MAKING WAVES
Start date: Sep 20, 2014,
End date: Sep 19, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
What we seek to achieve through this project is mainly to support improvements in pedagogical approaches and school management. We want to work on the issue of staff development so to encourage teachers to enhance pedagogical skills and knowledge of subject matter together with their language skills. This would also mean providing occasions for teachers to reflect critically on their practice focussing on strategies for facilitating their growth through professional dialogue with colleagues, peer couching and action research thus improving their commitment to the profession.
We are eager to further the international dimension in school and welcome every opportunity to establish relations with European educational establishments; we wish to develop independent and inquisitive learners who are engaged in the process of learning and who use modern technologies to broaden their horizons and to become global 21st-century citizens; we are interested in teaching and learning strategies and willing to adopt methods that lead to optimum teaching and learning;
we wish to improve standards; we are eager to introduce all sort of strategies in order to fight failure at school and early drop-outs through a system granting social inclusion in a more and more complex multi-cultural context.
Planning "in-service training" activities is of crucial importance for our Institution because it should be seen as an opportunity to face and solve real problems, to plan more effective teaching and learning methodologies and, last but not least, to build a more effective and efficient professional activity.
A selection Committee, responsible for selecting the staff undergoing mobility activities (in-service training courses and job shadowing/teaching activities in partner schools) will be formed and appointed by the school Principal. It will define the selection procedure and the criteria according to which participants (about 30 teachers of different subjects, mostly scientific, who also need to improve their language skills) will be selected: motivation in improving their teaching competences whatever subject they teach, motivation in being part of a team responsible for disseminating the outcomes of the training activities, in helping others to acquire methods and tasks through giving feedback, counselling and shadow best practices are among the criteria to be chosen together with their background, know-how and expertise.
In order to disseminate the results and increase its visibility we will create CDRoms showing good practices and how they have been successfully imported in our Institution, providing feedback on their benefits through approaches to solve problems, studies, research and evaluation reports, newsletters, materials, events, websites, facts, figures and videos where effective teaching in real classroom contexts has been introduced and experienced as a good practice. One of our aims is spreading our experience and inspiring others to take on innovative European projects on common platforms such as eTwinning and the EU Dissemination Platform, creating spin-off effects involving local authorities and media, policy and decision-makers, Teachers' Boards, other schools, families, students and the community as a whole in "Open days" such as our "Settimana della cultura scientifica e tecnologica", webseminars, Intercultural workshops thus improving the reputation and recognition of our Institution. We would raise awareness and motivation among young learners and teaching communities increasing the sustainability of our results using the experience for new projects, for continued learning and for influencing Educational policy to benefit more people beyond the duration of the project and into the future.