competencies are relevant for their future work. They will evaluate their own capabilities and develop their own individual goals they will reach by the end of the project. These will be strengthened with competence- and problem based tasks during three transnational learning activities. It is expected that participating students will become aware of their roles as future employees in the European and international job market, so that they will not only network socially but also professionally and that they will leave responsible traces on the internet. Furthermore all students will reach the B2 level of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). Of great importance is the sustainability of the project. The Moodle-platform shall be integrated into everyday life at school and the Moodle-course itself will be revised and adapted so it can be reduplicated and made accessible for other colleagues and other schools on platforms. The Moodle course can also be shortened to become accessible for even more students during project weeks. Participating teachers can act as multipliers within their schools and can present the work with Moodle to their colleagues and could thereby promote blended learning and cooperative learning. They can present the learning increment of the students on information days or pedagogical days at their schools to motivate their colleagues to use the methods of cooperative learning more often.
By promoting working life relevant basic and transversal skills in form of training and learning activities the different partner institutions were able to provide their students a better access to highly qualified jobs in the European Labour market and in the international context. Because the target group was generation Z, the aim was to raise the students‘ awareness of leaving a responsible digital footprint in the social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook with respect to job search. The students worked out a common netiquette governing the online communication and had a critical look at ethical questions regarding the media throughout the project. The best practices and good examples of the partner schools were tried, exchanged and benchmarked, enabling all the 170 participating students from schools with very different profiles (secondary education: science, media, tourism, nursing, arts, languages) to acquire new competences through the adoption of new teaching and learning methods. Our focus was on Blended-Learning, the use of the English language as lingua franca and increasing language skills through the CLIL method: intergrated learning of content and language through Moodle platform and in real life during transnational activities, in social networks paying special attention to a responsible digital footprint and by enhancing digital, methodological and social competencies and soft skills respectively. Our strategic school partnership was based on long and innovative experience of the participating schools in these competence fields. The participating students worked in internationally mixed groups and each group was tutored by at least one teacher. On Moodle platform the students worked on mainly problem-based exercises on different topics: Europe and Asia, the project countries and Turkey, Geography, Cultural influences, Differences in history, religion, literature, art, innovation, school, studies and working life. The students worked on these excercises at their own pace, as well as on developing and creating their own Personal Branding as their unique selling point on the job market. In need of help, they were able to turn to the other members or their tutor through Moodle messages or face-to-face. In order to enable the individual learning paces and to adhere to the annual work programmes in each schools, it was necessary to let go of originally planned strict deadlines. By keeping the exercises available for a longer time we hoped to achieve more online interaction between the students and enable them to follow the whole learning process. The contents of the exercises were also dealt with in the regular lessons and used as preparation for project meetings. The students had the chance to find out which skills and competences would be important for their own future career. These were addressed and strenghtened in the problem-based exercises and transnational learning activities. Another novelty in the level of the partnership was that we used mobile computing for teaching purposes. This was seen for example in the BYOD initiative and the use of students‘ devices in lessons or project meetings for creating project relevant information. Unfortunately the project team could not test the innovative use of tablets in classrooms in the way it exists in the Turkish partners school due to the political situation in Turkey and the national decisions among the partner countries. It was remarkable how the participating students became aware of their role as prospective jobseekers and employees in the European labour market, who create networks not only privately but also professionally. As we had hoped, the interest in using Moodle platform for teaching purposes increased among the staff, and some teachers took part in further education courses and one participating school wants to do a test phase at their school. The Moodle course in the project was constantly updated and modified according to the wishes of the students. Thanks to the back-up function we can copy the course to other moodles. As the Personal Branding workshop held in the German school at „Europa Tag“ showed, the course can be modified to fit to a new target group. The participating teachers acted as disseminators within their schools and introduced their colleagues to: new online tools such as Padlet, goal oriented use of students smartphones in regular lessons, and hence help develop the outcomes of blended and cooperative learning in the partner schools. The project and its results , the Moodle course, international cooperation through the Moodle platform, cooperative learning and exercise types, personal branding and other project novelties were presented to teaching staff in different educational events and project days in schools. The aim was to motivate the colleagues to start thinking in European way, encourage them in using cooperative learning methods , and promote digital teaching methods in classrooms.