Context/Background: During the eTwinning Conference in Nottingham in June 2015 Sugata Mitra gave a video presentation of his "Hole in the Wall" experiment in India that made him famous and won him a TED Talk award in 2013 for his child driven education ideas. His experiment showed that if children are motivated and given the tools they will teach themselves and each other. This project results from discussions following Sugata Mitras video presentation and is to answer the question about how Sugata Mitras methods can be effectively adopted and applied in the mathematics, physics and biology classrooms. Objectives: Sugata Mitras method of "teaching" is a significant move away from traditional classroom teaching. It asks the students to "teach" themselves. The ambition of this project is for teachers of Maths, Physics and Biology in the three schools involved to end up teaching as, or as close as possible to, the way Sugata Mitra envisaged in his Ted Talk and for these teaching methods to spread out from the classrooms in each of the three partner countries. (A simple example of a child driven lesson would be to show the students a video clip of a Water Tank being filled up with a hose and simply asking how long it will take to fill up.) With this type of teaching the teacher acts as an adviser, coach, director, mentor, motivator. It is believed that this student driven approach to teaching results in higher engagement of students in their education, resulting in better attainment and more mature and self confident individuals who are better prepared for the world of work and who can make a better contribution to their community and society after school. Number and profile of participants: Three schools involved. Szkola Da Vinci on Poznan, Poland, Sagrada Familia in El Masnou, Catalonia, and Saint Roch's Secondary in Glasgow, Scotland. Students aged 12-15 will be directly involved. Eleven teachers will be directly involved. Description of activities: Student activities will take place in the mathematics, physics and biology classrooms of the three schools. twice per year. Once before Christmas and once after Christmas. These activities will be for students to learn topics, which would be part of the curriculum and taught anyway, using the new innovative Sugata Mitra method, with the guidance and coaching of the teachers. As the project develops from activity to activity, over the three years, the level of competence and sophistication will develop. By the end of the three years teaching in this new method should be integral to the schools and an accepted and normal way of teaching. The milestones of the project are the international student activities that take place in January of each year. In these activities students from the three schools will come together. They will receive team training then hold a mini conference and workshops, giving presentations and discussing progress and develop their thoughts on how they should move forward. Methodology use: At the start of the project the teachers of all schools will hold a three day meeting. Day1 will start with team training followed by learning Sugata Mitras methodology, receiving a presentation from a specialist, then discussion groups. Day 2 will be to practice implementing and using the new methodology in the classroom and giving and doing practice lessons. Day 3 will be to choose topics for activities in each subject. to prepare proforma reports, evaluations and lesson plans and for setting up eTwinning and Facebook. The teachers in each subject will be responsible for the content of the new student activities, staying with the Time table and ensuring completion of evaluations, reports and lesson plans. Coordinators will disseminate by inputting to eTwinning and Facebook. At the start of each year the teachers will hold a video conference to ensure everyone is lined up for the year ahead. At the end of each year the coordinators will meet to complete the yearly progress report and plan the next year. Results/impact envisaged: The impact on all students (including local deprived, international refugee and asylum seekers, and deaf) should be that they leave school better qualified, more rounded and mature learners who will be more effective contributors to society and whose employment prospects will be enhanced. The continual professional development received by the teachers by doing this project should result in them becoming more effective teachers and deliverers, ahead of and leading other teachers in the use of this innovative teaching method. Everything that will be done will reported and updated on both eTwinning and Facebook allowing anyone anywhere to access what has been done.
The Erasmus+ funded Project had to be terminated in November 2017. This was due to the Lead Coordinator of the Project leaving the school in August 2017 and the school not finding a teacher to lead the Project from within the School. No one was found within the school to take on and lead the Project and as a result it was not considered feasible to keep Saint Roch's Secondary School as the lead of the Project with financial and Legal responsibility. Notwithstanding the above the Project has been successful in achieving its aims and objectives for the first year (as discussed in the Year 1 Preliminary Report). While the Project is no longer Erasmus+ funded and no longer at Saint Roch's Secondary School work on the Project continues anyway. Two other Secondary Schools in Glasgow (Bannerman High and Hyndland Secondary) have joined the Project and taking it forward. Without the Erasmus+ funding the other two schools (Segrada Familia in Spain and Zespol Szkol Da Vinci in Poland) are continuing the Project. All four schools now aim to continue with the Project and meet the original Projects objectives, including the planned visits. This secondary school Project is running in parallel with a similar Primary School Project funded by Erasmus+ with five Glasgow Schools, six Valencia Schools and five Warsaw schools taking part. The Lead Coordinator for both Projects is Christopher Sagan. To be clear then this Erasmus+ Project is not being Terminated because it has failed but because funding could not be used by the Glasgow schools now taking part in the Project. The Project has been very much a success and has been recognised as such by Erasmus+, the British Council and by the Education Authorities for all three cities taking part, and without further Erasmus+funding every effort will be made to continue the success of the Project.