Context The latest Eurydice report “Teaching Careers in Europe: access, progression and support” examines recruitment procedures and working conditions for teachers, job requirements as well as continuing professional development and support. As far as career is concerned, there are two types of career structure: flat (single level) or hierarchical (multi-level). The project partner countries (Italy, Portugal and Poland) all feature a flat single level career. This means that teachers have a very limited professional development. Nevertheless, in all countries, teachers have the opportunity to diversify their roles and be in charge of other responsibilities in addition to their teaching activity. Objectives and participants The present project explores the possibility to apply the “servant leadership” methodology to work groups composed of teachers of vocational and technical schools in order to improve cooperation among teachers and lay the foundations for intermediate leadership, fostering the creation of a multilevel career. In addition to drawing up the guidelines for servant leadership, the project is intended to implement them within teachers’ groups who work together to build a Moodle course for the development of students’ entrepreneurial skills. Teachers of technical and vocational schools (3 for each project partner) will take part in the scheduled staff training events; 10 teachers for each project partner are expected to be involved on the whole. These teachers will act as guides within professional development groups in their schools. Around 100 students will be involved to test the Moodle course. Methodology Working groups will be formed during the first three months of implementation of the project . Afterwards, a first working group will draw up the guidelines for servant leaders. When guidelines are completed, ADI trainers will create a restricted group of servant leaders during the first staff training event. When servant leaders go back to their countries, they will start working within their working groups in order to select and collect materials for the Moodle course. The work of the servant leaders will be evaluated by other teachers of the school who will monitor groups as they work through the task and will fill in observation sheets. The same observations will be carried out on a control group acting without servant leaders. The creation of a Moodle course for the development of entrepreneurial skills will be the outcome of the work of the teachers’ groups. The aim of the second staff training event is to train teachers who will use the Moodle course and will spread its use in schools. Then a pilot test will be carried out on the Moodle course. During the pilot test students will use “My Potential “ tool to self-assess their own entrepreneurial skills. At the end of the project, the third staff training event will train teachers on internal quality controls and the communication strategies that schools can adopt. Results - Gudelines for servant leaders - 1 Moodle course for students based on EntreComp and related gudelines - 1 Moodle course for teachers on effective management of Erasmus Plus projects - 1 eTwinning project - Documents (quality plan and valorization plan) that can be used by Vet schools for internal quality controls Impact - Enhancing collaboration among teachers- - improving group works - Improving tutoring of newly-hired teachers - Creating a shared view of entrepreneurial competencies - Improving digital skills through the use of Moodle and project management tools - Increasing students’ participation in the classroom - Developing students’ self-assessment skills - Enhancing students’ entrepreneurial skills as outlined within the EntreComp frame - Enhancing schools’ self-assessment skills and effective communication skills with the outside world Potential long-term effects The project is intended to lay the foundations for an in-depth analysis of the development of intermediate leadership in schools; its long-term goal is to create multilevel careers for teachers.
The servant leadership methodology was tested in working groups made up of teachers from technical and professional schools. In addition to creating concrete products such as guidelines for servant leadership, lesson plans, Moodle courses, eTwinning projects and much more, we wanted to make teachers aware of what the qualities of the servant leader were, of the difficulties associated with guiding groups of teachers, the need to cooperate and share materials within schools as well as to "incorporate" the numerous skills, increasingly required by companies, within the various disciplines, but above all the need to create teachers with a recognized mentoring role. The concrete objectives: on the one hand figures of servant leaders emerged, on the other hand we exchanged good practices, lessons, to build together a Moodle repository that contains activities labeled following the indicators drawn up in the EntreComp document of the European Commission. The activities were then used, in a flexible way, to build lesson plans centered on entrepreneurial skills that fit the different disciplines.
The project aimed to test the Servant Leadership methodology within schools, in order to explore the possibility of using this methodology to encourage the professional career of teachers. . At present, a flat single-level career is followed in the project partner countries (Italy, Poland, Portugal) (Eurydice, Teaching Careers in Europe, 2018). This means that professional progression is very limited, despite the possibility of diversifying one's duties. The project also made it possible to create educational paths that have promoted those skills, in great demand by companies, which are usually treated only marginally within schools. These are the skills described in the "EntreComp" methodological framework. Needs: The technical and vocational schools together with the Association of Italian School Teachers and Headmasters strongly felt the need to lay the foundations for career differentiation as well as the need to find adequate strategies that would allow the teachers of these institutions to successfully fill positions of responsibility, such as the assumption of pedagogical, methodological or managerial mentoring roles.