EXPRESSIONS WITH TWO VARIABLES - GORSKI AND DIEGO The project has been developed by Zespół Szkół 49 in Warsaw, Poland, following the school's European Development Plan and the 2014 “Gorski in Europe – Stage I” project. The partnership with IES Gerardo Diego in Pozuelo de Alarcón of Madrid, Spain, was initiated by two English teachers, who met in England in 2011, while doing their own Comenius courses. Both schools are public institutions and comprise two, junior and senior, secondary levels. The Spanish school is about twice the size of the Polish one with regard to the current number of students – 960 and 460. The numbers of teachers are – 69 and 55 respectively. Many Polish students come from disadvantaged backgrounds, whereas most IES G. Diego students are middle class children. Although the Polish school has never carried out an international partnership before, it has been involved in many local educational initiatives, e.g. WARS&SAWA programme, one of the components of Warsaw System on Supporting Gifted Students. Gorski Junior and Senior High Schools design and implement programmes supporting gifted students in primary schools and kindergartens in Warsaw's Bielany, such as “INFO-GORAL”, a city game with the use of mobile devices, or “KHAN ACADEMY in Tolstoja Street”, whose elements will be used in this project. IES G. Diego contributes to “Expressions” its expertise in running English through Art classes, as well as expertise in cultural and exchange programmes with various European countries, the U.S.A and China. Also, the Spanish partner is currently involved in a EU funded project on innovative educational methods and creativity. The overall goals of “Expressions With Two Variables – Gorski and Diego” are 1/ developing a more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment inside each of the organizations: ready to integrate good practices and new methods into daily activities, and 2/ examining how formal and non-formal education may co-exist and make education more effective. Other goals include examining innovative approaches to gaining two key competences – mathematical competence and communication in foreign languages. We believe that by using cooperative methods like learning in teams and teaching each other, and by completing the project tasks with the use of ICT, the students will also develop other key competences: digital competence, social and civic competences, sense of initiative and cultural awareness, as well as transversal competences. Moreover, we expect to gain greater understanding and responsiveness to social, linguistic and cultural diversity, demonstrated by both groups: students and teachers, and greater awareness of the European Project and the European values and citizenship. The main activities of the project are designed to let the teachers and students share experience on using innovative approaches to teaching and learning Maths and English, but they involve other subjects too. The activities will take place during four partnership exchanges to the countries of their counterparts: two training visits of groups of teachers - one group of 3 Spanish teachers and one group of 4 Polish teachers, and two learning student visits of 15 participants each. The planned events involve workshops, peer-observation, working in groups, using online learning platforms, such as KHAN Academy, playing city games with the use of mobile devices, preparing and giving presentations. In between the visits, students and teachers will cooperate using online channels, such as the e-Twinning platform. Expressions With Two Variables – Gorski and Diego” will conclude with two presentations on the expressions the students have come up with during the project life. Throughout the project life, its participants will make lots of different expressions – mathematical, linguistic, artistic ones, and they will put specific data into these expressions, then the expressions will get new meanings, communication will take place and the goals of the project will be achieved. The presentations will reflect what the students have learned and felt during the project life. To make sure that the project is completed on time and the goals achieved we have carefully planned the main project events, their timetable and the budget, we have chosen appropriate evaluation tools. We have made plans to share the results of the project with the school communities on local, national and EU levels. Project coordinators are prepared to continuously control the timetable and resources, monitor risk, and ensure efficient communication. Throughout the project life both schools disseminate information by running dedicated “Expressions” webpages on their websites. We plan to encourage the participants to keep the other side informed about some major events in their schools by continuing a post-project blog on the “Follow-up Expressions” webpage.
The project was developed by Zespół Szkół 49 in Warsaw, Poland, following the school's European Development Plan and the 2014 “Gorski in Europe – Stage I” project. The partner organisation was IES Gerardo Diego in Pozuelo de Alarcón of Madrid, Spain. The idea for the project came from two English teachers, who met in England in 2011, while doing their own Comenius courses. Both schools are public institutions and comprise two, junior and senior, secondary levels. From September 2017, due to the latest system reform, the Polish school has had a primary level, too. The Spanish school has about 960 students and 70 teachers, whereas for the Polish school the numbers are 509 and 55 respectively. The Polish school had never carried out an international partnership before. However, it had been involved in many local educational initiatives, such as “INFO-GORAL”, a city game with the use of mobile devices, or “KHAN ACADEMY in Tolstoja Street”, whose elements were used in this project. IES G. Diego contributed to “Expressions” its expertise in running English through Art classes, as well as expertise in cultural and exchange programmes with various European countries, the U.S.A and China, as well as in implementing a EU funded project on innovative educational methods and creativity. The overall goals of “Expressions With Two Variables – Gorski and Diego” were: 1/ developing a more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment inside each of the organizations: ready to integrate good practices and new methods into daily activities, and 2/ examining how formal and non-formal education may co-exist and make education more effective. Other goals included examining innovative approaches to gaining two key competences – mathematical competence and communication in foreign languages. We managed to show that by using cooperative methods like learning in teams and teaching each other, and by completing project tasks with the use of ICT, the students developed other key competences, such as: digital competence, social and civic competences, sense of initiative and cultural awareness, as well as other transversal competences. Moreover, we expected to gain greater understanding and responsiveness to social, linguistic and cultural diversity, demonstrated by both groups: students and teachers, and greater awareness of the European Project and the European values and citizenship. The main project events were four partnership exchanges to the countries of their counterparts: two training visits of teachers - a group of 3 Spanish teachers and a group of 3 Polish teachers, and two learning student visits of 16 Spanish students and 18 Polish ones, with two accompanying teachers to each visit. The main project activities were designed to let the teachers and the students share experience on using innovative approaches to teaching and learning Maths and English, including many other subjects, too. The planned events involved workshops, peer-observation, working in groups, using online learning platforms, such as KHAN Academy, playing city games with the use of mobile devices, preparing and giving presentations. In between the visits, students and teachers implemented the methods they had learnt and they cooperated using online channels, such as TwinSpace on the e-Twinning platform. To make sure that the project would be completed on time and the goals achieved we had carefully planned the main project events, their timetable and the budget, we had applied numerous evaluation tools, such as questionnaires, discussions and online tools. Both project coordinators regularly controlled the timetable and resources, monitored risk, and ensured efficient communication and adequate dissemination of information by running dedicated project webpages on their schools’ websites, project Facebook profile and Twinspace. All the materials produced for project activities (handouts, leaflets, workshop materials) have been made available to both school's communities as well as shared on TwinSpace. Expressions With Two Variables – Gorski and Diego” concluded with two presentations combining video films on the expressions that students had come up with throughout the project life. The presentations clearly show what the students learnt and felt during the project life. All project activities let their participants make lots of different expressions – mathematical, linguistic, artistic ones, and they put a lot of data into these expressions. The outcome might be observed on many levels – the school level as well as the personal levels of all the participants, many of whom got results in school-leaving exams above average. Moreover, the Polish school has gained popularity and prestige in the local community, which manifests itself in the number of candidates and the number of enquiries about next Erasmus+ partnership projects. Both schools will continue to cooperate within a new 2017 KA1 Erasmus+ project on bilingualism.