The education and the creative sectors have been strongly impacted by the COVID-19 crisis implying to reinvent the way of delivering contents to the youngest in a creative way while maintaining strong pedagogical commitments and activities, even in hybrid modalities such as distant learning. As stated by OECD, complementary strategies should be empowered through the implementation of cooperation dynamics between formal and informal learning environments, where the schools and teachers can find opportunities to use the museum and libraries resources to produce motivating and active learning experiences, for maintaining activities during hybrid learning modalities and looking outwards the walls of the class to inspire the children in their path to becoming active citizens. UNPLUGGED has been designed to empower the relations between the formal (schools) and informal learning ecosystems (museums, libraries, associations, families ...) regarding the development of creative practices supporting the students positioning as critical thinkers and active citizens in the 21st-century society. In this context, the UNPLUGGED project aims to enable the continuity of learnings during COVID-19 using citizen challenge in informal contexts through learning by doing pedagogies. UNPLUGGED is priorly a one-stop-shop of gamified activities that can apply both in the classroom but also at home, through learning by doing mechanics i.e. stimulating exploration through DIY activities, easing maintaining adapted challenges for home-based learning modalities and guiding the parents in their implementation. This approach will enable answering to several crucial objectives: - Obj. 1: Enable the continuity of learnings during COVID-19 based on citizen challenges in informal contexts through learning by doing pedagogies - Obj. 2: Enhancing creativity and motivation through a gamified approach - Obj. 3: Creating critical thinkers. UNPLUGGED will implement several steps methodology: 1) O1: Providing a gamebook based on the UNPLUGGED gamified, challenge-based and creative strategies and dynamics, 2) O2: Consolidating quests for enhancing creativity and culture approach in primary schools integrated unplugged games, 3) O3: Deploying a digital ecosystem for reuniting schools, cultural institutions and families, 4) O4: Consolidating new pedagogical assessment processes, especially based on self-regulated learning methods and a reward scheme for valorizing the children in their citizen commitment. These activities will be displayed during demonstration sessions at school, home and within third places such as museums or libraries targeting 10 schools across Italy, Bulgaria, France, Belgium and Spain for a total of 30 teachers involved directly, 850 children, including 100 pupils with fewer opportunities and creating links with social services, the concrete involvement of at least 50 families, and a large dissemination plan towards at least 500 schools, 500 museums and libraries, 250 fablabs, associations and STEAM mediation participants and 100 policymakers. Through this methodology and results, the UNPLUGGED project is willing to positively impact the development of civic engagement for the children, enabling them to tackle the world challenges with critical thinking and creativity, especially facing the 21st-century societal issues that we are facing, even more since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. New STEAM competencies linked to programming and computational thinking, crucial at the level of the European educational system by the integration of computational thinking as a core component of the programmes, will be achieved. It will also enable the children to understand complex problems in a simple way linked to positive technological vision, Science for Good or even frugality as a game-changer for developing an inclusive society. These impacts on the learners will have a direct positive effect on the teachers and the development of active pedagogy within the classroom and at home. Indeed, UNPLUGGED will provide programme-based activities to motivate the children, using creativity and art, DIY resources, to maintain the acquisition of skills while finding home-based challenges that can keep the learners active at home. The commitment to unplugged activities, besides the pedagogical impact on creativity enhancement, will enable all parents to benefit from the project outcomes, independently from resources and access to digital material and devices issues. Eventually, UNPLUGGED will reinforce the links between the educative sector and the creative and outside the schools' institutions such as science museums and associations. The project will contribute to developing participatory and playful practices that promote inclusive, collaborative, active and co-creative 21st-century pedagogies. This will encourage learners to be curious and creative in innovative economies (OECD, 2018).
Through the implementation of Unplugged, we aimed to develop resources for teachers. These resources, inspired by the practices and content of creative and cultural institutions, take the form of quests aimed at developing students' critical thinking skills. We have indeed observed that students need a more creative approach to learning that integrates play, mindset, and maker practices. This new approach could be integrated into the classroom environment by offering adapted pedagogical activities. Our ambition was therefore to set up a global quest that would allow students to develop their key 21st-century skills by mixing STEAM activities, mathematics, and coding, but also creative, artistic, or reflective activities. Thanks to this interdisciplinarity, students could acquire the necessary knowledge to position themselves as active citizens.
The Unplugged project aims to strengthen the relationship between formal (schools) and informal (museums, libraries, associations, families...) learning ecosystems. It does so by developing creative and playful practices that position students as critical thinkers and active citizens of 21st-century society. Play-based learning practices engage children and adults in activities that support different educational objectives. In the Erasmus+ Unplugged project, this approach has helped to develop children's creative problem-solving skills and apply them to the field of citizenship. The challenges of the 21st century require citizenship education, which provides children with the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to recognize the values needed for life in a community. With the support of teachers, this approach contributes to the transmission of values and principles related to life in democratic societies.