The COSMIC project – CO-creating and Sharing digital MethodologIes In Circus education - jointly led by the French federation of circus schools (FFEC) and the European Federation of professional Circus Schools (FEDEC), will take place from September 2020 to December 2022. The project promoters are 11 European professional circus schools and federations based in 7 countries: ESAC, FEDEC (BE), Carampa (ES), CRAC, ENACR, FFEC (FR), FLIC (IT), Codarts (NL), INAC (PT), Circomedia, NCCA (UK)). The project will allow professional circus schools to get trained in digital pedagogy, through a software (MemoRekall) designed by the Université Polytechnique des Hauts de France (UPHF), associated partner of the project. The COSMIC project aims to: 1) Train circus schools’ staff and students in digital pedagogy through a dedicated software 2) Develop new pedagogical methodologies for the sector 3) Create new synergies within participating schools 4) Shape a European community that will impact the sector in terms of education, innovation and digital skills 5) Adapt a software specially dedicated to education in the circus sector During the 28 months of the project, the partners will collaborate face-to-face and remotely for the development of new teaching methodologies based on content already existing within the schools. This content will be the students “artistic notebook”. Each partner will experiment new ways of creating a digital artistic notebook using MemoRekall, a software that allows to integrate different types of content (text, images, music, sketches, etc.) in a video. Partners will share their experimentations during 2 Labs, as well as remotely through an online platform. Through COSMIC, the project partners will also identify new functionalities of the software to be specially developed for circus education, which will help to adapt MemoRekall to the needs of the sector. The project is intended for the entire school community: teachers, students, general, pedagogical and artistic directors, technical staff. The aim is to create new synergies and improve the transmission of learning outcomes within schools. 3 trainings will take place during the project: - Initial training: CRAC (Lomme - FR) / December 2020 - COSMIC Lab 1: FLIC (Turin - IT) / March 2021 - COSMIC Lab 2: INAC (Vila Nova - PT) / February 2022 In between each training, each school will conduct an experimental phase at local level, in order to take ownership of the project by involving a bigger part of the educational teams and students in the project. The initial training will allow participants to be trained on MemoRekall and therefore able to set up the experimentations within their schools. The 2 peer exchange labs will be an opportunity for partners to: - Discover each other's experimentations (needs, issues, objectives) - Discuss the new practices implemented within each school - Inspire each other, find new solutions and methodologies between peers - Create and strengthen a sustainable community. The 3 planned learning activities are thus directly linked to the objectives of the project and bring a real added value because: - they contribute to the creation of a hybrid and complementary community, making it possible to combine both virtual and physical mobility, and mobility of students and teaching staff. - they allow the exchange between peers of the experimentations run in each school - they bring complementarity to the work at the local level by offering personalized and face-to-face coaching. During the project, participants will receive technical monitoring from the UPHF remotely through a dedicated online platform. The platform will also serve as a support for participants to exchange and share about the issues faced during the experimentation phases at local level. The project will bring several tangible results: - The COSMIC-MemoRekall publication, developed by the UPHF. It will track the experimentations of each school, as well as the new pedagogical methodologies developed. It will also provide an evaluation of the project, based on qualitative and quantitative criteria. - New features for MemoRekall developed thanks to feedback from participants and project partners, in order to better adapt the software to the needs of circus schools. - Multimedia video files, called “capsules”, produced with MemoRekall. A first step towards the digitalization of the circus heritage of schools. The synergies created by the project aim at being sustainable and at generating new collaborations, even after the end of the project. COSMIC will bring an in-depth change of practices within and between circus schools, it will contribute to the digitization of the sector and it will help schools to better prepare their students for the professional world.
COSMIC Objectives: 1) Train the actors of circus schools in digital pedagogy through an adapted web application 2) Develop new pedagogical methodologies for the circus sector 3) Create new synergies within participating schools 4) Shape a European community that impacts the sector in the fields of education, innovation and digital 5) Adapt a web application specifically dedicated to education in the circus sector The MemoRekall web-application allows the integration of different types of content (texts, images, music, sketches, etc.) in a video. It was chosen for the project as it was developed in collaboration with the professional circus sector, and is free of charge. Target audience: the entire schools’ educational body (management, pedagogical, administrative and technical team, students, etc.). The objective is to create new synergies and improve the transmission of learning within the schools.
The circus arts are currently in a continuous expansion. Since 2003, the number of registered circus companies in the EU have grown from 800 to 2,000, and people working in the sector from about 11,000 to 15,000, according to the study on “The situation of circus in the EU Member States," published by the European Commission in 2020. The study also highlights the importance of encouraging the digital revolution for the sector. The French federation of circus schools (FFEC) latest project, REFLECT, focused on consulting the sector on their training needs. The results identified digital technology as a key tool for meeting the needs identified. Indeed, it allows for the development of movement and composition analysis, essential to guide and evaluate students, but also to digitalise the heritage of circus education, to collaborate remotely and to explore new ways of teaching circus arts. The axes identified are: - to develop the continuous training of teachers. - to improve the transmission of learning outcomes within the schools. - to develop training programs and their level of excellence to meet the needs of the market.