“Empowerment in Action” is a student and teacher based two-year project. According to the statement of Marianne Thyssen, the Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility given at the Autumn 2018 Economic Forecast of the EU Commission, the economic recovery of recent years can be made permanent and can be benefited only by investing more in our societies, in our people including the generations to come. The main objective of this partnership is to develop students' skills and employability and to develop teachers' ability to teach students these skills. The national coordinators of each school discussed this future project with their students and teachers during the planning phase and we realized all the schools more or less face similar challenges. The students commented that they felt unready for the labour market. They were also unsure of what skills are required at the next level of education or for various professions in the labour market. Another problem they face is the difficulty of making decision on whaich career choice to make. On the other hand, teachers wanted to know how can they teach skills in classes and how can they assess the acquisition of skills. The project has two primary objectives regarding students and teachers: a) To enable students to acquire hard and soft skills that can encourage each student to participate effectively and constructively in the workplace and socially at local, national and international level. b) To strengthen the teachers' ability to teach skills by using and adopting innovative and effective methods and tools in order to facilitate students’ access to the labour market and improve adaptation to future labour market developments. The target groups and stakeholders of this project are the students and the teachers that participate directly in the project; the other students and teachers of the participating schools; the local business communities such as experts from employment bureaus, chambers of commerce, companies; other schools as local stakeholders; universities; bureaus for education; families; and the students and teachers from other schools in Europe.. The expected results are tangible and non-tangible. The tangible results are: the e-book (the final product); the toolbox of skills; the project related videos created by the students, the toolbox for teaching and assessment of skills; a collection of lesson plans prepared according to the innovative lesson plan model ;a promotional poster, brochure, video and the project logo; the project website; the teachers' wikispace platform; the e-twinning group; the twinspace project on e-twinning; an innovative product or service based on students' coding experience; the students' professional portfolios; the learning diaries; questionnaires in the beginning and at the end of the project. Referring to the non-tangible results, we expect the students will become more creative and gain experience in communication and collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, meta cognition, personal learning strategies, citizenship, life (and career) skills, personal and social responsibility, cultural awareness and expression, interpersonal and intercultural skills. Thus, the students will become more motivated to stay at school and continue with a higher education. We also expect a significant number of teachers to adopt innovative, effective and new methods and tools in teaching. During the two years we will have 2 transnational meetings and 4 learning/teaching/training activities. The first will be for planning and preparation purposes while the last one will be organized for the evaluation and the sustainability of the project. In each transnational meeting, workshops for innovative teaching methods will be included in the agenda of the meeting. In the long term we aim at recognition of our e-book, the toolbox for teaching and assessment of skills and innovative lesson plan model as teaching materials. The project will also contribute to a well-qualified and highly motivated workforce in Europe while employers will be able to access the workforce with the skills they need. We would like to be an example for similar educational organizations and, if possible, we want to help our colleagues, all school stakeholders and NAs in promoting the Erasmus+ projects about teaching and assessing skills.
The project had 2 primary objectives to achieve, regarding students and teachers. 1.To enable students to acquire soft skills that can encourage each student to participate effectively and constructively in the workplace and socially at local, national and international level. The soft skills which we particularly wanted to develop and improve include: communication, foreign language skills, team work, creative problem solving, time management, critical thinking, decision-making and organizational skills. The reason was, we selected them as the most important for the future employability of the students when entering the labour market looking for a job or choosing their future career path. 2. To strengthen the teachers' ability to teach skills by using and adopting innovative and effective methods and tools in order to facilitate students’ access to the labour market and improve adaptation to future labour market developments. The fact was, as we discovered together, that the teachers pay most attention to transferring knowledge connected only to the subject they teach, mostly theoretical knowledge, without including activities which would help to develop or improve any of the above mentioned skills.
By closely observing our students in the long experience of teaching, we realized that they lack the essential soft skills, so the main objective of this partnership was to develop students' skills and employability and to develop teachers' ability to teach students these skills. The national coordinators of each school discussed the needs of the students and teachers and found out that in every country, organization that was part of this project, the needs and what the beneficiaries lacked in all the schools were more or less similar and that all of us face similar challenges. The students commented that they felt unready for the labour market. They were also unsure of what skills are required at the next level of education or for various professions in the labour market. Another problem they faced was the difficulty of making decision on which career choice to make. On the other hand, teachers wanted to know how can they teach skills in classes and how can they assess the acquisition of those skills. So, this was the main reason we applied for this project and formed this partnership.