Summary above

SLAM is an innovative project aimed at creating and developing devices, exchanging learning practices and materials in the STEM area by way of computational thinking, and highlighting the importance of synergy of all knowledge and skills needed for work in STEM to accomplish good results in that field.Four schools were involved in the project – Croatian, Cypriot, Greek, and Estonian. As the name of our project suggests (SLAM - STEM Learning Activities & Methodology), all partner schools created activities for each of the following: science, technology, engineering, and math. Science was assigned to the Croatian partner, technology to the Estonian partner, engineering to the Cypriot and math to the Greek partner. Each partner has the most experience in their chosen field, so their task was to support and train other partners although from the beginning, all partners had activities covering all the fields. The main participants of the project were students aged 13-15, and the total number of students of all four schools was approximately 250. Every school included a subset of its teachers (28 in total) and school staff, students’ parents, the local community, neighboring schools and scientists. All activities were based on defined project’s objectives: achieving higher levels of cognitive knowledge necessary for active work in STEM, improving basic competencies with emphasis on the STEM field, improving foreign language use, increasing students’ experience in areas needed for further education, raising motivation for the use of ICT in learning and teaching, introducing new teaching methods in daily work to other colleagues, expanding the range of extracurricular activities in schools and making them part of the schools' curriculum. Participants developed and promoted the acquisition of relevant and high-quality skills and competencies.Students' and teachers’ activities were organizing workshops, webinars, holding presentations and meetings, planning and participating in Science Days, visiting science festivals, setting up speeches by scientists, conducting experiments and field research, making scientific devices and tutorials. Students and teachers from Cyprus, Greece and Croatia took part in euroMath and euroScience 2019 as a team. By participating in the project, students developed a sense of accomplishment and success, used new methods of work, expanded their horizons, and gained new friends. Holding project activities increased their motivation for working in the STEM area because they were, through immediate practical work, able to directly see products of their labor. They also gained insight into novel ways of learning, resulting in their greater inclusion in newly formed extracurricular activities. They achieved better results in school because they used new learning methods and raised their cognitive knowledge to a higher level which was shown through the results of the final assessment. They developed basic competencies in STEM area which resulted in taking part in euroMath and euroScience and National biology competition, Math competitions, ICT Competitions, NASA Apps challenge . They also acquired various skills needed for practical work and improved the usage of English language through communication and presentation of their work in LTTA. Teachers increased the quality of their work by applying new methods which will also influence the education of future generations. Concrete results upon the completion of project are the developed STEM KITS - building sets for F1 car, a hologram, a seismograph and a power bank, the production of methodological brochures, tutorials to teach a wider public, a book of students' scientific reports, STEMopoly game.Methods used in the project were research, problem-solving, simulation, games, practical work, fieldwork and discussion for the purpose of gaining new knowledge. Through research, students reached high cognitive levels that will enable conceptual understanding of topics that need to be learned.An important method that students used is computational thinking, consisting of three parts: identifying the problem and its abstract formulations, dividing it into several steps - smaller problems and making a strategic way of solving them. This kind of work enabled students to see more clearly how machines and computers operate and to understand the language of computers better, which is a prerequisite for successful work with advanced technology and for achieving higher levels of cognitive knowledge needed for active work in STEM areas.Long-term benefits include the expansion of the schools’ curriculums with extracurricular activities: 3-D modeling club, Programming club, Lego Mindstorm club, Craftsmanship and invention club, Experiments club, Innovation Lab club, Robotics club, Science club. Teachers become more creative, flexible, open-minded. This reduced the number of reluctant teachers in schools. Schools became more modern, dynamic and cooperative.

Schools in this project notice that the intrinsic motivation of students for learning content is decreasing. As we are all schools who want to set pupils in the heart of education, we want to adjust the way of teaching in a way that learning becomes more natural.The main goal of this project is to increase inner motivation by using playful learning in the curriculum. Several ways of assessments will show that pupils’ motivation will increase and that more competencies will be reached that way. objectives for the schools* The schools want to create a play-based learning environment that strengthens the motivation of the pupils to learn.* The schools want to implement more elements of playful learning into the everyday lessons.* The schools want to think about new ways of organising groups that should facilitate cross-curricular plays in which pupils learn new competencies.* The schools want to assess pupils in a way they’ll see more skills and attitudes of pupils during the playful learning.objectives for the teachers* Teachers strengthen their didactic competencies to implement play into the curriculum to increase the motivation of the pupils and to strengthen their learning process.* Teachers want to have effective tools for learning by playing.* Teachers want to find ways to recognise the learning results of ‘learning-by-playing’ activities.* Teachers want to learn how to give ownership to pupils in their learning and evaluation.* Teachers want to learn how to achieve 21th century skills and digital skills by using playful learning.* To strengthen their understanding of natural learning and playful learning by investigate the subject and work on a new vision text to be used in each school. * To learn from each other's different approaches and implement good elements in their everyday work.* To integrate digital ways to make lessons more playful without falling into gaming.objectives for the students* To strengthen their (intrinsic) motivation by learning in a playful way.* To strengthen the involvement of pupils in their learning process. * To take responsibility and to experience ownership of their learning process.* To strengthen their competencies in the curriculum by using playful-learning.* To strengthen their skills to transfer competencies such as knowledge in new situations. Pupils aged 8-15 are involved in this project. Some of them will be in a steering group to help teachers develop approaches to playful learning. Pupils aged between 12 and 14 will be in the meetings abroad. This project will achieve objectives at the level of pupils, teachers and the whole school. By strengthening teaching skills to use playful learning, by writing a vision text, by trying-out four approaches of playful learning together with students, by listing good practices in every school and by learning from each other; schools will achieve a long term result.The vision text will be made during a joint staff meeting where teachers will learn different approaches. In this meeting ‘The Institute of Play’ in New York will be asked to give input. Also, some books and texts will be an issue (natural learning, OECD and teachers as designers of an educational environment, OECD).The vision text will be spread via the website and will be discussed in an eTwinning group. As the school policy in every school integrated playful learning, this will be an issue to work on next years.Playful learning in the school curriculum will make teaching 21-century proved, and friendly for those who are learning: children and youth.

The acronym of the project is TITLE - Teaching, Improving and Training Literacy Education. Since PISA research showed that the results of Croatian, Portuguese and Italian students are below average considering reading literacy, and Estonian students were 5th among tested countries, we decided to improve these skills among students. We were guided by the PISA definition of reading literacy as the ability needed to reach personal goals, develop the reader’s potential and knowledge and achieve active participation in society through understanding and evaluating texts while reading.The main objectives of the project are development and improvement of students’ reading literacy, improvement of students' linguistic literacy and popularization of reading various kinds of texts in printed and digital sources. On the project will be actively involved around 100 teachers and around 900 students from all partner schools. Most of the activities will be carried out by language teachers and librarians, but the project will involve all subjects in school so every teacher will be somewhat involved in the development of these basic skills. Students who will take part in this project are 11 to 15 years old. Parents will have the opportunity to take part in some of the activities of the project. Most activities will be common for all partner schools. One of them will be designing an area in the school called the Book Nook, where students will be able to read peacefully, spend time, where a book club will be run, and numerous activities with parents or younger students held. Book Nook will encourage other students to read and will be thematically decorated based on the books that students read. Each partner school has selected one writer and a piece of literature to be read by all students actively involved in the project. Students will also produce illustrated cards based on these books. This will foster their creativity, and book-related workshops will encourage the development and improvement of their reading literacy. Additionally, through numerous exercises held throughout regular school subjects and through extracurricular activities students will work on the development of reading literacy. From these exercises that teachers will use we will make a manual that will serve in the further work of all teachers. Three eTwinning projects will be launched before Short-term exchanges of groups of pupils.The methodology that will be used to carry out the project are active learning methods like creative writing, meditation methods (fantasy journey, imagination of texts), project learning, cross-curriculum methods (combining music with literacy), creative work, critical thinking, problem-solving, research games, collaborative learning, etc.By having an active role during this project, students will learn how to approach different types of texts and read them with comprehension. This will improve their general knowledge, understanding of context and grades. They will be able to recognize false or sensational news by researching authors and subjects on scientific databases. Students will be able to express themselves and their emotions through the written word with acquired linguistic literacy skills or through spoken word, thanks to their widened vocabulary. Students’ self-esteem will be improved, and they will have more general knowledge such as climate change. Improvement of linguistic literacy will be based on learning and applying rules of language expression, grammar and writing in their native and foreign languages. The popularization of reading of various kinds of texts in printed and digital sources will be achieved through meetings with authors, family nights at school, etc. Students' creativity in writing a graphic novel and creating illustrated cards will be this project's heritage. Potential long-term benefits for participating students are skills that they will gain or perfect by using them in all subjects and throughout education, but also in everyday life, as they will learn how to approach any type of text critically, and will have a broader knowledge of the culture and problems of the present. Partner schools will after this project have illustrated cards based on the books that students have read that can be used for a variety of purposes, from stimulating creativity and designing stories to workshops regarding social skills and emotions. Teachers will learn and develop methods of working with students and of adequately transferring the knowledge and skills needed for their entire education and life. In addition, we will publish and disseminate a collection of exercises for the development of reading literacy, decks of illustrated cards and tactile books to neighboring schools and educational institutions. Learned methods, acquired knowledge and produced materials will be beneficial for teachers working with students with fewer opportunities.

The five partner schools in project Square Eyed Students are very different, when it comes to size, cultural background, teaching methods and possibilities. We have one thing in common though, our teenagers share the same interest and addiction to digital devices. The fact, that they live the most of their awaken day online, brings advantages and disadvantages into their lives. From the beginning of our cooperation, we have been interested in creating a project, that gives our teenagers possibility to make friendships, and be together in real life. We decided to make activities where focus was on digital addiction and we made activities, that gave alternatives to digital life, such as art workshops, music and theatre workshops. One of the main objectives of the project Square Eyed Students was to make students reflect on their screen habits in order to avoid digital addiction. Another goal was to qualify the use of screens and digital devices, so students developed digital skills, that goes further than communication on social media. At our first transnational meeting, we discussed how to assure the quality of the program succesfully at every meeting, so the main objectives of our project were carried out every time we met. At every student meeting, we held workshops with a digital content. In Turkey, we prepared role-plays about digital addiction, that students presented to each other. In Croatia, students tried programming with micro-bits in Estonia they built their hometowns in Minecraft and in Hungary they tried to work with robotics. Between the meetings, we carried out activities, to make the student think about how they used their screens, Especially the activity, Screen-free day had a great impact on our students. The entire school didn't use screens at all, for an entire day. They had to involve their families at home and the other students at school. It was very interesting to hear the comments from the students at morning assembly the next day. The directly involved students interviewed their classmates and shared their English evaluation and reflections with their international friends, through videos. In the evaluations after our first student meeting in Turkey, we realized, that students tended to work in groups with students of own nationality. We have always agreed, that a main focus should be on the development of English language and the cultural awareness of other cultures. This is the reason why, we decided, that students should live with private host families during the mobilities. This has involved the families much more and even parents have developed their language, because the wanted to be kind and welcoming host families. From our second student meeting, we have always made mixed groups of students as well as we begun every day with icebreakers lead by different partners. This turned out to be really good for the students, who got to know each other much more. We have seen, that they continue the communication up to, during- and after a mobility. Their English language, written as well as oral, has improved a lot. It has been different, from country to country, how we have chosen the participating students. At our first Transnational meeting, we discussed the procedure, and agreed, that students should write motivated applications. We also agreed, that it could be possible, to ask a student to go, if we as teachers/ coordinators could see, that this student really needed this project because of bad screen habits and the consequences of that. We have successfully led several of these kinds of students through this project. Students who uses too much time at home, sitting alone in front of the computer, having obesity, suffering from loneliness or having other social problems. The coordinators have participated in every mobility, but different teachers from our schools have been represented. They have been asked to join the project for professional development, and because they had skills that was required at the student meeting they participated in. The Danish Headmistress wrote the lyrics to our project song, so when it was rehearsed and performed in Estonia, a Danish music teacher joined the mobility and led the song workshop. In Estonia, the stencil art workshop was led by the art teacher and a professional artist. We have always done our best to have a high professional level, where everyone does his best, to make the project great.