A brief description of our project
"Our school, our playground" is a project about implementing new, innovative teaching methods at school based on game learning. Games are an essential part of the lives of young children, especially nowadays, children have a strong impact on their habits, aesthetics and mentality. Trying to cope with this, modern teachers have to change their teaching methods and curricula approaches and turn school into an attractive learning space, where children can also have fun like a playground. Moreover, students with low academic achievements due to economic, social, cultural problems or disabilities. Positive attitudes towards schooling can improve learning achievements of the children, according to current educational research.
Eight partner schools from eight European countries, namely Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Poland, Cyprus and Romania participate in this project, that targets children from 6 to 14 years old. Teachers of these schools will work together to invent educational scenarios that exploit the use of games in classroom. The scenarios will then spread throughout the school communities and be implemented by teachers who want to experiment with their students with new learning methods.
The teachers that take part in this project form communities of practice that will work together trying to reflect on their teaching methods, finding the things that work or do not work in classroom and report their experience to their colleagues.
Student communities will also be formed both at a regional and at an international level. Students that have a higher possibility for early school leaving will be of priority. Game learning methods can help them to fight their disengagement from the school process and give them key competencies that will help them both at school and at their working life.
The results of the project will include: the web site of the project, the blog of students and a handbook that contains all the scenarios proposed, the games used and the comments of the teachers that used these games for learning purposes.
We believe that this project will have a strong impact on the school communities that will participate: change the way that teachers teach and cooperate with each other, make education more inclusive for all kind of students, enhance the relationships between teachers and students through game playing methods . Moreover, the project could be also viewed as a tool for policy makers since it turns the results of the educational research on game playing methods to a small scale real life experiment that can be repeated to other schools, as well.
Eight partner schools from eight European countries, namely Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Poland, Cyprus and Romania participate in this project, that targets children from 6 to 14 years old. Teachers of these schools will work together to invent educational scenarios that exploit the use of games in classroom. The scenarios will then spread throughout the school communities and be implemented by teachers who want to experiment with their students with new learning methods.
The teachers that take part in this project form communities of practice that will work together trying to reflect on their teaching methods, finding the things that work or do not work in classroom and report their experience to their colleagues.
Student communities will also be formed both at a regional and at an international level. Students that have a higher possibility for early school leaving will be of priority. Game learning methods can help them to fight their disengagement from the school process and give them key competencies that will help them both at school and at their working life.
The results of the project will include: the web site of the project, the blog of students and a handbook that contains all the scenarios proposed, the games used and the comments of the teachers that used these games for learning purposes.
We believe that this project will have a strong impact on the school communities that will participate: change the way that teachers teach and cooperate with each other, make education more inclusive for all kind of students, enhance the relationships between teachers and students through game playing methods . Moreover, the project could be also viewed as a tool for policy makers since it turns the results of the educational research on game playing methods to a small scale real life experiment that can be repeated to other schools, as well.