The Project

Key Areas of the Project:

In order to enlarge their teaching competences 13 teachers and 2 administrative employees (AE) participate in training courses for staff and teachers to improve skills in the fields of communication, teambuilding and leadership. It is important to not only acquire knowledge in workshops but also to experience how other institutions handle these skills among their employees. That is why this project also includes job-shadowing opportunities for 5 teachers in cooperation with the Swedish school FRIDA in Vänersborg and Gothenborg. It seems extremely important for the BG/BRG Judenburg to cooperate with European institutions outside of Austria, because trainings offered in Austria are often organised by Austrian school authorities which often prevents teachers from being inspired by modern approaches to communication and leading a class and a team of teachers. Job-shadowings and trainings outside of Austria support participants to change perspective and to see their own school and the Austrian school system from a different view.

Trainees personally get in touch with different school/management systems with focus on how to lead a school, team and classes and communication systems. As some Austrian teachers have participated in similar training sessions in Sweden, they gave feedback that they were extremely positively motivated and inspired by the way other countries approach the topics teambuilding, leadership and communications.

In this project teachers and AE acquire methods, techniques and didactic material for activities that are adaptable to a wide range of lower and higher grade classes as well as for the personal professional daily life at school. But not only the acquisition of new methods, techniques and skills play an important role, it is also the exchange of experiences and the reflection on teaching behavior between teachers of different countries that will bring the participation in this courses along.

Staff Competences

Teachers acquire:

• professional and collaborative competences
• broader understanding of practices, policies and systems in education
• skills to identify changes within educational organisations
• understanding of connections of formal/non-formal education
• quality improvement of teachers’ work and activities in relation to students and teachers
• greater understanding and responsiveness to social, linguistic and cultural diversity
• increased ability to address the needs of the disadvantaged and early school leaving
• increased personal opportunities for professional development
• improved foreign language competences
• increased motivation and satisfaction in their daily work

Teaching and Training Content

Teambuilding

Teachers:

• learn the positive power of team building and feel more confident to use and adjust project ideas at school
• they learn how to promote team building to create a climate of cooperation and collaborative problem solving, an
• atmosphere of community, tolerance, team spirit and acquire communication skills
• gain a fuller understanding about team building through group psychology, personality development and activity planning.

Leadership

Teachers:

• study learning activities and didactic games to support students to develop entrepreneurial mindsets and assertive attitudes.
• learn to engage students and motivate them to develop their entrepreneurship and problem solving skills and their selfesteem
• learn to lead and deliver experiential workshops and interactive projects to foster students entrepreneurial mindsets and leadership characters
• make contacts with individuals and organizations working in the education field through everyday cooperation and networking activities.
• get to know modern classroom and staff leadership systems different from those in Austria
• learn strategic planning and dealing with resources in class and how to lead a teachers’ team
• will exchange good practices and discuss challenges with fellow colleagues and the course trainers.

Communication

Teachers will learn to:

• identify communicative problems at our own school
• practice positive communication with students and colleagues
• convert a negative, disruptive, un-effective communication in a virtuous circle of positive relationships

Methods and Tools

They get to know:

• modern methods, tools and strategies which support them in their daily work with students and colleagues.
• methods how to facilitate communication with students to be more explicit and to avoid challenges with students/parents.
• communicative strategies to smoothen the cooperation with other colleagues.
• methods how to lead a team of colleagues in an efficient way and to plan/lead a class in a well-organised way.

Development of Key Competences and Skills

Teachers acquire:

• language skills
• digital competence
• interpersonal, civic competences
• entrepreneurship
• pedagogical knowledge
• contextual, institutional, organizational aspects of educational policies
• group processes and dynamics, learning theories, motivation

Coordination and Managment of the Project

As the Erasmus+ project coordinating team (Mag. Bernd Fiechtl and Mag. Ilse Prenn) is well experienced in project work (also coordinating eTwinning, Erasmus+ KA1, KA2, eTwinning - for students and teachers - and other international projects) the coordinating team will assist in the organisation of the trips for the colleagues. The travel, accommodation and flights from Judenburg to the countries where seminars and workshops take place will be organised by the participants themselves with the support of the coordinating team.

All participants have their own insurance. If required, they can book a travel insurance. As the travels are planned to secure countries, no special safety or protection procedures are needed. Visas are neither needed. Participating teachers and AEs will be mentored and supported by the coordinating team in relation of being informed about the characteristics of this project and also any training course, travel and accommodation issues. Hosting partners will be either contacted by the participants themselves or the coordinating team.

All participating teachers and AEs will get an official introduction to the project in which requirements are explained by the project coordinators and the principle. Clear instructions, information and detailed documents will be provided on a project website. The coordinating team will also hand out a detailed check-list with tasks participating teachers have to sign and carry out in order to guarantee a successful project. In order to dissimminate project activities and useful material, participants will be required to write a project diary on a blog and upload all workshop material on an eTwinning platform, that is accessible for all other teachers of the BG/BRG Judenburg Also the EU platform www.schooleducationgateway.eu will be shown to the participants so they can get information about possible courses. A list of appropriate courses will be pre-selected by the principle and the E+ coordinating team and provided to participants of this project.

The coordinating team will select a couple of institutions from the www.schooleducationgateway.eu platform or from their own EU network in order to organise the job-shadowing. If work agreements and memoranda of understanding are needed for on job-shadowing, the coordinating team will take care of that. The organisation team will also provide a written guide about what participating teachers need to care about during the participation in the project. Also a step-bystep paper will be created by the organisation team so that participants know when to do what and which papers they have to fill out and hand in when.

Pre-filled forms required by the OEAD and the Styrian Education Authority in Graz will be stored and passed on to participating teachers. The project management team will also support participating teachers/AEs in filling in financial forms required by the OEAD and the Styrian education authority.