It is a common saying that teachers are brain changers but at the same time there are numerous examples showing how little we know about or use the knowledge of brain functioning in the context of teaching and learning today. Having so much evidence that today's schools and public education in general are not brain-friendly in so many cases, we have decided to start a big discussion in the area of neuroeducation in different parts of Europe. It goes without saying that teaching is a challenging profession today. We are bombarded with new approaches, techniques and tools every day. Yet, the most important tool - student's brain has been ignored for the last decades causing different educational failures. That is why, we should do our best to inspire teachers and make them more interested in the topic of brain-friendly education that combines the knowledge of neuroscience, psychology and education, which can help them optimize both learning and teaching processes and reach the maximum potential of each individual student. It will not only improve teaching quality but will also help students improve their academic performance. Our main objective, therefore, is to provide teachers with the profound theory supplemented with plenty of practical, ready to be used methods and approaches that will make their teaching much more stimulating and enjoyable for students, who will ultimately become an active part of the educational process. With this transformation, we want to develop our students' creativity, autonomy, teamwork skills, confidence and responsibility for lifelong learning, which are crucial for their future personal and professional life. On the other hand, we want to make our teachers more innovative and self-confident in their everyday work and international cooperation. The planned activities will lead to strengthening the profiles of teaching professions and will result in more effective and enjoyable learning inside and outside the classroom, better classroom atmosphere, greater engagement and autonomy of students who will feel responsible for their own process of learning. We also intend to develop a long-lasting international cooperation between our schools and mutual support in continuing professional development of our teachers. Developing interpersonal competences as well as reducing the cultural and language barriers among our students and teachers are also important objectives we want to achieve. We truly believe that transferring the responsibility for learning from teachers to students will make the latter independent, self-reliant and intrinsically motivated to push their educational process forward, without too much dependency on their teachers. It is a long-lasting process challenging not only for students but also for teachers, who will have to alter their teaching habit of being in the centre of the classroom and start thinking outside the box to find new tools to guide and monitor the process of learning standing at the back. Therefore, all the project activities are student-centered and designed in the way that allows creativity and taking the initiative and responsibility for the results. Thanks to this project, our teachers will learn how to implement Flipped Classroom, The Escape Room, Discovery Learning, The Mystery Skype Lesson, The Learning Cafe Method, The Game-Based Learning and Problem / Project-Based Learning. What is more, they will have a chance to observe a number of lessons prepared and conducted in harmony with brain-friendly education principles. On the other hand, students will engage themselves in different educational challenges and four different eTwinning projects which will help them prepare for the foreign mobilities. They will also experience all new methods and approaches being implemented by their teachers. We want to share responsibilities for all the project activities with our students aged 9 - 15 from the very beginning. We intend to organize 99 mobilities for students and 52 for teachers from all partner schools. We are planning to engage in our activities as many students, parents and teachers of various subjects as possible and make the local authorities and whole communities familiar with the ongoing or completed actions. That is why, we intend to use different means of communication such as local press, radio, TV, social media and school websites to reach a wide audience. As a group of five countries from Cyprus, Finland, Italy, Poland and Turkey we have planned six meetings during these two years. The first teacher-oriented mobility taking place in Finland will be devoted to the theory and practice of brain-friendly education and will be a great starting point for the whole project. The next five meetings will be organized in all partner schools where our students will have a chance to meet their new friends and develop their language competence in meaningful and purposeful situations.
Project 'Brain-friendly teaching and learning' (Brain matters!) was addressed to students aged 9 - 15 and carried out in four partner schools (Poland, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus) by teachers of different subjects and specialities. Our main goal was to start an international discussion about the necessity of creating the learning environment in harmony with the latest knowledge of brain functioning in the context of learning. In consequence, we can observe better classroom atmosphere, better knowledge of effective methods and strategies of learning among students and profound knowledge of neuroeducation and its value among teachers. Apart from theoretical aspects, we wanted to equip teachers with a number of ready to be used methods, approaches and tools, some of which, thanks to this project, have been used by our teachers on a regular basis (Flipped Classroom, Escape Room, Visual Thinking, Lapbook, Mindfulness, Project-based learning, Game-based learning, Flash Cards, Critical Thinking, Stop Motion). What is more, Polish teachers have implemented two pedagogical innovations concerning mindfulness and making the distance between teachers and students shorter following the Scandinavian model of education. Both teachers and students learnt how to use a number od ICT tools, which resulted in a significant growth of digital competences, so important during the pandemic. Moreover, we managed to engage our students in three eTwinning projects, which helped them develop creativity, autonomy, and taking responsibility for their own learning, as certain tasks connected with school curriculums were carried out in a more unconventional way. They were actively engaged in the whole process starting with the planning, through implementation, and ending with evaluation of strong and weak points of the project. An important part of our project was arranging numerous situations of mutual peer help according to the principle that the brain is more likely to understand and remember the material that was explained by or practised with another student. The first year of project activities was the time of global pandemic isolation, which forced us to introduce plenty of changes both in the timetable and the way we had planned to carry out certain activities. On the other hand, it was the time of intensive growth of digital skills among students and teachers, the time of online meetings and workshops when we talked about the principles of neuroeducation, four pillars of learning, various methods and strategies of effective learning, as well as the time of talking about student - centered methods of teaching. According to our observations, thanks to such methods as Flipped Classroom, Visual Thinking, Lapbook, or Stop Motion, students are not only more engaged during lessons, but they also remembered the material better, which influenced their academic performance and an increase in key competences. We also tried to invite to our discussions teachers from other schools, that is why, we organized a webinar about Flipped Classroom for Turkish teachers and another one about ICT tools for the teachers we cooperated with in our eTwinning projects. Also mobilities to our partner schools, which could start in the second year of common works, were a significant part of our project. Thanks to these direct, face-to-face meetings, both teachers and students had a chance to break communicative and cultural barriers. Discovering and understanding other cultures resulted in better project atmosphere and a big interest in European Countries and their heritage among students. It was also a powerful motivating factor, as different kinds of project work was connected with the participation in one of the mobilities. We know from our students that some of them are still in touch with their peers from partner schools, which still helps them develop language skills. What is more, our students had a chance to take part in international workshops carried out in harmony with brain-friendly education and its principles. Some of them, such as survival activities or cooking traditional Italian pesto with a well-known local chef, took place outdoors. The history lesson on Cyprus was conducted in the ancient ruins of Paphos, and the workshop with a map and compass took place in an adventure park in international teams. Moreover, our students had an opportunity to discover and practise a number of old traditional games from partner countries, in which also parents and grandparents got involved as they helped with the rules and told them stories from the past. During mobilities, students learnt how to sew, did interesting experiments, read national legends and created their own interpretation using Stop Motion. They also meditated as it is an important factor increasing concentration, the first pillar of learning, they could also develop their creativity during robotics or coding. Last but not least, they developed soft skills cooperating in multicultural teams.