The educational system today is facing a growing pressure and demand to prepare youth to adapt and thrive in an increasingly complex social reality and to become active citizens and contributing members of society able to deal with unparalleled social challenges of the 21st century. The low level of social awareness and civic engagement among the youth in the region remains a source of concern. School education is falling short of bringing desired learning outcomes, while among early teenage learners social and citizenship studies and educational resources are particularly underdeveloped. We believe that when young people have the knowledge, skills and confidence to understand the functioning of society and their own role as citizens, to participate in social and civic life, their lives and society improve. We also believe that equipping youth with the requisite knowledge, skills and confidence should start early and continue in a structured and consistent manner throughout school education. Our objective is to provide a state-of-the-art cross-disciplinary course “I, Citizen-To-Be” for early teenage learners aged 11 to 15, enabling to enhance the quality of citizenship education in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. Through a novel phenomenon-based approach, our ICT-based course will offer the foundations of social and civic knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to develop into the 21st century’s active and responsible citizens. The course will integrate the essentials of civics, economics, ethics, psychology, sociology, politics and other social studies. Our primary target groups are early teenage learners aged 11 to 15, in grades 5 to 8. We will address their needs to develop a holistic understanding of the social reality as well as sound reasoning and valid judgment necessary for growing into active and contributing community members. Another target audience is school teachers of citizenship and social studies. Teachers are the number one driver of learning and they must change with the evolving competence-based curriculum. We will address teachers' need to transform their role in the classroom from an instructor to a facilitator, to foster a student-centred learning environment, to enhance learners’ motivation and participation, and improve ICT-based teaching capacity. Our project will involve the development, piloting and dissemination of a digital phenomenon-based course “I, Citizen to Be” consisting of 12 learning modules with short animated videos. The course will be embedded in the integration of citizenship, economics, ethics, sociology, psychology and other social sciences. During the life of the project a total of 1,500 pupils in grades 5 to 8 will have studied from the course in Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. Upon the completion of the project as many as 18,000 lower secondary school pupils in Lithuania, Poland and Latvia will learn from the course every year and we expect to see a 10-percent increase in this number of users year-on-year. The project has the potential to advance and raise the quality of social and citizenship education among early teenage learners and further innovation and digitalization of learning. The course "I, Citizen to Be" will be scalable across the lower secondary school sector and beyond. The project reflects the horizontal priorities of Open education and innovative practices in the digital era and Supporting individuals in acquiring and developing key competences.
With the project we are addressing the need to transform the learning of social and civic skills in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland for early teenage learners through interdisciplinarity and digitalization of learning. Our project focuses on the development, piloting and dissemination of a digital course “I, Citizen-To-Be” consisting of 12 modules, embedded in interdisciplinary phenomenon-based learning and the integration of economics, civics and ethics, and provided through an online learning platform. Our goal was to urge and motivate young students to develop a holistic understanding of social reality and transversal skills necessary for sound reasoning, valid judgment and effective development into active and responsible citizens. Also, study in an interactive, student-centered learning environment enhancing learning motivation and performance. We strived to transform the teacher’s role from being instructor and driver of the youth’s educational pathway to a facilitator in their journey to becoming all-encompassing self-sufficient learners. By integrating the various subjects into themes of relevant topics, we aimed to foster independent thinking skills, which later could be used to tackle different questions.
The educational system faces increasing pressure to prepare youth for the complexities of society and to become active, engaged citizens capable of addressing 21st-century challenges. Concerns arise from the low levels of social awareness and civic engagement among the region's youth. Current school education falls short of desired outcomes, especially regarding social and citizenship studies for early teenage learners, which lack sufficient resources. We believe that empowering young people with knowledge, skills, and confidence to understand society and their role as citizens enhances their lives and society. We also believe that equipping youth with the requisite knowledge, skills and confidence should start early and continue in a structured and consistent manner throughout school education. Our goal was to help equip the young generation with the necessary tools and knowledge which would allow them to tackle various relevant societal issues in this ever-changing environment. Additionally, we aimed to provide schools with cutting-edge interactive resources for interdisciplinary, phenomenon-based learning of social and civic skills in a digital setting.