All schools are constrained in 'what' they should teach, generally by some form of National Curriculum. However, we are less constrained in 'how' we teach. The challenge / aspiration of the project is that: Managers, teachers, non-teaching staff, other associated professionals and, parents and carers all work together to contribute to the development of creative methodologies and resources to make learning more exciting, inviting and engaging. Although 2 staff will travel at any one time from each school it is envisaged that each partner school will send different staff to different events and therefore offer width to the project within each school. These participants will then share their new knowledge, skills and awareness with a range of stakeholders, including but not exclusively, those above. Context/background of project: The need for a Creative Curriculum is at the heart of the provision of an effective learning opportunity for all children to allow them to, not only, engage, but also, embrace and take ownership of knowledge and skill development. This will include an understanding of how children learn, what conditions are most conducive and what resources offer the best opportunity for learning to take place. Objectives of our project include: development and enhancement of the learning opportunity for our children by increasing the level of intrinsic motivation. Developing observation tools in order to match the results with European partners in order to look beyond the borders of the National curriculum and in this increase enjoyment and engagement of and with learning. Description of activities: Job shadowing periods in the partner schools, joint discussion for the development of a “creative curriculum” features. Sharing of logbooks material and observation tools, sharing of data, writing of reports. Ongoing web-search of good practices and scientific studies on the “creative learning/teaching”, reducing the gap between University research and the action-research carried on in schools. Sharing lesson plans; schemes of work, school development plans and models of teacher training and staff development. Methodology to be used in carrying out the project: will include the above, but in addition there is opportunity for: active pedagogy; ICT; outdoor education; gardening; artistic laboratories, and; other areas identified on our journey of discovery. Results and impact envisaged: Enhancement of the soft skills, critical thinking and creativity in students and in teaching staff. Potential longer term benefits: Creating a resource of practices between the partners’ exchanges, developing a framework of a “creative curriculum” to be presented for dissemination. All research findings, resources and methodology to be available through web sites including those of partner schools and Etwinning. Resources and the opportunity for seminars available to other schools and institutions of higher education from partner schools to those within their geographical location and on-line.
Special and regular schools from Denmark, Portugal, Spain, England and Germany came together for the project “Creative Learning in Action”. They followed the basic assumption that successful and sustainable learning needs the integration of the whole person and should take place in personal significant contexts. Led by this considered opinion teachers of the participating schools started the journey to reassess and develop their planning and teaching work. “Creative Learning” for these teachers meant to think “outside the box”, to leave the stamped out ways, to dare something and to support each other. Because of this work their pupils got the offer of an explorative, action-orientated and interdisciplinary way of learning, which integrated all senses. These lessons enabled them to arouse their curiosity and to develop intrinsic motivation, to feel self efficiently in their thinking and acting and to experience the importance of the learning contents for their personality. The main goals of this project are defined as working at individual level, as well as at the level of the school development. Beside the personal experiences, which people have made during the project all schools were encouraged to develop a framework for a creative curriculum, which can be implemented in the pedagogical work of the school. During the project all schools worked on five topics/themes, which were identified through a common brainstorming in the beginning. The topics “Time”, “Flight”, “Challenge”, “Weather” and “Elements” stood as examples for broadly defined topics, you can elaborate with pupils in different ages, levels and with different abilities and needs. For that it is a need and a chance to elaborate these topics in different contexts and aspects, different subjects and with different methods. The schools decided to use a kind of rolling system and worked one after the other on a topic, thus the ideas of the school who worked on the topic before could flow into your own work immediately. The instrument of communication was a blog, designed by the project participants themselves. A main aspect of the project was collaboration. Groups of staff or/and the whole staff met regularly in all schools, to face up to planning and teaching ideas in a creative way and to come to an exchange about methodology. All schools evaluated their work regularly and documented their development by filling out the Evaluation forms, which has been developed by the project participants themselves. During transnational project meetings teachers presented the ideas and the development in their schools, went into an intensive, professional exchange and were able to support each other and to learn from each other. These meetings were visited by different colleagues, who were very involved in the project. They collected their impressions, brought them home to the own school and disseminated them among the staff, who stayed at home. The participants have carried together a collection of more than 150 posts and more than 50 additional and planning documents, which are published on the blog in an attractive and clear way. While doing that they considered the condition to share at least one idea from another school for the work on each topic and adapt it for the lessons with the own pupils. So you can find ideas for working on same aspects on different levels for very different pupils. Teachers of the participating schools agree that this project was a very enriching experience for them especially because of the appreciation and motivation of the collaborative work. Pupils love to talk about their exciting experiences, view the photos at the walls of their schools and ask for the next topics. The schools hit the road to continue the way of “Creative learning” and to find ways to implement it in their daily work. Everybody who was touched by this project agrees: Schools who live “Creative Learning in Action” are schools, where learning touches the soul.