The four schools involved in this project are located in different geographical, social and cultural contexts, but they were inspired to work together by 1) an article of the European Commission pointing out the need to help young people, through inspiring education, to discover and use their talents, 2) the increasing split in many European societies between more globally oriented and more nationalistic groups, and 3) the urgent need to ensure young people acquire active citizenship skills. The project will - focus on such local/regional/national issues that are strongly linked to the broader European community - involve developing a methodology called European Challenge-Based Learning (ECBL), which will inspire our students to work together on real-world challenges and acquire such 21st-century skills as problem solving, critical thinking, information literacy, as well as using a multi-angular approach to investigate the issues in question and to formulate out-of-the box solutions. CBL is related to Problem-Based Learning, but we intend to include steps that are directly linked to European cooperation, working in mixed, intercultural groups of young people and to such local/regional/national challenges that are relevant for the whole Europe. This will help the participants to experience concretely that problems can be seen as challenges which can be solved, not by ignoring them, nor by simplistic slogans, hate speech or by isolating oneself from the others, but rather through common reflection, discussion, and collaborative effort enriched by multi-angular, European perspectives. Our main objectives in relation to the EU and Erasmus+ priorities are: - To develop and reinforce a network among our schools, and to increase the capacity of our schools to cooperate and learn from and with each other - To foster social commitment and entrepreneurial spirit in young people - To encourage our students to learn in a practical and analytical way, as well as to develop their capacity to think out of the box and adapt to constantly changing circumstances while providing multi-angular solutions - To foster social integration and to enhance intercultural understanding and a sense of belonging to a community. Over two years, more than 100 students and their teachers will cooperate with their partners, both virtually and during LTT activities, in conducting research related to four challenges. Many others will be involved and benefit from the results. Each of the LTT activities involving student mobility focuses on one of the four challenges. These challenges are linked, on the one hand, to the local school and the local curriculum, and, on the other hand, to the EU priorities and the reality in other European countries, thus allowing a multi-angular approach. The four challenges are the following: 1. Sweden: Political involvement of young people 2. Portugal: How can we contribute to the integration of immigrants? 3. The Netherlands: How to make the city of Roermond attractive for young people in order for them to stay in their province in the south of the Netherlands? 4. Finland: Reducing the use of plastic The methodology, CBL, includes a set of steps, among them: - Before the LTT activity: preliminary research in the four countries about the challenge; teachers contacting organisations, companies, local politics, experts etc. in order to provide the students with a list of contacts that facilitate investigation; - During the LTT activity: in mixed groups, students describe the situation and identify the underlying challenge(s); supported by a coach, they gather more information by contacting relevant persons and/or organizations; they reflect on and discuss the information obtained; based on multi-angular approaches, each group defines a possible solution and presents it in a multi-media way to a larger audience. - Students document their learning experience in a Learning Log. By the end of the project, students will have created products such as vlogs, films and digital posters to present the results of their research and their out-of-the-box solutions. The teachers will have optimised the CBL methodology, which can be used in schools and in international projects. All this will be published on a website which young people and teachers can access anywhere and which will complement local and regional dissemination of the experience and the results. The project will be evaluated regularly so that necessary adaptations can be made in time.
The four schools involved in this project are located in different geographical, social and cultural contexts, but they were inspired to work together by 1) an article of the European Commission pointing out the need to help young people, through inspiring education, to discover and use their talents, 2) the increasing split in many European societies between more globally oriented and more nationalistic groups, and 3) the urgent need to ensure young people acquire active citizenship skills. The project has - focussed on such local/regional/national issues that are strongly linked to the broader European community - involved developing a methodology called European Challenge-Based Learning (ECBL), which inspired our students to work together on real-world challenges and acquire such 21st-century skills as problem solving, critical thinking, information literacy, as well as using a multi-angular approach to investigate the issues in question and to formulate out-of-the box solutions. CBL is related to Problem-Based Learning, but we have included steps that are directly linked to European cooperation, working in mixed, intercultural groups of young people and to such local/regional/national challenges that are relevant for the whole Europe. This will help the participants to experience concretely that problems can be seen as challenges which can be solved, not by ignoring them, nor by simplistic slogans, hate speech or by isolating oneself from the others, but rather through common reflection, discussion, and collaborative effort enriched by multi-angular, European perspectives. Our main objectives in relation to the EU and Erasmus+ priorities were: - To develop and reinforce a network among our schools, and to increase the capacity of our schools to cooperate and learn from and with each other - To foster social commitment and entrepreneurial spirit in young people - To encourage our students to learn in a practical and analytical way, as well as to develop their capacity to think out of the box and adapt to constantly changing circumstances while providing multi-angular solutions - To foster social integration and to enhance intercultural understanding and a sense of belonging to a community. Over two years, more than 100 students and their teachers cooperated with their partners, both virtually and during LTT activities, in conducting research related to four challenges. Many others have been involved and benefitted from the results. Each of the LTT activities involving student mobility focused on one of the four challenges. These challenges were linked, on the one hand, to the local school and the local curriculum, and, on the other hand, to the EU priorities and the reality in other European countries, thus allowing a multi-angular approach. The four challenges are the following: 1. Sweden: Political involvement of young people 2. Portugal: How can we contribute to the integration of immigrants? 3. The Netherlands: How to make the city of Roermond attractive for young people in order for them to stay in their province in the south of the Netherlands? 4. Finland: Reducing the use of plastic The methodology, CBL, includes a set of steps, among them: - Before the LTT activity: preliminary research in the four countries about the challenge; teachers contacting organisations, companies, local politics, experts etc. in order to provide the students with a list of contacts that facilitate investigation; - During the LTT activity: in mixed groups, students describe the situation and identify the underlying challenge(s); supported by a coach, they gather more information by contacting relevant persons and/or organizations; they reflect on and discuss the information obtained; based on multi-angular approaches, each group defines a possible solution and presents it in a multi-media way to a larger audience. - Students document their learning experience in a Learning Log. By the end of the project, students have created products such as vlogs, films and digital posters to present the results of their research and their out-of-the-box solutions. The teachers have optimised the CBL methodology, which can be used in schools and in international projects. All this has been published on a website which young people and teachers can access anywhere and which will complement local and regional dissemination of the experience and the results. The project has been evaluated regularly so that necessary adaptations could be made in time.