The strategic partnership "IDEA" aims to improve of the quality of education process of VET schools across Europe regarding development of new innovative methodologies for creating digital lessons for VET schools, improvement of digital skills of the staff and creating interactive and inclusive lessons for students. In order to do this, the partners will enhance the skills of the teachers/educators for working with innovative methods online. The partners will develop a combination of methodology and digital tools for teachers' use. We chose to develop new methodology for online/ digital lessons deliberately, because in our previous experience, we believe to be more effective, successful and popular than online lessons based on one-side presentation lectures. This methodology will help students connect, be interactive, be more active and creative during lessons. This is a strong tool in times when visual/digital communication is very important, especially among youth. We'll use "their language" to motivate them. Activities: - there will be 3 Feasibility studies in every participating schools, 6 Transnational meetings, 1 Learning Teaching Training, 1 Multiplier Event, designing the Digital Toolkit and creating a website. Target groups: - primary: teachers, educators, staff in VET schools; - secondary: students in VET schools, other teachers/educators. The final results from this project will be: - Baseline: research and analysis of the current situation of digital readiness of VET schools and creation of a culture-sensitive model of blended/distance learning and teaching (IO1) - Innovative methodology for distance learning (IO2); - Feasibility studies and testing the new methodology in the VET high-schools in N. Macedonia, Italy and Portugal (IO3 - IO5), which will serve as the base for the development and finalising of the Digital Toolkit and the website. - Digital toolkit (IO6); - website, which will serve as a portal/ database for all educators in Europe (IO7). The Digital Toolkit will contain tools and methods for teachers. These innovative methods and digital tools will enable the teachers to be ready to create a distance learning lesson. These tools and methods can be used for facilitating different stages of the lesson: intro, team building, main part, closure, debriefing and evaluation and assessment. The website will contain the download links for the research, the methodology, the tools, reports of the case studies, step-by-step instructions on how to create a online lesson. It will also contain practical tips and tricks for facilitation for the teachers, ways of adapting the techniques etc. These results will be free to use, easily accessible for every teacher/ educator interested. The tools will be easily understandable, user-friendly and intuitive, so they can be useful for every teacher regardless of their experience. The project will have concrete impact on several levels, on the participating teachers, on the organisations involved in the project, the education system in general during these times, students who need to attend the lessons. Primary target group of teachers/ educators: Teachers will become more competent for distance learning, with improved digital literacy, they will acquire valuable experience working with students online and their toolboxes will be enriched. Thus, we envision that after the project the primary target group of partners and teachers/educators will: - learn new methodology and activities that can be applied online in their home countries for supporting students in their education process; - have practical experience of using digital tools in their work for stimulating creativity, engagement, efficiency; - share and get to know situations and experience of other teachers/educators from all over Europe; - improve their communication skills and style; - become more relaxed and confident to work with digital tools for distance learning and facilitate online classes; - will improve the attitude towards educational activities in general; - will develop new teaching strategies; - get to know more about the Erasmus+ programme and project management; - gain practical experience. Secondary target group - students: The desired impact upon the students from all the partner schools consists of: - increasing the motivation and engagement for the learning process; - the development of efficient learning techniques; - adopting innovative digital tools in their everyday work and life; - the development of cognitive skills that can support school participation and a more active involvement in their own learning; - the development of transversal key competences, which are important from the perspective of integrated development of students’ personality (language skills, learning to learn, etc.); - efficient school and professional orientation which is also appropriate for the students’ needs and interests;
With this strategic partnership "Innovative Digital Education Approach" (IDEA) we wanted to improve the quality of the education process of VET schools across Europe regarding development of methodologies for creating digital lessons for VET schools, improvement of digital skills of staff, and creation of interactive and inclusive lessons for students. These skills of the teachers/ educators/ staff can foster the improvement of the quality of the lessons in the future or in situations like this. Through new methods, based on using innovative digital tools, we'd like to achieve improved quality, more interaction, inclusion, and interest for the students and teachers. We as a consortium wanted to share the outcomes/ results, reach a wider audience, connect different stakeholders, and emphasize the value of using a combination of online digital tools. We wanted to engage creative youth who experience a lack of motivation and creativity, to gain visibility for our project, and to systematize the methodology in a digital toolkit and a website. These results are free to download and available for every VET teacher on a local and European level. They are user-friendly, with step-by-step instructions, in 6 languages.
We applied for this project because, during the Covid-19 pandemic, all of the partners noticed a lot of issues, problems, and a lack of knowledge among the staff on how to facilitate online lessons. It's a fact that in the year 2020, the world got into the Covid-19 pandemic, and schools around the world certainly weren’t prepared for it. These drastically affected teachers and students in many different negative ways: economically, mentally, physically, and socially. The students during this period had a lot of tasks, for which they were not prepared appropriately and couldn't finish them productively and successfully. Their learning process was affected- it was decreasing and/or stagnating and affected their social interaction. We as partners in this project, all active in the education sphere, fully endorsed this conclusion. All partners made a "needs analysis", in which they point out their real needs and expectations/benefits from the results of this project. The main need was to develop new methods and to share the experience with other partners. The schools wanted to develop new partnerships with other schools on the European level. The partners wanted to compare the situation in our school with similar schools in Europe.