On The Shoulders Of Giants

The high numbers of early school leaving make essential a reflection on how educational systems can help in this situation. Reasons are varied: contents learned at school seem very far from student’s interests; they don’t feel protagonists of their own learning, and sometimes learning it’s not mediated by emotion.

The project’s main objective is tackling early school leaving using innovative methodologies and tools so that students will find a closer and more motivating space. 

This project aims to increase student’s motivation by taking advantage on their interests. Students are keen on new technologies and they offer a valuable tool if properly used. Drawing connections to their real lives and using active methodologies can favor a deeper understanding and help getting students more emotionally involved. Students get implicated in their learning process by being responsible for creating quality contents built “on the shoulders” of all previous development, using critical thinking, and team working with transnational partners. They will feel more involved by sharing openly their learnings through the tools they use for communication so that others can learn as well. Project objectives are linked to the Horizon Europe program.

The project involves 5 partners (Italy, Greece, Poland, Sweden and Spain), secondary schools that face similar difficulties when it comes to making students feel motivated by learning. Sweden is a novel partner in this kind of projects, which brings enrichment and a fresh view.  Sadly, the Swedish partner had to abandon the project at the end of the first year.  Cultural differences between them make possible understanding the pros and cons of learning and spreading knowledge at each place. Project involves students at the age of 15-17 years old. Participation of students with educational and economic difficulties and social obstacles in the meetings will be encouraged. Activities will be scaffolded to allow all students to participate.

Each meeting will study a general topic (Light, Water, Image, Air, Enviroment) and it will be analyzed from different perspectives (science, art, history, literature, ICT...). Before each meeting, the hosting partner send some preliminary activities so that students get familiar with the topic. This work will be done with all students, whether they travel or not, so that it becomes part of the curriculum of the subjects. In each of the fifth meetings there will be 6 students of each country, working in international teams, favoring communication and common learning. There will be four activities, the first three will address the topic from different perspectives. In the fourth one, students will reach conclusions and create materials a as a synthesis of the work done, for spreading knowledge, taking into account the different learning needs. 

A local research center will be visited, knowing their work and disseminate it. During the proposed activities different methodologies will be carried out: active methodologies and peer learning, PBL methodology (activities focus around a theme from different approaches), inquiry based learning (emphasizing the student's role in the learning process., encouraging them to explore, ask questions, and share ideas) and CLIL methodology (activities involve the development of students' language skills).

We expect students will increase their motivation decreasing the early school leaving rate. Also will increase their communication, collaboration and soft skills, meaningful learning, awareness of the need to work with reliable sources and openly sharing... Teachers will benefit through exchanging teaching methods that are highly cooperative. This expands teachers' practice and increases teaching effectiveness. By opening the range of methodologies, levels and times, learning can become much more personalized, enabling students with learning difficulties to find a way forward.

Participants will improve their European culture knowledge, promoting personal growth and development. The difficulties of the knowledge transmission will be analysed. Being aware of this, will let them to acquire the learning to learn competence.

Schools are expected to understand, study and assimilate the new communication paths opened by new technologies to transmit knowledge.

The execution and subsequent analysis of these activities will bring knowledge closer to students and their daily lives. Digital magazines, a web and a TwinSpace will be created, showing the results obtained by students that will be shared with an open access license. Materials will also be shared using the project's social networks. Any interested school will be able to apply the project methodology and make use of these results.

In the long term, the results of this project will be considered for a methodological improvement in the school curriculum. It will also serve as an attempt to improve response when facing extraordinary situations, such as those recently experienced, for learning using new technologies, so that it is inclusive of all students.