The project has been developed on the basis of the previous Erasmus+ school partnership between Zespół Szkół Nr 49 in Warsaw, Poland, and IES Gerardo Diego in Pozuelo, Spain. We invited 4 more countries to work with us: Italy, Greece, Romania and Portugal. Poland remains the coordinating country and together with Spain, Romania and Greece we are fully aware of the responsibility to support the less experienced partners – the Italian and Portuguese schools - in the course of actions throughout the project life. On the national levels, the project is open to all teachers and students willing to participate in it, however, the international programme is addressed to pupils aged 13-15. It will be conducted from 1 December 2018 to 30 November 2020. Background: Research confirms the key role of the teacher in providing high quality education and preventing early school leaving. There is a need to strengthen teachers’ position in the classroom as well as the teaching and learning processes by applying collaborative methods and techniques, which are motivating to students. We want the students to express their opinions to us-teachers, in order to provide more relevant classes. Some of today students will be future teachers soon. Moreover, working in international teams will equip them with transversal skills necessary for having a successful adult life. Strategic goals: - to maintain or increase each school's capability to provide high-quality education, - to strengthen teachers’ status within and outside the participating schools, - to maintain or increase European dimension and preserve European values within the school communities. More specific goals: - to develop collaborative teaching and learning styles, - to implement a whole-school action as a collaborative working method, - to develop linguistic and other key competences, - to develop transversal skills by students and teachers - knowledge, skills, work habits, critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information, innovation, personal expression, perseverance, self-direction, planning, self-discipline, adaptability, initiative and others; - to exploit the knowledge and experience gained in the previous projects. Methodology: Within each school, many teams may work on a model teacher of two assigned subjects, with a possibility to choose more subjects if they wish to. There are six 3-day learning visits of small groups of students planned for the two years of the project life. Each school will host one visit and send 5 groups of 4 to each participating school. These visits will enable students to exchange ideas and to learn to cooperate in international teams. The intended methods include: peer-observation among students and teachers, preparing and giving presentations, brainstorming sessions and debates, collaborative peer-group work, problem based and inquiry based learning, workshops, doing experiments, planning and teaching as a team, learning outside the classroom “harnessing technology” for the learning process. Results, dissemination and impact Throughout the project life all outputs (subject-specific tasks to be used in real classes, presentations, plays, songs, essays, poems, pictures, and other forms of expression preferred by students) will be shared through different media: a dedicated project website on wordpress, project’s Facebook profile, TwinSpace, and other channels available locally. We will also use the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform and produce e-books with project outputs. The schools will strengthen their profile as more modern and dynamic organizations which are ready to implement new approaches to education and share their knowledge and experience in EU projects. Students and teachers will increase their key competences, increase their ability to work on a joint project between schools in different countries and work and learn in a team. All participants will increase their understanding of cultural diversity positive attitude towards the European project and the EU values.
The project “Model Teachers of the Future” was developed on the basis of the previous Erasmus+ school partnership between Zespół Szkół Nr 49 in Warsaw, Poland, and IES Gerardo Diego in Pozuelo, Spain. We invited 4 more schools to work with us: Istituto Comprensivo Perri-Pitagora in Lamezia Terme in Italy, the 5th Gymnasium of Volos in Greece, “George Apostu” Art National College in Bacau in Romania and AECO in Ourem in Portugal. The project was planned to last for two years, from 1 December 2018 to 30 November 2020. Due to the Covid -19 pandemic it was extended until 31 August 2021. The implementation of the project followed its agenda until February 2020 with only a few minor changes concerning the core visits’ dates, which had to be moved forward by a few days or weeks due to the specific timetable of every partner organisation. Next, the pandemic stopped the project for almost one year. The C5 in Volos, Greece was finally carried out in April 2021 instead of April 2020, and the C6 in Warsaw was carried out in June 2021 instead of October 2020. Additionally, the two final core visits were carried out virtually. Fortunately, we had all mastered virtual methods by the time the C5 and C6 actually took place. The first 4 core visits, C1 in Spain, C2 in Italy, C3 in Romania and C4 in Portugal, were executed in the way that all the partners agreed on during the first organisational meeting in Warsaw. On day 1 of each visit the host team carried out presentations on their countries, regions and schools, the guests were given a tour around the school in groups, students took part in CLILL lessons. All participants had a chance to socialize over a local traditional breakfast and lunch. In the afternoon the teams carried out a cultural programme, sightseeing local places of interest. On day 2 each team presented the model activities they had prepared in their schools to show to other participants. On the hole, 6 activities for Math or Science classes and 6 activities for other subjects were presented at each core visit with the use of the core method: digital vs traditional board and course book, a mini project, artistic expressions, learning and teaching outside the school building and learning and teaching with experiments. During the feedback sessions at the end of Day 2 students and teachers expressed their opinions on the activities presented by the participants, and on the leading method for the visit. On day 3 each host team ran a city game played by mixed teams of visitor and host. Day 3 was always ended by a farewell event with typical local food, handing out the certificates and socializing activities. The number of participants directly involved in all traditionally executed visits as visiting students were 20 to 22 student visitors and 2-3 teachers. The concrete results of each visits were subject-specific activities for an ideal lesson of the given subject - linked to the given teaching tool and method presented during the meetings. Throughout the project we created a pack of educational materials which we uploaded onto the project’s TwinSpace. All participants, students and teachers alike, evaluated each day’s activities through google forms. Dissemination activities were carried out through TwinSpace, FB and other social media of each national team. Our strategic goals have been achieved: we increased each school's capability to provide high-quality education, we strengthened teachers’ status within and outside the participating schools, we increased European dimension and preserved European values within the school communities. Throughout the project life all the concrete results (subject-specific tasks to be used in real classes, presentations, songs, and other forms of expression preferred by students) were shared through different media chosen by the schools: a project’s Facebook profile, TwinSpace, and other channels available locally. The schools strengthened their profile as more modern and dynamic organizations which are ready to implement new approaches to education and share their knowledge and experience in EU projects. Students and teachers increased their key competences, increased their ability to collaborate within international partnerships of schools in different countries and work and learn in a team. All participants increased their understanding of cultural diversity, and gained positive attitude towards European projects and the EU values. All participating partners expressed their willingness to cooperate in the future within new programmes designed by the European Commission. One new Erasmus+ project was designed and got EU funding in the 2020 Call for proposals.