Context The project addresses the needs to implement a competence based teaching and a competence oriented learning through practical activities, starting from an interesting historical topic: the Angevin dynasty. It aims to bring into structured and cooperative communication several European countries which experienced the Angevin domination between the XIII and the XV centuries. Since the Angevin dynasty had a great influence on regional and national medieval policies the projects aims to explore, discover and understand the cultural, political and socio-economic effects that such domination produced in parts of Europe that are distant from one another and very different in terms of language, history and traditions. Objectives The project has the aim of promoting intercultural awareness, integration and active European citizeship. Its main objectives are to improve students’ linguistic and communicative competences and digital skills and to implement an intercultural knowledge that will make them more open-minded and ready to accept otherness. The project will allow students to come accross different contexts, to socialize through international meetings that will encourage a deep intercultural dialogue among all the participants who will have, as a consequence, the opportunity to acquire a deeper global awareness, to enhance their ability to respect differences and to exhibit a responsible behaviour, both socially and environmentally. The schools involved in the project will have the opportunity to enrich their educational values through the acquisition of a more European identity. Participants The project is carried out by 5 partner schools from Italy, France, Hungary, Poland and Croatia. Each school will involve 25 students, 5 for each mobility, aged from 16 to 18, belonging to the classes that study history and topics connected to the Angevin dynasty. For each mobility there will be two accompanying teachers from each partner school. All other teachers engaged in the project management, as well as all the other students of each school, will contribute to the arrangement of the planned activities and events in their own school. Activities The project features 5 student exchanges, one in each country involved, and a first mobility for the staff training that will involve two teachers from each partner school and will take place in Italy. During each transnational meeting, students will be guided to visit and explore each one of the territories chosen for the project in order to know the elements of the Angevin heritage and to get in touch with the material evidence of Angevin settlements in those areas. Photo collections, videos and research will be carried out by the students who will also take part in workshops and indoor activities in each host school in order to analyse and discuss their discoveries and opinions. Methodology The students will be introduced to a different way of studying history and art, in non-formal contexts and in more stimulating ways, outside the usual school walls. The methodology adopted will include practical activities which favour learning by doing: Project Based Learning, workshops, cooperative learning, peer to peer learning, flipped clasroom. Besides, the use of ICT in each phase of the project will motivate the students’ interest in the subject matter and foster learning and acquisition of digital skills at the same time. Results The concrete result of the whole research carried out in all the territories visited will be a virtual museum with virtual walls, pictures and 3D elements, a sort of historical museum online, containing aspects of the history of all countries involved, with a focus on the Angevin dynasty, available to anyone who wants to know about the topic. The intended outcomes of the whole project will be the enhancement of students’ linguistic and communicative skills, an improvement of their social and civic competences, a stronger awareness of countries’ artistic and cultural heritage and a clearer understanding of the European citizenship. The project will also have an impact on the participating teachers who will acquire a better awareness about new methodologies and will have the opportunity to share good practices with teachers from other countries. Long term benefits The project results will be spread through a variety of dissemination channels, so to allow a great amount of people and groups to benefit from it in the long term. Pupils and their families will gain a greater intercultural awareness and a better understanding of diversity in general. Teachers will enrich their knowledge about teaching methodologies and their style through the comparison with other educational realities. The schools and the local institutions that will know about the project will have the chance to belong to a new network of relations that will allow cooperation and exchange between different countries’ institutions in various fields, not only the educational one.
The project “The Angevins, a European dynasty: testimonies, settlements, relics” was approved by the Italian National Agency for the years 2020-2022 but, due to the pandemic, it was necessary to ask for an extension of its duration in order to implement all the planned activities. Therefore, the official deadline was set at 31 August 2023. The project aimed to explore and understand the history and legacy of the Angevin dynasty in some European countries that had experienced that domination in past centuries, through a series of practical activities, group visits to historical sites and by implementing a competence oriented learning for students coming from several parts of Europe, different for language spoken, traditions and lifestyles. The project finally led to the creation of a virtual museum that shows the historical and artistic heritage of the Angevins, which concretely exists and still enriches certain European territories today. The project was managed by a partnership of 5 schools from 5 European countries: Italy, France, Poland, Hungary and Croatia. Each school involved 25 students, aged 16 - 18, who took part, in turns 5 at a time, in transnational meetings. For each mobility abroad there were two accompanying teachers from each school. The project management also engaged other teachers from the schools, based on the expertise needed, and other students who helped in hosting guest students. During the mobilities, the participants visited places linked to the Angevin dynasty in France, Hungary, Italy, Croatia and Poland, living an immersive experience in the culture and life habits of foreign countries which allowed them to deepen their historical knowledge about the Angevin dynasty and acquire personal skills valid both at school and in everyday life: greater intercultural awareness, a better understanding of the importance of the artistic and cultural heritage of nations, a clearer comprehension of the idea of active European citizenship, social and civic skills. The constant intercultural dialogue that took place among the students and the teachers involved in the project gave all of them the opportunity to improve their linguistic and communication competences and their interpersonal skills, fostering a more open-minded attitude and greater respect towards any kind of difference and otherness. Moreover, both students and teachers, working on platforms, creating videos, uploading photos and various materials, have also acquired new digital skills that can be used in future projects, activities or jobs. The methodology adopted during the mobilities combined formal and informal methods and the activities carried out to implement the project range from guided visits to treasure hunts on sites of interest, theoretical reseach, group work to create digital presentations, workshops at school, debates on previous visits and information acquired, quizzes, icebreaking games at the beginning of each transnational meeting. Students discovered a new way to study traditional subjects like history and art in non-formal contexts, outside the classroom, through peer to peer teaching, intercultural cooperative learning and Project based learning; they learnt how to work in international teams and present in English before an audience. All that also strengthened their self-esteem promoting a resposible behaviour both at school and in every context of society. Through the meeting with different scholastic realities, cooperation and exchange between educational teams from different contexts, the teachers involved have developed a greater awareness of their teaching style, enriching it with knowledge of new methodologies that will continue to have positive effects on their teaching practices, thus giving a more European dimension to the school where they work. The schools, hence, have opened up to new forms of relationship and exchange with educational teams from different countries. Indeed, the cooperation inspired the creation of a European network of schools that will continue to interact and cooperate in new projects on other topics. The concrete product of the project is a virtual museum of the Angevin dynasty, a kind of online museum with pictures and information, providing an overview of the Angevins' history, achievements and relics. It is available to anyone who wants to know about it as it has been put on the public Twinspace of the project and on the partner schools’ websites. The virtual museum ensures that the Angevins' legacy can be accessed and appreciated by a wide audience, regardless of geographical and time boundaries. The project results were spread and made visible through various dissemination channels - the schools’ websites, teachers’ meetings, social media pages, eTwinning, local press – to show that participants not only gained valuable insights into the Angevins' history but also acquired essential skills that will benefit in the long term their personal and professional growth.