”Knowledge to Competences” aims to bring together very diverse experience of tackling the challenge of basic skills across Europe in order to foster an effective good practice exchanges among the participating countries: Turkey, Portugal, Bulgaria, Italy, Estonia, Poland and Romania as a coordinating country. The main reason for initiating the present project is that many of our students have rather poor ability to apply the basic elements of mathematical literacy (addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, percentages and ratios, weights and measures) in everyday life situation. Others encounter difficulties in oral /written communication both in mother tongue and foreign languages. Some voices say that this is the result of difficult social-economic status of the students, they are not encouraged by their families and are somehow left behind. Under these circumstances the teachers need to change their understanding and classroom practice in ways which make the learning contents more accessible to students. They need to adapt their methods of teaching - learning - evaluation to a variety of children in a continuing changing environment. Therefore, the main objectives of the project are 1.facilitating the exchange of best practices in using interactive methods in teaching-learning subjects in Language and Communication and Mathematics and Sciences curriculum areas; 2.motivating students for learning by promoting collaborative learning and 3.promoting interactive methods of teaching and non-formal methods of learning Languages, Maths and Science in order to improve students’ performances. Among the activities carried out within the present partnership: -exchange of good practices in the classroom with high potential for transferability. -joint writing teacher training course (Module1- Interactive Teaching Methods and Module 2 -Non-formal learning methods); - organizing workshops on interactive teaching methods and non-formal learning methods; - joint creation of 50 students from 7 European countries of the chain story “The Young Scientist”; -creating Maths and Physics problems by students; - performing Science experiments by students; -realizing, the professional portfolio on Languages, Maths and Science by over 100 teachers in Europe. It is worth saying that all the final products will be in digital format and will be useful pedagogical tools in classroom. Using them in the current pedagogical practice, will help students to improve their basic skills in the fields covered by partnership and the teachers to develop their professional skills by learning and applying new teaching methods and practices. The project provides a total number of 11 up to 16 of learning teaching training (teachers and students) mobilities for each partner, which totally involves about 99 people. There will be organized 3 transnational meetings, 2 blended-mobility for learners (including 4 virtual mobilities) and 2 joint staff training events. The expected impact on students: - developing basic skills in key competences (literacy, numeracy, use of foreign languages); - developing students' emotional competencies, such as self-awareness, self-control, compassion, co-operation, flexibility, and the ability to make judgments; - facilitate mobility of students who have little chance of travelling abroad; - reducing the number of underachieving students those with low language, literacy and numeracy skills; - stimulation of self-discovery, teamwork, critical thinking; The expected impact on teachers: - identifying and sharing good practices in order to raise levels of students' achievement; - enrichment of the active teaching methods of mother tongues, mathematics and science and modern languages; - shaping their approach to teaching and learning; - adjusting their teaching methods to meet the needs of a variety of students.
One of the issues of education in Europe is that one in five 15-year-old doesn’t achieve baseline standards in reading, literacy and mathematics or is not sufficiently skilled in science to function successfully in the today’s societies. (EU High Level Group of Experts on Literacy (2012). Against this background, the project objectives 1.Facilitating the exchange of best practices in using interactive methods in teaching - learning subjects in Language and Communication and Mathematics and Sciences curriculum areas; 2.Motivating the students for learning by promoting collaborative learning; 3 .Promoting interactive and non-formal learning and teaching methods of Languages, Maths and Science were set out in order to improve the students’ basic skills in literacy, Maths and science. There were established the number and types of mobility: 3 transnational meetings, 2 blended-mobility for learners, 4 virtual mobilities and 2 staff training events. The participants were students aged 12-18 years and teachers of Languages, Math and Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Natural Sciences) for primary, middle and high school levels, aged between 30 - 60. There were involved 49 students (25 students in the blended mobility in Turkey and 24 in the blended mobility in Italy) - 11 girls and 14 boys in Turkey and 15 girls and 9 boys in Italy. It is worth mentioning that a much larger number of students participated in the project activities, approx. 1200, they contributed to the running of the teaching and learning activities and to the making of the final products (illustrating of the story, creating Math and Physics problems, designing the logos, participating in the virtual meetings, etc.) The students from vulnerable social groups (low income families, single-parent families or families with migrant parents) were encouraged to get involved in the project which strengthened the team spirit, developed their capacity to make decisions and eventually raised the dynamism of the teaching-learning process. 39 teachers participated in the transnational learning /teaching /training activities (17 men and 22 women) to which 22 accompany persons (7 men + 15 women) were added. The participants in the transnational learning /teaching /training activities were teachers from the curricular areas covered by the project, with digital and English communication skills. Some of them are experienced trainers (Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Portugal) and have coordinated the training activities within the project. A total of 62 teachers participated (51 women and 11 men) at the transnational project meetings in Portugal, Romania and Estonia and Bulgaria. The participants were members of the management teams, respectively the contact persons and the legal representatives of the partner schools. The number of mobility for teachers was higher than the one in the application form because of the national legislation in Poland, Italy, Turkey and Bulgaria which do not allow the movement of minors abroad accompanied by only one adult. Thus, the number of mobilities increased from 99 to 110 without exceeding the approved grant. All the planned activities were carried out and contributed to the achievement of the objectives and realization of the final products. The activities carried out : -creating the logo of the project; realizing the lesson observation form for assessing the quality of the lessons attended in Romania and Poland;preparing students and materials for the blended mobilities for learners in Turkey and Italy;integrating guest students in curricular and extracurricular activities in Turkey and Italy;creating Math and Physics problems;organizing and coordinating two training workshops: one on interactive teaching methods (teachers shared interactive teaching methods used for teaching languages (Bulgaria), Maths (Romania), Science (Estonia) and other school subjects (Poland and Turkey) and another one on non-formal teaching methods/activities (teachers from Portugal, Turkey, Romania and Poland shared non-formal teaching activities for teaching languages (Portugal and Romania), cultural awareness (Turkey) or even Geography (Poland);realizing the chain-story entitled ”The Young Scientist”;performing Physics and Chemistry experiments by the students in Italy;realizing the on line platform for the Math and Physics problem book http://bit.ly/mathphysics; realizing the Teacher Training Course entitled ‘’Interactive and Non-formal Teaching Methods Used in Classroom Practice’’;creating the on-line platform (www.avert.pt/fk2cs/) for the portfolios; creating flyers, posters, roll-ups, promotional items (pens, agendas, block-notes, bookmarks); 7 newsletters and 3 leaflets, ppt presentations posted on the school websites, short videos on social media networks,press releases and articles in the local and regional newspapers.