This project is about education and aims to compare school systems on specific topics and project based learning methods in order to either develop stricter cooperation (between international schools but also between teachers and students) and to stimulate creative research in teaching/learning . That’s why all activities will be divided into two main categories: a general part and a specified part. First we are going to compare school systems. We want to draw up opinion polls /questionnaires about how a series of general subjects are taught and then send them to all the participating countries. Not only will these schools have to answer the questionnaires but they will also send the opinion polls to other schools in their country and collect their results. After that each country will have to describe the data collected: they will highlight the results of the opinion polls while pointing out where the several national participating schools are located , what differences and similarities came out and if there are correlations that can explain the results. All these files are going to be combined and then the results concerning each country will be compared again. The final product of this phase will be to make a movie from all the files and to upload it on YouTube channel. The subjects to be tackled with in the questionnaires will be the following - The education to become a teacher - Bilingual education - Education for special needs - Sport education/School for talented athletes - Transport from and to school - School canteen - Confidant(e)/counsellor - punishments/rules/prescriptions ( i.e. clothing) Alongside the general research on school systems, we also want to dig deeper into certain subjects. Each school will have to deal with on specific topic chosen among the following: 1. Canteen/ nourishment ( quality certification, sustainability, prices, diets etc) 2. Slavery and World War, Globalization, English teaching, physical education and Arts ( how some subjects are taught in each school) - 3. Anti bullying program and sexual education 4. Alcohol and Drug abuse prevention Every country will have to carry out a research about a topic and describe how the topic is dealt with in the participating school. Through a questionnaire and opinion poll each school will find out what the other countries think about the way a topic is handled or how they are doing in a specific field (canteen/ food etc) . Every country will have to discuss how these topics are dealt with in their schools and will collect information about the other partner schools. Each school with then make a video on the results of this specific part and will have to upload on a project You Tube channel. Of course all the learners’ exchanges and mobilities will provide relevant insights and hands-on experience on a foreign school education system, on the school related topics and teaching/learning methods. The project You Tube channel with all the videos made on general and specific topics will be the final product of the whole project On the other side it's getting harder and harder to motivate students for the different subjects. Various initiatives are been develloped in different countries to make lessons more fun and more attractive. Can we learn from each other? The Students will visit lessons and see what is good and what is bad. After that they will make a series of lessons for two school subjects for 8 lessons. These Lesson series will be given in the four schools and adjust where necessary. As a result the teachers can adjust there own practice, with the help of the students. These test for the lesson series will be filmed. The two lessons series and the test results are available for all other schools. And will the rest of the school, teachers and students can use and can improve teaching. The Training Institute of the University of Twente will provide support.
This project was about education and aimed to compare school systems on specific topics and project based learning methods in order to either develop stricter cooperation (between international schools but also between teachers and students) and to stimulate creative research in teaching/learning . That’s why all activities were divided into two main categories: a general part and a specified part. First the different school systems were compared. In the first meeting the different school systems were discussed and opinion polls /questionnaires were drawn up about how a series of general subjects are taught . Then specific subjects were identified and in the course of the project two series of lessons were filmed. The first series consisted of lessons of Maths, English as a second Language and literature lessons. During the meeting in Estonia it was agreed that in all schools the teachers would introduce lessons on the Polish poet Wislawa Szymorska (literature). It was also decided to film a lesson on the use of the present perfect in English. So the comparison of teaching practices was carried out through recordings of lessons rather than opinion polls submitted to other schools as originally planned. This method was valued more effective to achieve the project results and more engaging for the students The second set of videos concerned interviews to teachers over a series of topics that were identified in the course of the first two meetings: - the education to become a teacher - recruitment rules and training - Education for special needs - the use of new technology - Bilingual education and CLIL (use of a second language for teaching content) - Counselling - Discipline keeping All the videos were seen and discussed by both students and teachers in mixed groups during the meetings. The iCalt questionnaire and self produced questionnaires were used to compare the different teaching/ learning methods. The participant students were then asked to use the information collected to reflect upon the different school systems. The presentations tackled several topics: 1. Canteen/ nourishment 2. English teaching and how some subjects are taught in each school) - 3. Use of new technologies 4. Rules/prescription The different school presentations, videos and project groupwork activities were used to come up with new suggestions about learning and teaching. Presentations on the Do’s and Don’ts, the perfect teacher, the Perfect school system, school brochures were discussed and made. All the documents were uploaded on a Project Folder on Google Drive. All the movies were uploaded on a project YouTube channel TeachingMatters2015 and a compilation of all videos was made as a final product. . In order to motivate the students several initiatives were developed in different countries to make lessons, reflections and learning more fun and more attractive. The main idea of the project was :”Can we learn from each other? The answer was “Yes, we can”. So the Students visited a foreign school during the meetings and socialization activities were carried out in order to get the participants get to know each other better and learn more about the country, its culture and education. The two lesson series and materials will be made available for all other schools and the rest of the school, teachers and students, will be able to use it in order to improve their teaching/learning.