Description

Summary

The project “Open Doors for Non-Formal” is proposed by Ghindeni School, located in a rural area, without a consistent support of the local administration, with single-parent families or parents working abroad, children being left in the care of their relatives, which leads to a poor motivation for school activities.
The objectives we focus on in this partnership are: the orientation of learning towards the European systems, the involvement of the local community in the educational activities, in order to motivate students and provide them with the necessary competences for further learning.

The project will aim to increase learning motivation, basic skills and transverse (digital multilingualism), development, testing and implementation of innovative teaching methods, student-centred, based on the 8 Multiple Intelligences, non-formal learning and activities both outdoor and indoor.
Project partners represent schools and adult training institutions with a different cultural, social and economic background. Project partners have different ways to respond to challenges and have different experiences and points of view. By working together as partners we can explore the differences, identify similarities and move towards common “European” solutions with local variations.
The participants in this project are staff and students from the partner schools, staff of Quarter Mediation, experienced in teacher trainings in learning motivation issues and staff from CJRAE DOLJ, experienced in counselling activities for students, teachers and parents.
The groups from each school are heterogeneous, following that the teaching staff at all levels of school education, also the teaching aids, to be in contact with the European educational system, to benefit from examples of good practice, to share experience, to establish cooperative relationships with foreign partners.
The students involved in project activities will be chosen especially from the disadvantaged groups-poor families, emigrants, children with special educational needs- considering they could have more benefits from the partnership results, by learning to learn in a different, incentive way, in different learning environments.
The work methods used during the partnership will be active-participatory and non-formal, group centred, set on a cross curricular approach of learning, stimulating communication and reflection, use of cultural and historical heritage, ICT and mobile technologies, outdoor education, learning by doing, hands-on. This practice process will motivate and stimulate all categories of participants, will encourage teamwork, offering the feeling of safety. Thus we achieve a more efficient communication and cooperation between the students and all the factors involved in education. Through the network and during the workshops and meetings, participants will have the opportunity to learn about each other and exchange experiences and ideas in order to make project work more innovative and more interesting.
Project meetings will enable pupils, teachers and trainers to discover the partners’ working context. Furthermore, it will help to learn and appreciate partners’ lifestyles and stimulate an open and tolerant attitude and understanding of the partners’ culture, their social and economic situation and living conditions. Common project activities will contribute to a positive reflection both on one’s own and partners’ position within Europe, and will strengthen the “European identity”.
The project results will materialize in a guide, „How to use non-formal methods in the formal education”, containing good practice examples, feed-back of the participants in trainings, advices of trainers from Quarter Mediation and of teachers who organized multicultural courses, about using of non-formal teaching methods in formal education; a trans curricular optional course based on outdoor learning and using mobile technology; workshops. Other results are: learnt knowledge and experience transferred to colleagues and students; increased professional skills; enrichment of intercultural awareness; improvement of staff and students’ language skills and the European dimension of school activities.
By implementing and promoting in our schools of innovative teaching methods, we will open new horizons of knowledge for students, therefore extending the educational act beyond the classroom , we’ll develop creativity, initiative, active participation, disciplinary learning, awareness of European citizenship.The acknowledgment of the results will increase the motivation of all those involved in education process in partner institutions.
We will be part of an intercultural group, promoting exchanges of experience and transfer of good practices at European level. With the project results freely available on the project website in English, also in participants’ native languages, project results will be exploitable in all European countries.

Ghindeni School is located in a rural area, with a high rate of unemployed people. Many of our students’ parents, with material problems, don’t encourage them in learning and extracurricular activities; some of them go abroad, leaving their children in the care of relatives, which affects their behavior.
We face a low motivation of children for their activities, so our school requires an active and reflective approach of teaching. Motivation is one of the most important conditions for learning, that can confer attractiveness, quality, performance and satisfaction.

The partner organisations in this project also face this problem, either because of areas with families with low social background, either because of a multicultural environment (ex: emigrants, minorities etc.). The Dutch adult education provider partner in the project works with teachers, headteachers and decision makers in the field of education; therefore, depending on the needs of the participants in the training Quarter Mediation organizes at European level, it applies methods and approaches aimed to find solutions for all sorts of problems, including unemployment, interculturality and discrimination.

By this partnership we try to be closer to the needs of children, and to be able to increase the level of motivation and self-confidence of our students. Additionally, we have in mind the teachers, which motivation is getting lower and lower in the last years because they are not all the time aware that it is not a recipe for a good teaching method, but the teaching and learning methods must adapt all the time to the target group, specific environment, local situation etc.

We want our teachers and students to communicate with colleagues from European countries, so they will all be able to acquaint themselves with different cultures and life styles and to better understand that even we come from different systems of education, we have all as the main aim to educate people (pupils, students, adults). This communication will be a real support for fighting against xenophobia, racism and social exclusion. Furthermore, it will help them to accept the existence of European Union as a mean of bringing humans and cultures together and not only for the achievement of financial profit.
Once students get to know each other, they will willingly collaborate, by direct interaction, but online too, through different sites and platforms, so they will enrich knowledge and skills and jointly produce materials. Furthermore, we believe that new ways will be found in order to solve usual problems, new subjects, topics will be added and new parameters will be taken into account, since each country is characterized by its particular features.
Through the partnership we follow:
-The organizational capacity development in the context of European and international cooperation
-Developing the European dimension of schools and a new vision of long life learning by using non-formal methods in the educational act
-Discovering new pedagogical approaches and appropriate measures for disadvantaged children that facilitate the feeling of safety inside the group, so they could realize their educational potential
-Elaboration and including in the school curricula of individualized plans according to students’ multiple intelligences using formal, non-formal and informal methods
This project meets our needs to be closer to the European learning directions and through it we will be able:
-To increase students’ motivation, by implementing attractive formulas, teaching methods and unconventional training ways in the European Union
-To enhance and enrich our training methodology by sharing the best practice from each partner country
-To motivate towards the learning of other language through carrying out and displaying of a common project
-To foster the use of ICT, both individually and in the classroom through its use as the main communication system in the development of the project
-To improve the self-esteem of the teachers and to encourage them to learn, to use multidisciplinary approaches, to share knowledge, experience and become multipliers of common European visions in their educational organizations
-To benefit from examples of good practice that can lead to higher quality education, and of the European values in the school’s activities
-To improve participants’ intercultural knowledge and English language skills, during the project meetings
-To produce a tried and tested bank of resources which based on Conventional and Unconventional Training Forms which it is to be used not only by all participant organizations but also by the wider community through the WEB of the project.
We aim at solving problems by dealing with several topics, so that students can acquire a “total” way of considering the problems of their age that are particularly complicated. We believe that this project can give students the “picture” of the modern European Citizen.