‘International Debate Competition about Education and European affairs’, INDECOM, is a KA229 Erasmus+ project, based on the exchange of good practices among 4 secondary schools from Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey, being the Spanish in charge of coordination. Starting on September 1st, 2018 and lasting 24 months it will include 36 mobilities (12 per school, affecting to 10 participant students and 2 accompanying teachers) in each of the 4 transnational activities (meetings in Nov’18, Apr/Nov’19 & Apr’20). Each one will be hosted by a different partner, whose 10 students/2 teachers won’t travel then. This makes a total of 40 students making up debate teams (30 of them travelling and 10 hosting per each meeting). An additional number of 15-20 non-travelling Special Needs Students from the host school will assist and give support to all teams in auxiliary tasks during each meeting. Except for the first meeting (Spain) dedicated to training activities in debating, each of the other 3 will consist of an International Debate Competition among the partners, divided in 2 parallel competitions each with a “league” format (previous qualifying rounds and finals), involving two teams of 5 students per school and being devoted to motions in Education and EU affairs respectively. A total of 8 different topics will be discussed along the whole project. Background brought by the partners is diverse and firmly project-contributing. The Italian, Spanish and Turkish schools have experience in various European projects (Comenius, Youth in Action, Leonardo, KA1 and KA2). Italians and Spanish participated in debate competitions on a regional and national scale. The Greek team is trained in eTwinning and the Italian one has a proven SNS integration programme. The main objective of the project is to arrange a stable two-year International Debate Competition among the four partners with 2 annual meetings. Additionally, we want to develop high-quality skills and competences in our students, to promote empowerment of the young and to strengthen the professional profile of our teachers. Partner schools are determined to improve their international projection, increase the social impact of their activities in their communities and introduce innovative practices in education, engaging students and fostering the academic performance. Selection of the participants will be based on internal debate competitions in each school, keeping a 20% of places for foreign origin students. Moreover, teachers are going to introduce debate in their classes as an innovative methodology, which is one of the objectives of the project. Expected results are designed to multiply the scope of the project: practical guides to introduce debate in schools and video recordings of the debates. All of them will be available on eTwinning for any teacher or school interested in innovative methodology.
The ‘International Debate Competition about Education and European affairs’, (INDECOM) was a KA229 Erasmus+ project, based on the exchange of good practices among 4 secondary schools from Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey, being the Spanish the coordinator. The project started in on September 1st, 2018 and ended on the 31st of August 2020. Originally planned for four transnational activities with meetings in Nov’18 in Majadahonda (Spain), Apr’19 in Imperia (Italy), Nov’19 in Ioannina (Greece) & Apr’20 in Aydin (Turkey), because of the COVID19 outbreak in March 2020, we were forced to cancel the last meeting in Turkey. Consequently, only the Turkish team successfully completed the mobilities by the time of the cancellation as they had already travelled to the other three participant schools. From the 36 original mobilities planned per school, involving 10 participant students and 2 accompanying teachers each, all schools except the Turkish completed only 24 mobilities (attending 2 meetings abroad). Regarding the three transnational activities effectively carried out, all of them worked as planned. Each one was hosted by a different partner, whose 12 participants didn’t travel then. As stated in the project, ca. 40 students made up the debate teams (30 travelling and 10 hosts per meeting). An additional number of 15-20 non-travelling Special Needs Students (SNS) from the host school participated in the meeting, providing support for the members of the visiting teams and performing auxiliary tasks during each meeting: timekeeping of the debates, providing supplies for the teams to work, transmitting instructions, etc. The first meeting (Spain), was dedicated to training activities for teachers, judges and debaters, as well as in decision-making about debate and competition format. The two following activities in Imperia and Ioannina hosted two of the original three legs planned in the International Debate Competition project. Experience from the first meeting recommended some modifications on the original idea: instead of two parallel competitions with different motions, we decided all teams would participate in one competition with the same motion. This, on the one hand, allowed debaters, auxiliary staff and public (students from the host school) to attend more debates as spectators, and on the other hand, having one motion, the topic was studied deeper and presented from more different perspectives. The way of composing the debating teams was also changed from national teams to international teams. This implied foreign colleagues spent longer hours together and permitted more points of view inside each of the groups. In the same way, teachers acting as counselors were not assigned to a particular team, but swapped from one team to another. Selection of the participants was based on different criteria stated originally in the project: internal debate competitions were carried out in each school, and 20% of places were reserved for foreign origin students. The main objective of the project was to arrange a stable two-year International Debate Competition among the four partners with 2 annual meetings, something that will have to be considered in the future as the COVID19 crisis persists in Europe. Along the development of the project, our students, and even participating teachers (acting as trainers, counselors of the teams or judges), experienced the development of high-quality skills and competences in promoting empowerment of the young and strengthening their professional profiles as educators of our teachers. INDECOM project has contributed to improve and project their international profile and the social impact of their activities in our communities. This project has allowed us to introduce innovative practices in education, engage students and foster their academic performance. Together with these new practices, and in the particular case of the coordinating school, it has improved our international profile so that we believe it has played a role in having been recently certified as an IB Certified School by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) Teachers of different subjects (not only the ones directly involved in the project) are now using debate in their classes as an innovative methodology as specified by one of the objectives of the project. Different products were released as a result of the project and uploaded to the Erasmus+ PRP. A practical guide for school debate organization and arrangement was made in PDF format and Power-Point presentations of the training sessions were prepared, all of them available for all schools interested in using debate as a teaching-learning tool. Some of the actual debates of the competition were recorded as it was done with some of the closing ceremonies and authorities speeches held at the end of each meeting. Those materials were uploaded to the schools’ websites Dissemination papers were published in local media of the school’s localities, summarizing the activities (debates, closure ceremonies, cultural visits, etc.) performed in each meeting. Social networking played a role, publishing the meetings in the Twitter profile and website of the Spanish school and the websites and social media of the other three partner schools.