COMMON NEEDS OF THE PARTNER SCHOOLS

The schools of the project have identified, at both local and national level, the following common needs:

• Improve student’s interest, participation and motivation in order to reduce and prevent dropouts. All the participating schools share the problem of drop-outs. Sharing new teaching methodologies and exploring different approaches to introduce some subjects would increase the students’ motivation.  The way in which we are focusing our project is the introduction of LEGO robotics in our subjects by adopting different and innovative methodologies.

• Innovate curriculum by teaching and learning Math, Science and Technology to enhance the interest and the competence on the modern Sciences. In some European countries the use of LEGO robotics is suggested also to attract female students to computer Science, and generally in the Modern Science.

• Reduce the social isolation of some students and create a safe, collaborative and supporting climate in class, specially implementing collaborative learning and peer teaching methodologies.

• Encourage the European objective which is to collaborate between schools offering teachers and students the possibility to interact directly with the partner schools. This is a significant incentive that would improve student’s interest and motivation to learn English, the most international and diffused foreign language in the world. Therefore we aim to work together with the students to identify the most appropriate strategies and methodologies that may increase their abilities to be successful learners. Through their active participation in every stage of this project, they can contribute effectively and become more confident individuals.

STRATEGIES

The main strategies to achieve the previously mentioned objectives are:

• The analysis, collaboration and sharing of the best practices of teaching methodologies are based on a constructive approach such as group work, peer-teaching, problem-based and active learning.
• The introduction of the theme of robotics in a multidisciplinary scenario in subjects such as Maths, Science, Technology and Programming.
• The use of the challenge concept to improve student’s participation.

PLAN

In order to achieve the best results, we carried out the following actions:

• Start with a general training session phase for the teachers from every school. This session covers not only the technological issues but also the methodology and plan of the class activities.
• Based on the plan decided in the training session, we introduce LEGO robotics in each school in different subjects and specific methodologies.
• Finish with a final phase of international challenges where teams from different countries have to compete with each other in various scenarios.