The aim of the project is to rethink the factors of room and time at schools in the age of digitalisation. Reconsidering these fields is necessary as the schools have to adapt to the demographic change. Innovative concepts for rooms and time enable new ways and perspectives for our pedagogical work. The participating schools offer a variety of innovative concepts in the abovementioned fields: alternative concepts of rooms, a whole day timetable etc. The main goal is to develop innovative ideas for renewing and progressing the school and its “lesson culture” and structure. Developing, evaluating and implementing are the main aspects to work on and to use for practice. Following the aim, we seek for a reciprocal exchange in terms of alternative concepts in the fields “room, time and digitalisation”. This exchange helps to reflect and to focus on possible alternatives. The focus should be set on the question of how our students would like to learn in consideration to the challenges of a digital world. The main instrument is a creative way in light of physical and cognitive dimensions in an era in which school and its way of learning is characterized more and more by digital educational offers. A long-term aim is the real usage of newly made experiences – internal and external communicated. Each school exchanges and overthinks ist possibilities of ideas and models for their individual system. It is not a project which focuses on papers or essays, the project’s results should be used in real life in order to improve the current concepts. About 50 students in the age of 12 to 18 from four European schools can participate. Offering an active part in this project, students can share their innovative ideas and wishes, that is why they can also organise the five meetings and their content with the help of the teachers or other. This leads to a possible following structure: digitalization as such, the current (real) room and time concept of each school, based on this different ideas (realistic as utopian) for an innovative concept concerning room and time structure. The different faculties as well as one mutual full concept will be considered to gain a wide horizon. Between the meetings, the school’s participants work on the project’s aspects (eTwinning or own platform, digital). The participants work should be characterized by cooperation and collaboration, the aspects should be divided into international groups from all participating schools. The project should result in presentations filled with utopian ideas about rooms/time at school, but also presentations which consist of realistic ideas, leaned on the needs and wishes of the students. The product can be presented in an individual way, e.g. “tinyclassroom models" or other digital models, they should represent an alternative way of structuring room and time at schools nowadays. Alternative classroom-models, open spaces for learning, learning pedestals, gardens in which students can learn or “green classrooms” can arise out of the participating members’ thoughts. Focusing on time, it is planned to realize an innovative rhythm of learning/innovative timetable by getting to know each school’s special time concept. The aim is the visualisation of the results by using digital products (e.g. explanatory videos). As an evaluation method an app will be used. This app focuses on the process and the results of the projects. The app also includes feedback concerning the idea’s realization. It should work as a tool to exchange ideas. The differnt results will be published on a common website or on the school’s websites. The access to the public should be guaranteed. The results serve as part of each school’s development. Each participating school has its own needs of development in at least one of the aspects of the project. The results will be used as an essential input for the school’s development in reference to the aspects “room and time” in a digital word.
The aim of the project was to rethink the factors of space and time in schools in the age of digitalization. We achieved this by holding a digital training for the institutions involved and a total of four exchange meetings and a final meeting of four European schools with individual and innovative concepts (e.g. alternative spatial concepts, all-day lesson plans). At these meetings, results were collected through the presentation and exchange of innovative concepts with their different focuses, which were visualized and recorded through the use of digital projects. Additionally, students benefitted from educational visits to th EU parlament and various UNESCO World Heritage sites. In addition to these results, new friendships were formed between students, teachers and invited experts and students' foreign language skills were improved, thereby also achieving a strengthened European cooperation and resource network. The cultural program organized by the host countries also made a significant contribution to improving intercultural skills and European values. The results were used to develop innovative ideas for the renewal and further development of the schools and their “teaching culture” and structure. For all the exchange schools, too, the results led to the development of individual projects and to a change in each school's culture and attitude towards learning. The school development processes at the Nordhorn school benefited greatly from the project, as it provided results for the various working groups and for the concrete planning of the 3rd floor of the school building. Using their experiences from the exchange meetings, the German students developed a concept for individual learning rooms on the third floor of the school building, how they would like to learn there in the context of a digital world. In this way we achieved a rethinking of pedagogy in relation to space and time. For all the exchange schools, too, the results led to the development of individual projects and to a change in each school's culture and attitude towards learning. In addition to the shared public padlet, the results were also communicated to the entire school community in the form of reports, website publications and local newspaper coverage. https://padlet.com/unterrichtzuhause/erasmus-outside-the-box-2021-2023-il7vgqaju3hab2i4