Nowadays, it is very important for pupils to gain not only knowledge during school education, but also certain skills and attitudes, to have better job opportunities in labor market. Acquiring such skills and attitudes has to be done through pupils‘ active participation, while teacher should create reasonable conditions and act like an guide and facilitator, and not like someone who precisely dictates procedures, brings information and assigns tasks. It is very difficult for teachers to change their role, as methodologically as because of subjective perception of situation. Education for active citizenship is by its nature based on active methods of work and can for teachers it can be a tool how to gradually change their participation involvement or role in the educational process. The aim of the project is to create an training module and a methodology for teachers - as it will enable them to educate pupils in such way that will develop pupils competencies for active citizenship. Using participatory methods will make easier for teachers to transform their role in education. The target group are teachers (6 directly participating), pupils (720), who will participate at pilot projects and regional coordinators of „Schools for sustainable living“, mentors of IMPACT program and Eco-schools. During the first meeting the partners will introduce each other their methodologies, which will be adjusted with regard to the different conditions in each country, different curriculums and remarks from other partners and will learn about a topic (such as participatory budgeting and media literacy) brand new to all the participating countries. Therefore it can better reflect the intentions of the project and needs of the target group. These adjusted methodologies and 2 topics will be used for training of 6 teachers at the educational (training) workshops in all partner countries. In the next year these improved methodologies will be tested in all partner countries. Each organization will cooperate with teachers with two partner’s methodology (For example, SEVER in CZ will be using Slovenian Young Reportes and Romanian IMPACT. We will keep on developing the training module and methodology for teachers, on the basis of experiece with pilot testing and evaluation conclusions from pilot projects. During the project there will be held another 3 partner meetings, at which will be given tasks on working on module and methodology, control of work done, preparation of dissemination activities. At the last year of the project there will be held Pilot testing of new methodology in participating school. Lecturers from the national organization will provide those schools intensive support - they will provide regular consultations to teachers (at least 2 times a months, at least 3 personal ones. Then will be followed the evaluation of the training module and the new methodology through the involved teachers and pupils. At the end there will be created developed a collective methodology (hanbook) for teachers, which should make useing of participative methods in education and changing their roles easier. This handbook will be based on experience with testing methodologies and pilot school projects and on feedback from participants. At the end of the project, there will be held a training seminar for 20 participants. There will be introduced the newly developed module and methodolgy, so the participants could use it in their educational activities. Each organization is coordinating the national network of schools and educators. Through these networks will further disseminated training modules and methodology. The teacher training course based on developed training module will be submitted for accreditation by Czech Ministry of Education in the frame of official national system of Further Teacher Education. In Romaia and Slovenia partners will further explore comparable possibilities for recognition or validation by national authorities. We are convinced the project will be successful because of its innovative character and it will help to change the role of teachers in education.
The project reacted to current social and educational situation as young people need to gain also certain skills and attitudes, to have better job opportunities and to actively react to social and environmental changes. Acquiring such skills and attitudes has to be done through pupils‘ active participation, while teacher should create reasonable conditions and act like an guide and facilitator. However, in the participating countries (former Eastern bloc) the change of teachers role remains challenging. The project idea was to work with the topic of active citizenship which helps pupils to develop soft skills and create a tool for teachers how to gradually change their participation involvement or role in the educational process. The main objective was to support development of education for active democratic citizenship and participative learning through a new jointly created methodology introducing interactive and participatory methods into school education. There were 2 outputs created that contributed to this objective. O1 „Training module“ that brings description and inspiration on how educate teachers in the field of active citizenship and participative learning, 18 teachers from 3 partner countries attended and graduated the training module. Other output is O2 „Handbook“ which is newly created methodology describing what is active citizenship, why is it important and what concrete tools and methods the teachers can uses. There are 19 new specific tools and methods they can use separately or preferably all together. They were created to help teachers to lead the pupils in such way that will develop pupils competencies for active citizenship. Using participatory methods will make easier for teachers to transform their role in education. The work procedure was that each partner will test the first year the 2 methodologies from the other partners. The methodologies were „Schools for Sustainable Living“ (CZ) bringing aspects of place based learning, „IMPACT“ (RO) based on service and adventure learning and „Young reporters for the environment“ (SL) based on media education. After the first year the partners gathered enough experience, suggested improvements, edits of the methodologies and selected their strenghts – most potential and suitable activities/tools/methods to reach to project objective. Together with involved teachers they proposed brand new methodology (consisting of 5 chapters and 19 specific methods), which was tested during the second school year. The methodology was introduced at the Training module, a practical workshop, which was created by mentors from partner organizations. There were involved 6 teachers from each partner country (in total 18) that participated in every stage of the project. They tested other partners methodologies, gave feedback, proposed adaptations and improvements and then together with partners created new methodology „Handbook“. They also participated at Training module. Other target group were pupils – over 700 pupils in total experienced more than 2 new tools and methods created in O2. The last target group were the members of the partner organizations (6 involved in all activities and other 6 involved in education activities), who developed or deepened their skills and knowledge within active citizenship education and expanded their offer of participatory methods. The project and testing partners national methodologies also helped to enrich each other methodology, it resulted in the fact that partners now can use improved original national methodology and also brand new one, both methodologies tested and adapted to their national environment, therefore each partner expanded their portfolio and offer of programmes/tools towards their target groups. Evaluation report shows such intense involvement of teachers to all the project stages help them to understood deepely the importance of the active ctizenship topic. Other results is that they feel more confident and empowered to introduce and use participatory methods within their teaching and more motivated to be more in role of „guides“ and let the pupils to be initiators of the actions in education. Our main objective was met. All the methods and tools described in O2 and introduced to teachers within O1 focus on supporting pupils in making independent decisions, developing skills for 21st century (communication, critical thinking, problém solving, analysis) and creating a sense of community. Because of the pandemic there were created also online versions of all the tools, methods, materials on the active citizenship and participatory methods were transfered into online version – unexpected result. We realized 3 dissemination events, 2 present events with more than 40 participants, and one virtual event. with over 130 participants. Each organization is coordinating the national network of schools and educators. Through these networks will further disseminate the created training module and methodology.