Students are members of the target group (15-18 years old), boys and girls who have been selected for the exchange. Each team of students will be accompanied by 2 teachers from their school, preferably teachers of English and social sciences/humanities.
Topic: Immigration - statistics, problems caused by it, solutions, documentary films; what is true about immigrants and what isn't – media manipulation (identifying manipulation techniques).
This exchange is placed at the beginning of the plan since teachers need to meet and design the project concretely. But also making the students have an introduction to the project. The teachers from every school will meet in the learning, teaching and training activities. As the main educational actors directly involved in the project, they will meet to establish group, to discuss and make clear decisions on the schedule of the two years, implementation methods, dissemination and evaluation rules, how to implement the topics and subtopics into concrete activities. It will be very useful at the beginning of the project.
Besides all of these works, the host school will organise a seminar from academicians about the topic and the result report will be announced. The project tackles common issues and has a European dimension: immigration, democracy, discrimination and civic involvement. Making the students aware of each subtopic in the first LTTA of the project will be so valuable. Therefore it is more than essential that to meet face to face in order to develop critical thinking: analyse the situations comparatively, bring valid arguments and counter-arguments to support views during debates organised in multicultural teams, interview local politicians, collect data and apply it. Their acquisitions will be beneficial in the long run because they will get the chance to address the problems at stake from different angles by active and controlled reasoning, to analyse all facets of the problems with objectivity, draw informed conclusions and provide solutions.
After each exchange, the materials produced will be collected for developing critical thinking skills. Host country will apply evaluation tools and will make an exchange report which will include participants, objectives, level of attainment based on data collected from evaluation, interpretation of feedback forms, materials used, handouts, presentations, photographs of students' group work activities, photos of the products they create. These will be used in the mid-term report by the coordinator.
Participants will improve their experiences, will be more motivated to run the project and the team building activities will create the foundation for building personal relationships that will last after the end of the project. They will immerse in other EU lifestyles, discover the culture through their hosts’ eyes, broaden their cultural horizon, improve communication in English and in other EU languages, get familiar with other educational systems by attending lessons, and they will be able to compare the structures and level of studied school subjects.
The participants will become aware of the other EU educational systems, school curriculum, managerial issues, pedagogical practice, European indicators that facilitate school success, methods of teaching, learning and evaluation and information regarding the cooperation with other educational institutions/parents associations. The project represents also a chance to start long term cooperation with the project partners and also to determine our school stuff to participate in similar projects or to the training courses offered by the Erasmus+ programme.