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I-TEAM Innovative Teachers European approach throu..
I-TEAM Innovative Teachers European approach through Mobilities
Start date: Jun 1, 2015,
End date: May 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
Where do we start:
The territory. Our technical institute is located in the economic centre of the food valley (Parma), an area with obvious ties to industries with a high rate of export of local products; the school offers courses in foreign trade and, from next school year, we will also start a tourism course: it is therefore evident the need to combine skills and language skills.
Resources. While our school has been extensively modernized in recent years in terms of new technologies and has invested a lot on the language skills of teachers, however, this has not had the impact hoped for.
The people. The teaching staff is average uniform for training, but most of it has , even for personal characters , a strong resistance to change and experiment with new technological and cross-cutting approaches . One of the biggest problems is the lack of ability to work in teams, to plan together , to share and to document . The risk is the rigidity and segmentation of the proposed teaching and self-reference. The need for a comparison is urgent for us both within our own staff, at a broader level , in a European dimension . The problem becomes even more evident when considering the users : a medium-low profile , with diffuse difficult family and staff situations, with widespread cases of drop out or at least distrust and sense of failure.
We need to respond to the challenges of the working world and to human needs and professional qualifications of our students, re-motivating teachers and students , reassembling a framework where education offers, in a flexible way, alive content, centering on the student and not the teacher , at the opening with the work and Europe .
How to respond to this need. To change the approach and provide new skills to the students, we must first of all that the teachers will experience collaborative and participatory ways, where they themselves acquire skills more expendable in the professional reality, and they do so in innovative and stimulating settings, through transverse fields.
The planned activities . The first step (2014/2015) foresees participation in of a group of teachers of different subjects in a course of business English in England with the aim of achieving : new content, testing teamwork methodologies between teachers , sharing and adaptation materials acquired in the class councils , both to deepen individual subject content for the realization of CLIL modules .
Another group of teachers will participate in training courses that focus on creativity and interdisciplinarity , particularly teachers of Italian , foreign language and mathematics. Once back, short eTwinning projects , to increase the relapse in the classroom, to practice language skills and not only acquired and to maintain contacts with other institutions that are recognized are foreseen, also in view of the second step . Second step: the job-shadowing : in this phase will be even stronger the comparison with methods and systems of teaching, it is the ideal gym to stimulate the use of foreign languages , team working and to live a real European dimension . The host institutions were selected on the basis of relationships established in previous years with other teachers in the school's eTwinning network , and between old and new partners in the Comenius projects.
Expected results. Based on these two steps of European mobility and a range of accompanying preparation activities described in detail in the project , you expect a relapse on their weaknesses and needs described above. That is: for teachers, a greater interest in group activities, for interdisciplinary activities for the European dimension , also more competent in their discipline in foreign languages and in the use of ICT useful for teaching ; for school , it is definitely advantageous to establish stable relationships with other European schools . From the best skills in teaching by teachers , flows a better preparation of students , who should : acquire more interest in European languages , not just school subjects but also as a means of qualifying work , be more involved in innovative and stimulating activities, develop transverse and social skills deriving both from the relationship with the foreign teachers hosted by the institute and by the increase in group activities.
In the long term , we expect a substantial change in the "climate" of the school , and reducing frustration for both groups involved in the educational process. Through a new and exciting vision of the European Union, new forms of cooperation with partner countries will be foreseen , which contribute in maintaining the high level of teaching and skills of our students when they finish school.