Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the greatest threat to education and training in the modern history of Europe has been witnessed. Over 100 million students, teachers, and school staff have been affected worldwide, and many of them have switched to digital education to continue the academic year. COVID-19 lockdown was a turning point for digital education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) made research on the impact of Covid-19 on school closures and affected learners around the world. The results show that in Italy 4,6 million, in Turkey 11,4 million, in Portugal 770 thousand, in Spain 3,3 million and in Iceland 21,1 thousand of secondary school students were affected because of the lockdown. COVID lockdown was a turning point for digital education. In light of these exceptional circumstances, our goal is to increase the quality of education among our schools, support teachers in mastering digital competences together with blended learning and e-learning environments to cope with the recent challenges. In this context, in order to achieve the objectives mentioned above, Flipped Learning along with blended learning method has been considered to enhance the learner to more suitable learning strategies to face this change of education set up. By selecting how, when and where to learn, it integrates in- class face to face learning activities with online out-of-school learning in most appropriate way. Also, "Flipped Learning Model" allows students to perform lower-level cognitive tasks such as knowledge acquisition and understanding before the lesson and focus on higher-level cognitive tasks such as implementation, analysis, synthesis, assessment with peers and teacher support during the course. It ensures an excellent adaptation to the Bloom Taxonomy too. Our project from beginning to the end includes huge entrepreneurship of teachers team-work. LTTs are the main focus of the project. We have planned three transnational meetings. The first meeting will be a base for the rest of the six short term exchange of teachers where the teachers will have experience on how to; struggle and tackle with the recent challanges due to the Covid-19;raise key competences and basic skills of teachers in the light of 21st Century skills(listed in World Economic Forum); boosting digital competences of teachers is also the most important aspect of the project. Having taken instructive seminars on the related issues they will try to find out solutions by exchanging good practices and especially will maintain awareness and motivate teachers to the upcoming LTTS. Our Project is directly related to the international field. It shows that all participants are in the same line with EU community. It fits well with the EU educational target, EU’s educational and youth approaches.
What we wanted to achieve with this project was to increase our skills in flipped learning and teach students how they can prepare better for their lessons at school. Flipped teaching and learning can benefit all students in learning on their own terms and gives teachers the opportunity to deliver content in a variety of ways. We wanted to achieve a new level of autonomy and responsibility for students, following the guidelines of student’s skills for the 21st century. At the same time, we wanted teachers to learn the huge potential of flipping methodologies and digital engagement associated with gamification elements and project based learning. We wanted to innovate our teaching methods making them more dynamic and active, to explore new methodologies and pedagogical approaches, integrating ICTs, open virtual learning and digital contents during the process teaching in order to develop digital skills for all participants; developing non-formal education methods in addition to the formal ones and improving the level of key competences; promoting the EU idea of Lifelong Learning. Exchanging professional experience, teaching methods and techniques, improving teachers’ qualifications and enhancing creativity and innovation at school.
Our decision to apply for this project stemmed from a growing recognition of the importance of adapting to modern educational practices in the face of technological advancements and changing student needs. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, we experienced a significant shift towards remote learning and digital tools in education. As educators, we saw the urgent need to enhance our digital competencies and undergo training in digital technology to effectively navigate this new landscape. Moreover, we recognized the importance of guiding our students through this digital transformation, ensuring they have the necessary skills to thrive in an increasingly digital world. By joining this project, we aimed to foster collaboration among European high schools, exchange best practices in digital cooperative work, and cultivate our students' digital skills. Our focus was on promoting inclusive education, active citizenship, and democratic cooperation, while also addressing the evolving needs of our diverse student population. We aimed to harness technology to create dynamic learning environments, where students are empowered to take ownership of their learning journey and develop critical thinking skills.