Na(e)tGEO / Erasmus + Project

The Na(e)tGEO project was implemented by

EB1/PE dos Ilhéus – primary school located in Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal – project coordinator

Edelényi Nyitott Ajtó Baptista Oktatási Tagintézmény – a primary and vocational school located in Edeleny, Hungary - project beneficiary

I. C. DON MILANI – a primary school form Lanciano, Italy – project beneficiary

Szkoła Podstawowa im. W. Pola w Stawiszynie – a primary school from Stawiszyn, Poland– project beneficiary

About the project

The main goals of project:

- to support individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competences
- to promote a comprehensive approach to language teaching and learning
- to open education and innovative practices in a digital era

The Na(e)tGEO project was the answer to the call heard in almost all schools, and therefore it was written to look for solutions which would help the teachers, educators, all school communities in problems they are facing. It is important to add that the project was written in 2019, which was a time when schools worked without any restrictions or limitations.

Today, looking back at the times of lockdown, one can notice the project and its assumptions also fitted into the pandemic school times. Enough to be said it was the period when many ideas, methods, programs, online teaching applications, cloud computing, instant sharing evoked and right now are deeply established in today`s teaching approaches. It was also a period that had negative consequences, as the isolation itself opened doors to many mental issues, lack of self-confidence, breakdowns, or dangerous online behavior.

The first meeting /Kick-off , Edeleny 2019

Teachers in this project had many chances to discuss and share experience internationally, give examples of good practices or even spread widely know-how patents to ICT solutions, used in distant schooling.

Nevertheless the times, the project itself points out problems that teachers are facing almost world-wide. The curriculum is overcrowded, information-based, there is a lot of demands for lexical knowledge, and there is little time to develop the competencies that make use of the acquired knowledge.

One can notice, the students are lost, tired and unmotivated in such a great the flow of information around them. Schools, due to many reasons, fail to use transversal competencies their students do have, not knowing that they have the knowledge and a potential, that combined with skills gives profound results. Sadly, school curriculums are very often in opposition to today’s job market needs, plus the educational process is slow and very often unwelcome by most of the children. The problems mentioned by teachers and quoted by many psychologists are very general in their origin and therefore fit almost every educational institution in Europe. Among others the problems are as follows:

- the lack of safe, loving atmosphere: the educational process is overcrowded with numbers, analyzes and competency assessments. Children and teachers barely know each other, they do not have time to discover and understand each other's personality.

- the lack of attachment to the surrounding society: the school environment is isolated, and often - especially for disadvantaged children - completely separated from the broader perspectives.

- the lack of perspectives as one of the most demotivating factors in the educational process. It should be desired for the learning process to become motor factor in the future, as it leads to achieving goals, be reliable and take advantage of the acquired knowledge in real life, and on the future job market.

- the lack of success: public education is generally focused on the existence of one-dimensional and measurable results of a limited set of knowledge. Based on this, students are categorized, not taking into account their diversity, skills, level of socialization, and competencies.

- absence of self-expression: the school is the place where students have to meet someone else's expectations, and very often are left without any feedback why they not fit with their qualities into measurable knowledge. Subjects that develop creativity, self-expression and innovative
thinking are dropped into the background with law number of lessons.

- the clash with reality: schools usually operate as closed environments, or little societies with their rules and laws, and very often these enclaves do not resemble real life, dealing with social problems, or acting in crisis situations. It must be said that there are school to which some of the issues mentioned above sound strange or bizarre, yet the problems exist and there is a need to find solutions.

Among many alternative and successful teaching methods, the Na(e)tGEO project was introduced, as a model and a proposal that can be introduced into public education, dealing with the problems mentioned above.

The Na(e)tGEO project aims at a learning process to be based on experience pedagogy, opens the closed framework of school education, connects with the outside world, transforms the acquisition of information into a competitive and exploratory adventure for which students have to mobilize all their competences together.

Therefore such an acquired knowledge is complex, project based, combines the curriculum of a wide range of interest areas i.e. from natural science and language learning to digital competencies. The project itself exercises many universal skills mainly information finding and selecting, communication skills, problem solving skills, conflict management, creativity, innovative thinking or team spirit.

The objectives arising from the project:

- increasing students' motivation to make learning more attractive with alternative pedagogical approaches;

- putting an emphasis on awakening inner motivation that rises the passion and personal need for learning;

- providing methodological examples of a complex, competence-based teaching;

- learning progress supporting interdisciplinary approach, usable and practical knowledge, taking into account individual characteristics and personalities;

- making the social surroundings connected, involving parents and civil society into the learning process;

- developing students' fundamental competences, such as multilingual competence (such as content language-learning, English descriptions and active involvement into project communication); Maths and science skills (in providing interesting tasks, practical exercises, research and competition combining lexical knowledge with digital applications and games), and ICT competence (using modern technology in implementing project tasks, learning and research elements).

Outdoor game in Madeira

Outdoor game in Lanciano