Future Skills 21 - first Newsletter

First edition

Future

Skills 21

Newsletter

w w w. f u t u r e s k i l l s 2 1 . e u

The acquisition of 21st-century skills through effective, innovative teaching and assessment

We l c o m e

By: Leppävaara Upper Secondary school

What we do Ten partners are working on the development of a teaching material and assessment toolbox for 21st-century teaching. This is a KA2 project of the March 2018 Erasmus+ call.

How we do it

10 Partners exchange good practices. We meet twice per year and work online in between. We use our horizontal management system with shared responsibility.

Why we do it

Youngsters deserve to be motivated by being taught with 21st-century tools. We teach them to prepare them for the future, not the past.

FUTURE SKILLS. This project had a kick-off start in October, 2018 in Holland and Belgium. The project will last for three years and includes trips to Luxemburg, Germany and Belgium. The concentration of the project lies in the 21st century skills. We will try to create a digital evaluation toolbox for the teachers to use in their teaching and concentrate on improving the social and personal skills of the students as well.

Different digital tools will be implemented and developed during this project.

Our school is part of a rather big European group of teachers and students from 9 different countries: Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein,Holland, France (Réunion), Norway, Spain and of course, Finland. During this project the teachers will have an excellent chance to expand their teaching skills and the students will have an opportunity to get to know other cultures and improve their language skills. Moreover, good educational practices will be exchanged.

Our first meeting held in Holland (Tilburg) and Belgium (Leuven) was a starting point for the project. The coordinators from all the participating countries laid the foundation for the project.

We got a chance to participate in different activities on good educational practices such as a presentation of “deep learning”, AIM approach to language teaching, a future classroom in Brussels etc.

The teachers had a chance to visit two of the participating schools (Miniemeninstituut in Belgium and The Nieuwste School in Holland) and got acquainted with their way of teaching. Of course, the teachers had a chance to get to know both Tilburg (Holland) and Leuven (Belgium).

The aim of this project is mainly the educational exchange between the teachers from different European countries and schools and the development of good practices in evaluation and the 21st century skills. We are sure that the project will be a success.

Content Objectives............................................................................. 2 Future Classroom................................................................. 2 A new project Erasmus+....................................................... 4 project number 2018-1-BE02-KA201-0469114 Deep learning.......................................................................

Simulise. . .............................................................................. 6 To read & To do..................................................................... 6

Our Objectives

By Nieuwste School Tilburg Our Objectives

​ ur project aims at introducing a new pedagogy for O 21st-century skills education where we start from the individuality and strengths of every pupil by exchanging good practices on innovative teaching methods and formative learning and assessment. We want to investigate the other ways to assess (focus on the current situation), which evaluation methods are wished for and applicable at our schools (focus on the effect they have on pupils and how they can be implemented by teachers) and how eventually they can be gradually introduced and put into practice. We want to move from teacher control towards learner autonomy, from content mastery to learning mastery, from content delivery to making the learning process visible, from content consumption to pupils being able to use their competences in the real world.

This project targets:

1. pupils in all levels of secondary education and even beyond (e.g. the German partner which also has older vocational students) in the ages 11- 21 to offer them more opportunities on the labour market and in their future lives by teaching them 21st-century skills through innovative learning, teaching and formative competence-based assessment.

2. teaching staff and school management by offering a wide network of educational and assessment systems in which a 21st-century exchange of good practices is possible.

3. policy makers on both educational and political levels by presenting them outcomes for the organisation and assessment in 21st-century education.

Summarized, we aim for: 4. Self-directed learning (to develop 21st-century skills): students need to have ownership of their own learning process.

5. Innovative methods for self-directed learning and for developing 21st-century skills: e.g. educational and gamification tools, etc.

6. Formative assessment methods (e.g. competence evaluation software) to assess the acquisition of 21st-century skills.

Future Classroom

By Miniemeninstituut

The Future Classroom Lab (= FCL) is sels, which challenges visitors/teache and design in their classrooms, creat

The European Schoolnet exists of 34 op visions for the school/class of the f ise these. For example: the change of design and the learning environment

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Reported by 6 IPM In the Future Classroom Lab, there are six learning zones and through these zones, visitors can explore the essential skills for 21st-century learning.

The six learning zones are: interact, present, investigate, develop, create and exchange.

The zones reflect what good teaching should be about: being connected, being challenged and being involved. Education should result in a unique learning experience, engaging as many types of students as possible.

The classroom had instead of normal chairs, special chairs with special tables. They also had Fatboys in a cosy corner, where you could work in a relaxed way. There are also reward spaces in the room. When you do something good, you get a reward.

The other special devices they had were: a microphone in the ceiling, a box to charge tablets (so you can move them to another room and they are already charged), a video conferencing system and also a little device that you have to plug into your pc or tablet and by this way you can show a reaction, for example: a smiley or a “a”, “b”, “c”, “d”…

s an inspirational learning environment in Brusers to rethink the role of pedagogy, technology ed by the European Schoolnet.

They also had some tools (apps) like: Quizizz, IteLab, ZeroNoise Classroom… ZeroNoise Classroom is for example an app that you can use in your classroom and with this you can see how much noise there is in your class.

When there is too much noise an alarm will go off.

ministries of Education and together they develfuture and they make strategies on how to realf the learning styles, the learning environment t itself…

We think that the Future Classroom Lab is the perfect way to learn teachers to rethink their common way of teaching! It was a fun and interactive workshop! A great day!

A NEW PROJECT ERASMUS+ K2

By: IES ALTO PALANCIA

A delegation of two teachers of the IES Alto Palancia, Segorbe, has participated in the initial meeting of their new project “Future Skills”;.

This new project is part of the Erasmus + KA2 modality of strategic associations. This project starts in this school year, 2018, and will last for three years, until 2021. The objective of this project is the development of a digital evaluation tool box that can evaluate the skills of the 21st century, among which are the competences related to linguistic communication, mathematics, science and technology or the digital world, social-civic capacities of the students, sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit, and learn to learn. In short, all those skills that allo students to reach their full personal, their personal, social and professional development. On the other hand, new educational methodologies and digital tools will also be implemented.

The IES Alto Palancia, which is currently implementing a multilingual program, is committed to the internationalization and European dimension of our students. Also, this project aims to improve the continuous training of our teachers through exchanges of training and teaching and observation of good educational practices.

The first meeting was held in Tilburg (Netherlands) and Louvain (Belgium) in the week of 5-9 November. In this meeting, the coordinators of the different European countries have laid the foundations for this cooperation project between European countries, in all its aspects: strategic, finances, mobilities, etc.

European teachers have attended various activities on good educational practices: presentation about deep learning, learning cycle, learning zones, AIM, approach to language teaching, etc.

Teachers visited the schools in Belgium, Miniemeninstituut, and the Netherlands, The Nieuwste School. These secundary Schools explained to us how they work in the classroom.

The coordinators have also participated in other activities, such as a tour in Leuven and Brussels. The main objective of this meeting is the educational exchange between teachers from different European countries, in this case especially evaluation tools. This experience has been very enriching and we are sure that this Erasmus+ K2 project, like our previous project, “Strip to Identity”, will be a success.

Deep learning

By Miniemeninstituut

Deep learning is a method that combines different strategies the students can use in order to learn more and enjoy learning, as well as letting them choose the strategy they prefer and feel more comfortable with.

Some of these strategies include: ° Relating and Structuring: consists of relating what you are learning in one subject to what you already learned in order to make a paradox and make the process of learning easier.

Ex: In our oppression project we combine what we learn in English, French, German, Dutch, history and informatics to finish the final product. ° Critical Processing: consists of making the students create their own point of view and opinion about what is learnt in class by thinking of what the teacher taught them. ° Concrete Processing: applying what you learn at school into your life outside school, the students know that what they are learning has a real application for their future, making them feel more motivated and involved in the learning process.

The opposite of Deep Learning is Surface Learning which is the common method used by most of the schools and that use strategies such as: ° Memorizing and Repeating: memorize the whole content you need for the test and probably forget it right after the test because you won’t need it for a couple of months.

A good example of an initiative in deep learning is the creation of entrepreneurship where students put in practice what they learnt in the classroom by working on a real product So, what can schools do to enhance Deep Learning?

° Analyzing: analyze what the teacher or book says and follow it step by step without your own input and without any further thinking.

° Make the students be actively engaged in lessons by letting them choose what they want to do:

These two strategies lead to a short memory of the content studied and make it way more superficial for the students, who will not think about what they are learning. This method doesn’t require a critical point of view of the student and usually makes them feel less motivated and enthusiastic during school.

° promote research during the lessons;

In a research made with a Deep Learning school and other normal schools it is visible that the students who are deep learning feel way more motivated and self-confident while the ones from the classic method schools seem less motivated and self-confident, they show necessities like a good relationship with the teacher or a practical point of view towards the subject to feel motivated.

° make the atmosphere of the school house-like; ° make the students voices be heard.

By way of conclusion, Deep Learning creates a better environment for the students to study in, making them feel more motivated and happier with school.

It is a deeper method of learning because it makes peoples think and more active and interested when learning.

It treats the students like people in every day life and encourages them to remember their lessons for the rest of their lives and applying this outside school.

Simulise

By Miniemeninstituut

Simulise is a lifelong platform that’s used to Simulise is a lifelong platform used to show your skills. Some of them developed in a formal education like school, universities etc. and other skills in a total different way for example: Traineeships and involvement in all kinds of external activities like sport, youth movement etc.

So the portfolio is built up with a wide range of learning activities giving a full picture of one’s skills and knowledge not only what you learned at school.

The students can control the privacy settings and what they put in the portfolio for example which picture they use,… It was also invented by students from “De Haagse Hogeschool”. 5 Years ago 2 students thought: “We’re going to take things into our own hands and make our own evaluation platform.

Teachers can also contribute to the portfolio by putting assignments in Simulise. When the students complete the assignment they can give feedback on the task themselves.

Then they evaluate themselves with rubrics and then the teacher evaluates the students with the same rubrics, so they both evaluate the same things. Every school emphasises on different skills they want to evaluate so everyone has to make their own set of,skills and rubrics.

To d o & To r e a d Dear colleagues Some of you have already started filling in the form “Good Assessment Practices“, developed by our ECSWE partners in Brussels. Our Steiner-Waldorf colleagues allowed us to have KULeuven professor, linguist and teacher trainer Kris Van den Branden to have a look at it and make a few recommendations.We finally managed to update the form and make the Good Assessment Practice Template available for download on our website. As it is on the password protected part of the website, you’ll need the password fs21 to enter.

We would like to know what and how you and your colleague assess, which change or improvement you aim for among your pupils, how you document your assessment practice, who is involved, whether any other teachers use the assessment, which pedagogical principles underpin this method etc. We recommend filling in the form together with a colleague, by interviewing him/her. The template aims at collecting information about assessment practices in the first place but also to prompt you and your colleagues to share, discuss and finetune your evaluation methods.

In the same document folder, we I will upload examples made ourselves. They may help you to get inspired. Please complete as many forms as possible and upload them into the Google drive template folder. Please do this by 15 June 2019. We need the time to process all the information to plan the programming work to start building the online application after the summer holidays.

Any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact us! Dirk & Diederik

Text by: Finland, Netherlands, Spain and Belgium - Photographs: Rupert Kraushofer- Lay-out: Miniemeninstituut