The PRO-LEARN project responds to the Europe 2020 priorities in the area of education and training, youth and early school leaving in the context of globalization and labour market integration. As EC stated in its communication on tackling early school leaving (COM(2011) 18 final), education and training systems often do not provide sufficient targeted support for pupils to cope with emotional, social or educational difficulties and to remain in education and training. PRO-LEARN is a large scale project as it involves 6 different organisations (public entities, NGOs, SMEs) from 5 EU countries - PL, CY, GR, IT, RO. The project objectives are: - reduce early school dropout through speed up the learning process - overcome shortage of specialists at schools (psychologist, pedagogues) - improve engagement of parents in learning processes of their children and development of their cognitive abilities - enrich scarce offer of free-of-charge and barrier-free tools (including the ICT- based ones), for diagnosis of cognitive processes and the preferred learning style of children aged 6-14 years old on their own and by their parents and teachers/educators, - enrich scarce offer of free-of-charge training programmes and educational-oriented materials for parents, educators, devoid of technological barriers to computer use, to support pupils in the development of effective learning skills, using their resources and full potential of the brain The target groups of the project who will benefit from the project products and take part in the projects’ activities are as follows: 1) direct target group: - primary and lower-secondary school students (6-14 years old) - their parents - teachers involved in the aspects of educational counselling - primary and/or lower -secondary school teachers - primary and/or lower -secondary school experts – school psychologist, educators 2) indirect target group: - educational institutions which offer services related to pedagogical guidance - counselling centers 3) other relevant stakeholders: - local, regional authorities responsible for education - universities/HEI - parents and teachers associations - platforms for education professionals such as eTwinning, School Education Gateway During the project implementation the project partnership will develop five main intellectual outputs (IOs): 1.O1: Electronic tool for diagnosis of cognitive processes of younger children (from 6 to 10 years old) – online, multidimensional, standardized and normalized tool to diagnose cognitive abilities and processes and the preferred learning style of children in pre-school / junior school age - aged 6 to 10 years old. 2.O2: Electronic tool for diagnosis of learning styles and cognitive processes for older children (from 11 to 14 years old) - multidimensional electronic tool designed for diagnosis of the preferred learning style and cognitive processes of children and adolescents at school age (11 to 14 years old). It will be a standardized tool prepared according to the psychometric approach. 3.O3: TRAINING TOOLKIT FOR TEACHERS AND EDUCATORS available in a form of e-learning will contain 10 on-line, short-term trainings (1-3 hours), in multimedia form focused on the latest discoveries of neuro-pedagogy (learning styles, how to teach children, multisensory teaching, etc.) to provide teachers with the knowledge, strategies and a range of approaches that will support them in teaching and application and utilization of the project IOs in the school and beyond school settings. 4.O4: EDUCATIONAL TOOLKIT FOR STUDENTS - EDUCATIONAL GAMES AND TASKS aims at development of cognitive functions and supports students in the development of effective learning skills and utilization of resources and the full brain potential. It will be composed of a unique on-line set of short exercises to support/ develop cognitive processes favourable effective learning and also exercises that develop various learning techniques and methods. The exercises will be divided into two age-groups: 6-10 years old and 11-14 years old. 5.O5: TRAINING TOOLKIT FOR PARENTS dedicated to parents to prepare them to work with children on developing skills of effective learning methods, to teach children how to learn and help them in cognitive development. It responds scarce parents’ knowledge on children's development of the cognitive and social skills and their low involvement in learning process of their children, according to the latest discoveries of neuro-pedagogy. It will be available in the form of 5 m-learning trainings developed in multimedia form (including films, diagrams, flashcards). The outputs O1-O5 will be available in EN, PL, EL, IT, RO, on the multi-language project website as open source material. The target groups of the project will take part in content-creation, design, testing, evaluation of the project IOs from the project outset (participatory inolvement), as well as dedicated training for trainers (C1 activity).
The aim of the project was to foster the development of cognitive abilities and effective learning skills of children, to boost their brain power and maximize cognitive potential by developing, testing and implementing a comprehensive model of cognitive development support for school-age children (6-14 years old) with active participation of schools, teaching, pedagogical staff/experts and project partners in the participating countries.The developed outputs were also to support students with special educational needs to fulfil the educational obligations and prevent them from dropping out. At the heart of the project was also professionalization of teachers through the training course (enriching learning experience), giving all educators the possibility to access tools and knowledge about the functioning of the brain and mind, to enable them to successfully guide children and young students to become aware of their inner world, thoughts, emotions and cognitive potential. Neuroscientific research has produced remarkable discoveries in recent years and the knowledge regarding the functioning of the brain can greatly enrich the pedagogical and didactic practices and processes, both in schools and in other educational environments.
The PRO-LEARN project responded to the Europe 2020 priorities in the area of education and training, youth and early school leaving in the context of globalization and labour market integration. As EC stated in its communication on tackling early school leaving (COM(2011)18 final), education and training systems often do not provide sufficient targeted support for pupils to cope with emotional, social or educational difficulties and to remain in education and training. Responding to the different learning styles of pupils and helping teachers to address needs of mixed ability groups of students is still a challenge for schools. The basics of our learning skills are our cognitive abilities as they are associated with memory, thinking, attention and perception. They enable us to learn new skills and gain knowledge as well as communicate with environment (reception, storage and processing of information). The accurate diagnosis of cognitive functioning of pupils could allow to tailor teaching methodologies, develop the individual educational support program for each pupil and in the long-perspective help students to function more effectively in education process. The PRO-LEARN project was answer to the detected needs.