Our second ERASMUS PLUS KA1 Project

Title: “ The temptation of “Presentation and Storytelling!”

Once upon a… school…there was the pedagogical bet

of improving both teacher’s and student’s soft skills! “

 

Duration: 1/6/2018-31/12/2019

 

 

 

 

Our Project entitled: “ The temptation of “Presentation and Storytelling!”

                            Once upon a… school…there was the pedagogical bet

                              of improving both teacher’s and student’s soft skills! “

having a 19 months’ duration (1/6 / 2018-31 / 12/2019) is implemented by the Mygdonia Secondary School teachers (Thessaloniki Prefecture). The project involves potentially the entire Teachers’ Association that receive the benefits of the personal involvement of three teachers – multipliers of the action: the headmaster of our school unit (teacher of mathematics), a Greek language and literature teacher and a German language teacher. In addition to their academic training, they all have zeal and research mood, and they are characterized by the desire for self-improvement and professional development.

 

With a rate of 10-15% students per class diagnosed with intense learning problems, we need to take action. It seeks an inclusive and innovative global approach of education, in order to tackle early school leaving, social and occupational exclusion and rejection of the student – a “weak link”.

Our Project aims to take action having a two-way focus: a) upgrading the quality of teaching, b) supporting the professional development of teachers, while also being consistent with the priorities of the “2018- European Year of Cultural Heritage” with regard to the thematic of storytelling.

 

In more detail: teacher having been trained in storytelling techniques, presentation skills enhancement and personal transversal and horizontal skills (such as creativity, innovation ability, initiative etc.), will reform the way of teaching, upgrading its quality with targeted interactive thematics and making the student co-creator. The teacher passes on the knowledge of new techniques into the learner: he/she proposes ways of effective narration and presentation of thoughts and acts (storytelling, presentation skills) as well as improving and developing personal soft skills.

 

We strive to: 1) impregnate the lesson plans of all subjects with the corresponding narrative and presentation objectives; 2) actively involve the weak learner and improve his / her academic and social skills; 3) organize related educational activities; 4) systematically prepare our students for participation in Rhetoric Games, student Conferences and school Presentations.

 

Our Project eagerly aims at familiarizing with pedagogical tools, methodological suggestions and metacognitive strategies for planning activities in every subject of our curriculum by adopting collaborative strategies among teachers of different subjects (as evidenced by the composition of our pedagogical team).

 

The indispensable three “pillars” of the Plan (1st Storytelling, 2nd creative teaching with developing Presentation Skills and 3rd Soft Skills), complementary to each other, correspond to the three preselected seminar activities:

 

The first, in England, improved teacher’s skills in terms of creative methodology enriched with improving presentation techniques. Our teacher became familiar with techniques for creating successful presentations and effective public speaking and improved her communication skills.

 

In connection with the first, the second activity in Italy helped participating teachers by experiencing personal involvement to improve personal effective communication skills, crisis management, position management, cooperative spirit, interpersonal and colleague relations, change management, including occupational stress management, time pressure and ways of negotiating, moving into multicultural environments and developing adaptability to “the different” and “the new”.

 

Finally, the third activity in Scotland, familiarized participants with storytelling techniques, the story-telling art of messaging. Such techniques are articulating speech confidently, creating stories / narratives, digital storytelling, improving speaking skills, listening and understanding, reading and writing, the reading and pre-reading comprehension strategies, technology integration, digital learning and cooperative spirit.

 

With evaluation and feedback techniques, sessions, and a team of observers for changes in behaviour and performance of students- target group, we can identify the expected long-term benefits of a Project that focuses on the creativity, cognitive and socio-emotional development of the weak learner who will be encouraged to experiment in areas where his/her performance may prove impressive! The products, events and ways of disseminating our work (publications, workshops, forums, eTwinning, etc.) will contribute in this direction.