What is TiM21- Teachers in Movement towards 21st century teaching?
Sustainability mainly lies on three main pillars: economy, society and environment.
Most students are very bad consumers in terms of bad eating habits, spending money and time, wasting resources, energy and water, they do not recycle, they live in a virtual world…
But above all we understand that sustainability is not only about consuming but also about sustainable twenty-first century education.
According to the latest official data (Eurostat, December 2014), the results are disappointing, in terms of increasing unemployment rates. The facts have shown the following statistics:
The unemployment rate our countries are suffering in general: Hungary: 7,3%, France: 10,3%,Cyprus: 16,4% and Spain: 23,7%
And above all the high rates of youth unemployment: Hungary: 18,9%,France: 25,2%, Cyprus: 32,8%, Spain: 51,4%. We are also aware of the high rates of early school dropouts in our countries: Cyprus: 11,4%, Hungary: 11,5%, France: 12%, Spain: 21,6
Consequently, one of the objectives of our common proposal is that although sustainability is included in all the schools´curricula, it´s not clearly specified and our students/teachers are not really aware of it. We feel that we must shift from tradicional teaching by becoming more engaging teachers.
"TiM 21" is a project aimed at developing and disseminating new teaching methods, according to XXI Century education – by enhacing and integrating online technological resources in the classroom, which will be shared with all the teaching community through a common online platform (etwinning and moodle).
We intend to enrich students and staff with the opportunities to experience different approaches to sustainable development, within and together with our partner schools.
Our partnership will act as a platform for the exchange of innovative experiences in the field of sustainability in education. We aim to share good practice through observation, shared teaching methods and the examination of different pedagogical methods.
“TiM 21” intends to deal with various pedagogical methods and aspects related to sustainability, such as: providing more creative and engaging education and training programs, in line with individuals' needs and expectations; use of participatory approaches and greater effectiveness of activities for the benefit of local communities; new or improved practices to cater for the needs of all students and to deal with social, linguistic and cultural diversity; thus addressing stereotypes within our society today.
"TiM 21" will show that activities such as: social studies within our local communities, promoting further education, saving energies and promoting renewable energies, maintaining biodiversity and developing a conscience for embracing our own natural means are likely to have a positive impact on both the students and the teachers involved in.
Furthermore, our project will teach us how to enhance the students' key proficiencies in literacy, e-learning and entrepreneurship, and leadership skills.
"TiM 21" will increase opportunities for teachers´ professional development, especially within the field of differentiation in education.
All project members are committed to the aims and purpose of this partnership. We know the value of resources such as eTwinning and moodle.com, which will be used as our main communication platforms. This can act as a method of direct contact between the partners and allows a secure environment by which teachers can share good practice.
It is important to remain focused during this two year duration. Each partner member has responsibility for specific projects:
*Cyprus: Differentiation, Science Fair, solar energy
*France: Biodiversity, Organic farming, food waste reduction, compost and jewellery from reused material.
*Hungary: Re-use of materials, water energy, community work and Financial Literacy (a project which will familiarize students with the financial world: Through this project students and teachers will be able to learn about banking systems, the processes of starting a business, dealing with money (preparing and selling items) and how to write a proper business plan)
*Spain: Public speaking , IT, wind energy
Consequently, specialist staff and students will meet at least twice a year for short-term activites to work at our partner schools. The staff and students that will travel to each school will be selected through transparent criteria:
*Specialist teachers in renewable energy experiments and differentiation will travel to Cyprus
* IT teachers will travel to Spain
*Science and art teachers will travel to France, as well as artistic/creative students
*Teachers competent in English and students who need to improve their presentation, communications and leadership skills will travel to Spain for public speaking
*Language teachers will travel to other schools to work together and create resources
*Students studying maths, economics, business accounting, or designing/art and maths/art teachers will travel to Hungary for Financial Literacy .
*Kindergarden teachers will travel to/from Cyprus and Spain to learn from each other and create new resources for both schools
*Students who have an average level in the different languages will travel to the other schools for developing further their skills.
During these school meetings, students and staff will have the opportunity to experience workshops and various activities and competitions concerning each country's key area.
Project coordinators will meet once a year in the transnational project meetings to evaluate and reflect on the progress of our key areas and adjust where applicable. During each visit to partner schools a coordinators´ meeting will take place in order to evaluate and foresee any possible complications.
In order to ensure smooth running of communication between all partner schools several online meetings will be held via skype conference. The online communication will be done prior every transnational meeting.
In addition, we have already created a Facebook Group which allowed us to organise and plan for our Preparatory meeting in Paris which took place in February 2015, which we intend to continue in the future.
We also intend to continue the on-going common use of communication via the use of e-mails.
In regards to stakeholders such as the in school Erasmus + team will hold regular monthly meetings to focus on the upcoming projects, to delegate work, to raise awareness on subject specific projects, to share information, to contact possible experts outside the school and to strategically plan the schedule which will be displayed on the Erasmus + school boards.
Partner Schools
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Instituto Secular "Hijas de la Natividad de María" - CPR Nuestra Sra del Carmen
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