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New Learning Environment: an innovative, more crea..
New Learning Environment: an innovative, more creative and healthier, happier school.
Start date: Jun 1, 2015,
End date: May 31, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
The teachers from a distant rural school, who lack motivation and satisfaction, ageing
teachers, who try to catch up with modern technologies and students’ ICT skills, and the
teachers, often overloaded, who struggle for high academic achievements within low
performing students and therefore live, work in constant stress, expressed their
readiness for changes and willingness to overcome the issues and challenges in
nowadays teaching. The project “New Learning Environment: an innovative, more
creative and healthier, happier school” is about more effective education through
improving teachers' attitudes toward themselves and their teaching methods, through
equipping teachers and administration of the school with innovations in teaching and
school management, through empowering teaching and learning with creativity and
critical thinking, and through creating healthier and happier learning environment for
every child and every adult. The source of innovative approaches, creative ideas and
examples of better learning environment will be European courses for in-service
teachers and a job shadowing activity carefully chosen by the project team leaders and
by the participants themselves. The expected learning outcomes relevant to the school’s
needs were the most important criteria for choosing the activities, among which will be
different courses with various methods, structured school visits, language development
course for language teachers, ICT for Math and Science, courses on school
management and special education. As the whole project is about improving learning
environment and teachers’ involvement it was decided that a job shadowing activity in a
Montessori school will be relevant and useful. All the activities are meant to be various
and not repeated to have broader impact on school’s staff and students.
The participants were chosen on general and specific project relevant criteria. Under the
general criteria were chosen the participants first of all willing to participate and share
the experience, and with the foreign language level required by the course providers;
motivated to commit to educational, school and personal needs; ready and able to
disseminate the learning outcomes gained in different courses to wider audience
increasing the impact of the project.
Also, selecting the participants were taken into account such specific criteria as deeper
understanding of the school’s needs, the relevant courses attended in home country,
readiness for innovations and creativity, radical changes.
The 9 project participants have been chosen so they could represent all subject
departments and methods groups in school. The three representatives of the
administration and two specialists in special and social education will attend the learning
activities according to their appropriateness and vision of the desired solution. These will
be such activities as school visits, school management and team building courses, stress
prevention and school building improvements.
The learning activities were chosen to bring more enthusiasm and readiness for more
active involvement into teaching and this will influence the education in general but on a
narrower scale - every child. The noticeable impact is expected on the school in a form
of possible changes in school management, in curriculum content and the school
building as well. The whole community might be inspired and later on will appreciate the
teachers' willingness to improve teaching and thus then to have better cooperation and
connections between school and the community, which is a key to success in education.
Getting European experience and educational practices, establishing new European
relationships between the participating organisation and meeting other European
teachers concerned about similar issues will make Vainodes secondary school more
international and open for further international experiences. The project is going to be a
starting point for the next European stage-Erasmus+ KA2. KA1 action will help to find
and shape an interesting strategy to work on with potential European partners with
common interests and needs for better education.
All the three directions chosen for improving teaching and learning in the project will
have a strategic and sustainable development in future.
The whole project is a start to better and deeper understanding that education must be
contemporary and flexible to the needs of our fast developing and changing world.