Spaces for collaboration
As this is a project that comprises teachers and students’ mobility we have to consider the following contexts for collaboration:
1. The project Twinspace
The participants used this virtual classroom to meet, collaborate and share the outcomes of their work. The Twinspace is organised in different pages that allow any visitor to track the development of the project, since the planning, implementation, results, dissemination activities and evaluation of the project and see its outcomes.
2- Transnational Project Meetings (TPM)
Three project meetings are included so as ensure the key conditions for collaboration which comprise setting tasks and responsibilities for interdependent work and integrating each partners’ ideas and needs to make a coherent whole are met.
The first Transnational Project Meeting held in the coordinating school in Satu Mare, Romania, was important to revise the planned activities and introduce necessary changes. In this stage, Portuguese partner introduces the project's Twinspace and organises its pages.
Another TPM is held in Germany in the beginning of year two so as to monitor the development of the project and the consecution of its objectives. These meetings are essential to ensure that the key elements to an effective partnership and successful collaboration are promoted. These key elements comprise the following:
- setting a proper task division
- enhancing equal participation
- sustaining mutual understanding
- managing complimentary interaction based on respect
- reaching consensus
- solving conflict constructively
- mutual encouragement
- providing feedback
As feedback is essential to monitor and assess the impact of the project on the participants’ learning motivation and on institutional change of teaching practices, information on the impact of the project was collected before each TPM and the information was summarized in a SWOT analysis.
Partner school in Kayseri, Turkey organises the final TPL as the close-out to give the project team the chance to review their work, assess the project and identify the lessons learned. This meeting includes activities such as collecting and analysing project documents, assessing the scope and the deliverables, analysing the project’s success and creating the final project report.
3- On-site school activities (Teachers meetings and Erasmus+ club)
Back to their schools each school coordinator presents publicly the project to their school community (staff, students and parents) and invites teachers and students to join Erasmus+ team. Teachers start preparing and developing game-based pedagogical activities to be implemented in different school subjects and start collecting traditional games to be presented during the exchanges by the participating pupils. so as to generate initial motivation and feed the partnership, intercultural interaction was promoted through a set of motivational strategies which comprise the adoption of the project logo and intercultural contact. At this stage, teachers and pupils are learning about eTwinning, the Twinspace and their partners. Participating students are invited to create logos for the project and to organise a pool to choose the school’s favourite. All schools chosen logos are then uploaded on the Twinspace for final pooling. After having been introduced to the projects objectives and expected outcomes, Pupils take part in pedagogical game-based activities and prepare presentations based on their research work to be shown during the Short-term exchanges. It is important to guarantee that interaction takes place for introductions and exchange of information about school, town and country before starting the joint activities by communicating via e-mail, Skype, Messenger, WhatsApp and Padlet Wall. Teachers must encourage their pupils to interact as regularly as possible with their partners, so as to allow them to develop attitudes of empathy and openness toward difference before they meet face-to-face during the Short-term exchanges.
4- The Short-term Exchanges of Groups of Pupils (SEGP)
In the third stage, pupils and teachers take part in short-term exchanges where they disseminate the traditional games through videos and live playing and teachers present games they have used to enhance learning in their lessons and share their lesson plans on the Twinspace. Each school organises activities, workshops and games to be played with students with special needs and multiple disabilities.
As an outcome of each SEGP, the host school produces an issue of HIH magazine to disseminate the activities and the outcomes of the project. The host school is also responsible for writing on the pages assigned to the host school in the project diary (a Log book that travels from school to school during the SEGPs) an account of the experience with the collaboration of the school director, teachers, pupils and parents. In addition to this, participating pupils write learning diaries and teachers write a report they share on the project’s Twinspace and publish on their school’s website to disseminate their intercultural experience.
Data is collected periodically, after each SEGP using a variety of processes (questionnaires, interviews, Swot analyses, etc.…) in order to promote reflection and monitor the learning impact the activities organised by each host school.