Motivation brings success

We apply for this project because we are worried about the decreasing level of motivation of our students and teachers. Some families don't give enough support to their children, students are complaining about the traditional way of teaching and teachers need more information about new methodologies centering the learning process in the students. The educational staff of the partnership has a little bit of lack of experience as they are mostly new in this sector. So we need to improve their teaching skills and also to give them motivation to do this. We had a few conferences related to this subject and the teachers hosted teachers in their lessons just to observe how the teachers passed the students the knowledge. So we need practice and also we want to see our colleagues from other countries how they are dealing with this issue. We want to work together to increase the students' motivation, by using some new methodologies so that their results can improve and we can tackle early school leaving.

Our main objectives of this project are: a) to promote the use of new methodologies and technologies inside the classroom; b) to foster student centred activities in order to increase their motivation; c) to guarantee the access to every student to high quality learning activities, especially to those that face obstacles like learning difficulties or economical problems; By promoting the use of new methodologies and technologies, centering the learning process in the students we wanted to reduce learning disadvantage students and, at the same time, working on the inclusion. We also considered that by doing that, we will be increasing not only the students' motivation, but also those from teachers that start to feel a huge gap between them and their students. These new methodologies are also more democratic, following some national (“Perfil dos Alunos à Saída da Escolaridade Obrigatória” in Portugal) and international (“Competences for Democratic Cultura at School” - Council of Europe”) regulations.

The project was born during an eTwinning forum where the two organisations started to work together in new methodologies and technologies in class. The eTwinning was an important tool for preparation and development of the project. Teachers and students from booth organisations worked together during the project and it facilitated students' mobilities. Teachers planned lessons using different apps and active methodologies giving the possibility to students to have a more active role in the learning process, teaching them to search the information, to evaluate the information collected, teaching them strategies to identify fake news and how to rewrite the information, preparing them to the survive in the modern technological society. Teachers also prepared lessons using games, apps,resources to facilitate the creation of posters, presentations, videos to support the learning process Students also were involved in the preparation and development of the conferences and the mobilities. These activities increase students and teachers' motivation.

With this project we increased students' motivation because they had classes with new methodologies and they had the chance to participate in innovative classes. They had the chance to contact students from different countries and cultures, using the twinspace and with the students' exchange. Teachers had the chance to participate in workshops related to new apps and methodologies, to work with teachers from the 2 organisations in the twinspace and discuss different approaches and methodologies, to participate in 2 conferences and accompanying the students' exchange. These activities were described in 4 newsletters. Outcomes: a) 10 videos of 10 different apps or new methodologies b) 10 lesson plans using those apps and methodologies c) 4 newsletters with testimonials d) public twinspace with all the work done e) increase of students and teacher motivation