Global programme: Erasmus+
Specific programme: Cooperation partnerships in school education
Call: Call 2023
Project number: 2023-1-IT02-KA220-SCH-000151634
Duration: 24 Months (12/31/2023 - 12/30/2025)
UNINETTUNO Scientific Leader: Anna Villari
UNINETTUNO Project Manager: Ilaria Dibosco
Website: https://inter-education.com/
Summary
InterEd seeks to integrate a pedagogical methodology for secondary education, utilizing interdisciplinarity and PhenoBL, to help students acquire deep learning on relevant topics and develop transversal skills. Concurrently, secondary teachers will be enriched with ready-to-use resources for interdisciplinary teaching in their History, STEAM, Culture & Economics classes.
The project develops a Virtual Learning Lab on an educational framework of values & attitudes such as Sustainable Development, Well-being in Life, and Democracy, Diversity & Inclusion to train teachers on interdisciplinary methods; complemented by Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Micro-Units, inciting students to study, question, and analyze real-world phenomena to gain a deeper understanding of the interconnections across disciplines and in their everyday lives.
Description
The complex and interconnected global challenges of our world (climate change, declining mental health, threats to democracy, etc.), require citizens equipped with interdisciplinary knowledge, skills, understanding, and necessary moral outlook (Koritzinsky 2021), based on core values of sustainability, democracy, inclusion and wellbeing in life, to face these challenges and maintain societies’ social cohesion.
Moreover, technological developments pose critical questions to the current structuring of education systems worldwide as they have proven insufficient in equipping youngsters with 21st-century skills. Transversal competencies like critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration, promoted in various educational frameworks are closely linked to interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and Phenomenon- based Learning.
Accordingly, InterEd aims to replace the current obsolete teaching methods used in secondary education, i.e. monodisciplinary and fragmented knowledge and textbook-based delivery of information as key resources. This will be achieved through the structuring of a Virtual Learning Lab (WP3) based on core EU priorities (i.e., Sustainable Development, Wellbeing in Life and Democracy, Citizenship & Inclusion) upon which the tools and resources for the WP4 Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Micro-Units will be developed. The units will assist secondary teachers to deliver lessons that better represent our realities while also providing students active learning experiences (inquiry process), encountering & analyzing elements of their daily lives through the incorporation of technology, both hardware and software. The issues addressed by InterEd are applicable to almost the entirety of European states as there is a need for education to become more relevant to the real world.
Objectives
InterEd aims to enhance secondary teachers’ capacities in History, STEAM, Languages & Culture, and Economics, by incorporating interdisciplinarity and PhenoBL in their lessons whilst promoting an educational framework of values and attitudes. InterEd also seeks to offer students an integrative educational experience that is reflective of real-world phenomena and leads to deep learning and the development of context-independent transversal competencies (i.e., collaboration, critical thinking, creative problem solving). To do this, all WPs promote secondary teachers & students’ (13-15 y/o) involvement in all project phases. Given the EU’s priorities on promoting common EU values (OECD’s Learning Compass 2030) and its efforts to flight climate change (EU Green Deal); InterEd's General Objective is to integrate a pedagogical methodology for secondary education, utilizing interdisciplinarity and PhenoBL, to help students acquire deep learning on relevant topics and develop transversal skills. InterEd sets out to achieve Specific Objectives related to each WP to ensure that all project results follow EU priorities.
- SO1 aims to raise teachers' awareness of interdisciplinarity’s ability to cultivate a multi-faceted and critical understanding of topics (R2.3/7),
- SO2 sets out to provide an understanding of PhenoBL for students' deep learning (R2.37).
- SO3 seeks to compile EU best practices from practicing countries in relation to the real-life application of Interdisciplinarity and PhenoBL in secondary classes or other formal school contexts (R2.2).
- SO4: Equip EU sec teachers with knowledge on interdisciplinarity in secondary education and PhenoBL in subjects like History, STEAM, Languages, Culture, and Economics (R2.7)
UNINETTUNO Role
UNINETTUNO (project leader) will offer their expertise on developing pedagogical material for STEAM & interdisciplinary learning, leading the theoretical design & development of the VLL. UNINETTUNO translates the VLL’s content, learning nuggets, and quizzes and participates in local training activities with teachers, to test the VLL. Moreover, UNINETTUNO will update the VLL and create its final version, based on pilot feedback, and will translate the lesson plans and material into Italian.