The project “Entrepreneurial mindset for successful life” aims at promoting innovative thinking and entrepreneurial skills with all the beneficiaries empowering them to convert their own ideas into value, in other words, to be creative in order to find new employment opportunities. Schools, teachers and pupils will be engaged in a large number of different initiatives and exchanges of experience, innovative practices and collaborative working techniques at a European scale. The project work members started their common activities via the eTwinning platform where they met, shared ideas and started a joint project called “Creative thinking – lift to success”. That cooperation has continued for a year now and enriched our experience and understanding of the contemporary technological tools as well as the opportunities for problem based learning. The coordination and the various project member responsibilities are already distributed so that the project implementation and goals to be successfully achieved. The entire students´ community will be involved in the project, as the concept of entrepreneurship will be spread out in each of the associates working environment. 68 students and 24 teachers will participate in various training activities and exchanges providing the opportunity to set up alliances and foundations for further cooperation. This project will enhance and improve the involvement of young people and teachers from different countries in joint comprehensive development activities and encourage them to continue their education at higher levels. The specific objectives of the project include strategic exchange of good practices in education on EU level, amongst the partnering schools from four European countries fostering entrepreneurship and young people’s pro-active labour behavior. The project creates “Training programmes in entrepreneurial ship”, students learn to use efficiently “Open virtual space” and communicate via virtual community. Considering the fact that latest technologies are used everywhere in our digital age and experts in this field certainly have increased opportunity to find employment, the project provides a lot of information and practical skills with this respect. It will foster students to develop their communication and English language skills in a multicultural environment, to share ideas and knowledge. Teachers and the project teams will provide guidance and support to the students' teams raising the level of their competences and self-confidence. Our project will be implemented in two main stages – preparatory (first year) and practical (second year). During the first stage the students-participants will conduct labour market research in their regions, will meet representatives of different local companies and will get to know how to process research data. This project involves teachers, students and business representatives as well as local authorities to work together and explore how the entrepreneurial mindset can be developed and promoted. At the project start a staff training mobility will be held, where the teachers included in the project will exchange good practice and experience in order to find and use the best online means of communication for creation and sharing of training resources, necessary to run the students’ enterprises. The activities we plan to conduct are organized to follow the pattern of understanding entrepreneurship bringing together theoretical input and experiential learning. Students form teams to develop their ideas and to set up their own enterprises, considering the specifics of their region. Representatives of the local business and well-trained teachers will educate and supervise the students through the whole project activities. Training programmes, for the professionals working with the students, will be developed and published. They will cover theoretical contents and practical exercises. The second project stage will be practical. Students from each of the four partnering countries will develop a business plan for different company departments in compliance with their individual abilities and skills. They will put to practice their entrepreneurial knowledge and creative thinking while running that company in order to achieve its successful and stable development. Our aim is to establish connections with employers, employees and clients. The students’ companies will be presented to the local communities. The project will positively contribute to self-awareness, self-reliance and self-confidence of the students involved. It will increase the capacity of empathy, accepting similarities and differences between cultures and nationalities. The diversity of nationalities and in ages clearly emphasizes the close link between creativity and diversity. The added value of our project will be the development it brings to entrepreneurship on a European scale.
Our project’s origin can be found in the previous collaboration of its components on the eTwinning platform. The partners worked to encourage creative thinking, the use of new technologies and learning based on problem solving among their students. This joint work was evaluated as very enriching and a first step in our international cooperation. The specific objectives of the project include the following: • Fostering entrepreneurship and proactive labour behaviour among young people, schools and local businesses and institutions. Fostering students to develop a practical set of skills related to the latest technologies, communication and English language and entrepreneurship in a multicultural environment and creating a broad stakeholders network. • Promoting innovative thinking and a creative approach to solving different types of problems in life, an approach that is based on acquiring long life learning knowledge to move forward. Raising the level of our students’ competences and self-confidence. • Improving our educational systems through the exchange of good educational practices at a European level. The entire educational community at each school has been involved and benefits of the results of the project. We have increased the number of students taking part in the transnational learning, teaching or training activities, adding up to 75 and also the number of teachers involved in activities of our project. The main activities that we have carried out are the following: • Meetings with students, parents, teachers, other schools, local companies, local authorities and media to inform about the project. • Entrepreneurship workshops held by teachers or other stakeholders of the project, such as local entrepreneurs, government agencies, NGOs, etc. • Meetings and round-tables with local entrepreneurs. • Conducting labour market, economic development and job opportunities research in each region. • Visits to local companies and interviews to their managers. They were also carried out during mobilities. As a result students from the four countries learnt about how companies work in other places in Europe. • Visits to Universities to learn about how they promote entrepreneurship in their fields. Providing career orientation on a European level among our students. • Some of the workshops for teachers carried out during mobilities were: e-Twinning, creating educational websites using WordPress, online surveys, coaching as an educational tool, Social Media as a tool for dissemination, … Our project has exceeded expectations, and its results are superior to those set. • Development and publication on the website of the project of 4 training programs on entrepreneurship. • Creation of four virtual companies: development of the business plan (presented during mobility C3), the logo and the companies’ website (presented during mobility C4). Presentation of these enterprises in every school. In some cases even development of real products. • 6 feedback inquiries developed and completed to analyse and summarize the participants’ opinion on the activities carried out. • Project’s website and e-Twinning space. • Development of an online space to share all documentation about the project. • Sharing of educational good practices. After analysing the online surveys we can conclude that: Teachers improved their professional skills in the following aspects: ICT, foreign language, European projects’ documentation, networking outside the school, international cooperation, innovative methodology, interdepartmental work and entrepreneurial skills. They have improved their readiness for future joined project, particularly teachers for whom this project was their first experience in European projects. Surveys also showed an increase in the school prestige among families and students, we also observed this prestige increase at local level. Families, entrepreneurs and local authorities expressed that after the project they knew more about the work done in schools and their contribution to the education of responsible citizens. Headteachers at the four schools agreed on the positive experience of sharing good practices on school management and the benefits for the schools, emphasizing the following aspects: teachers increased their professional skills and motivation, the schools established cooperation networks with local businesses, governmental organizations, NGOs, even with international stakeholders. The students highlighted in their answers their learning about entrepreneurship on a European level and their development of creative thinking, as well as working in international groups increased their motivation towards ICT and English language learning. Everyone agreed that this experience had made them more tolerant of other cultures, had increased their initiative and confidence in their own capacities.