2018 – Numeracy and Literacy Through Coding and Robotics

Project Details

Why is the is project important?

This project will focus on the teaching of Numeracy and Literacy skills through Coding and Robotics. Coding is a branch of computational thinking which together with critical thinking, communication, creativity and collaboration forms an integral part of Malta’s national educational curriculum – it is also a very significant factor in the educational systems of all the other partner countries in this project.

Coding is like a language. It is a way to instruct a computer or a tablet what you want it to do. It may be seen as the modern literacy and it is important that the teachers within our educational systems are well versed in this field so that they will also be able to pass on this knowledge to our pupils who will constitute the generations of the future. In fact, young children can learn the foundations of coding before they can even write and spell.

 

Learning to code prepares our teachers to use coding for the teaching of Numeracy and Literacy in today’s modern society. In turn, learning to code will prepare our pupils for future jobs – jobs which might not even yet exist.

 

By means of this project, educators will be in a better position to further integrate and blend Coding and Robotics within the framework of Numeracy and Literacy which is used by each participating country in this initiative.

 

The involved schools are very willing to invest in their teachers who may be regarded as the main resource of our educational systems. We are always looking for new opportunities through which we can help our teachers develop their teaching skills and knowledge about the latest trends in

 

education and teaching methods. Therefore, it may be said that it is the school’s continuous interest in expanding the expertise of its teachers which serves as our motivation for this project.

 

This project:

 

(i) strengthens the profiles of our teachers which will automatically result in benefits for our pupils who will make up the generations of the future and

 

(ii) as explained above, the topics to be targeted by this project are very current and deal with an issue which are many European schools are trying to cope with at present. Modern technology advances at a fast pace and the European educational systems have to keep up with it. This project will ensure that this is done.

 

What are the listed objectives?

 

The objectives of this project may be listed as follows:

 

1) Provide training to at least 40 teachers about Numeracy and Literacy skills through Coding and Robotics: Through this training our educators will be exposed to innovative ways on the use of different digital resources such as Beebots, Probots, Minecraft, Google Earth, WeDo and other resources available in the school to make learning fun and make learning possible to all students with different abilities.

 

2) Enable at least 40 teachers to expand their expertise on the teaching of Numeracy and Literacy through Coding and Robotics through exchange of good practices:Through the proposed mobilities, the participating teachers will be exposed to methodologies used in schools in other European countries. This will enable them to learn from each other and ultimately adopt the best possible methods of teaching when they are back in their home country.

 

3) Establish a good relationship between the 4 participating schools: The participating schools within this project are very much interested in tapping into EU funding so as to organise projects which will benefit both teachers and pupils. By working together on the implementation of this initiative, we will strengthen our relationship as schools so as to be able to collaborate further in the future on other EU funded projects.

 

The listed objectives are linked to the selected priority because through the provided training and the participants’ involvement in the proposed mobilities, the involved schools will be strengthening the profiles of the teaching profession of each involved country in this initiative.

 

Our project will deal with a very current topic which will equip our teachers to be updated with the latest technological methods of how to tackle lessons that relate to Numeracy and Literacy. By means of both the training and the proposed mobilities, we will assist the participating teachers to improve their knowledge on the selected subject and this will then lead to a stronger teaching profession because our teachers will be able to deal more with current trends of technology and how these should be utilized in the classroom.

 

What is the achievement we expect?

 

The planned activities to be undertaken over two years are:

 

1. Kick-Off Management Meeting in Malta

 

2. School Visit – Malta

 

3. Formal training of staff – Italy (Milan). Training for Educators from Malta, Italy, Slovenia and Portugal who will go to this training course which will help our educators get familiar with variouscoding and robotics which will help them in their literacy and numeracy support.

 

4. School Visit – Portugal

 

5. School Visit – Italy (Foggia)

 

6. School Visit – Slovenia

 

7-10 National dissemination activities by each participating school

 

This project is built on training of teaching staff who teach subjects relevant to Numeracy and Literacy (especially Maths and languages). The training will take place in two ways:

 

1. Formal training course (Milan, Italy)

 

The Italian partner school has arranged for us to attend a structured course on coding and robotics. It will be tailor-made to our requirements based on feedback we provide to the training provider in Milan. This mobility will be 5 days long, excluding travel days.

 

Liceo Banfi has excellent best practices and resources we can make use of in the classroom. The purpose of this mobility is to learn best practices and methodologies which can be used in their daily teaching practice when teaching literacy and numeracy. The topics we will be covering are: Computational thinking and its application in the classroom; coding concepts for young children and age appropriate ideas and techniques for introducing coding; Makey Makey and Makey Makey boards; graphic environment for coding with younger children (graphic programming apps like for example, Lightbot, Daisy the Dinosaur, Scratch Junior etc.) and playground games for learning about codes and CT; Ozobot (which is a block-based coding editor); creating lesson plans and activities for Ozobot in your classroom; BBC microbit (key features); basic principles of Calliope.

 

2. School Visits (Malta, Italy, Slovenia and Portugal)

 

Based on observation and exchange of best practices among participating organisations. The partner school based in the country where the school visit will take place will host teachers from the other participating schools. School visits will enable participating teachers to see classes being implemented, have the opportunity to participate in hands-on exercises in the classroom and to have site visits relevant to the topics being covered. Participating teachers will have the opportunity to participate in workshops to discuss methods put in practice, any questions or suggestions and to undertake capacity-building among themselves.

 

Key Topics of the Project

 

• Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills
• Early School Leaving / combating failure in education
• ICT – new technologies – digital competences

 

Who are the participant targets?

 

The planned training activities will build on each other to give the participating teachers (and consequently each participating school) competences, knowledge and resources on how to use coding and robotics to teach Numeracy and Literacy.

 

Teachers will be in a better position to teach students, utilising innovative and fun methods of learning. Schools participating in the project will participate in capacity-building, which will ultimately benefit students.

 

The main target group of the project are teachers teaching Maths and languages. Pupils are an indirect target group since they will benefit from teachers’ improved competences and their schools’ capacity-building in utilising Coding and Robotics as teaching tools; as well as participating in classroom activities in which teachers from all participating schools will also be participating.

 

Pupils will be kinder and primary-school age (3-10 years of age).

 

What are the tasks and responsibilities?

 

General role and responsibilities for coordinator – Malta

 

• appoint a overall project manager (1 in total)
• organise 1 management meeting in Malta
• take minutes of management meeting
• design questionnaire
• internal partnership agreement
• submission of final financial and management reports

 

General roles and responsibilities for applicant and co-applicants – Malta, Portugal, Italy and Slovenia

 

• appoint a manager for each participating partner organisation
• all managers to participate in the management meeting in Malta
• all managers to participate in virtual meetings prior and post mobility
• all managers to ensure retention of documentation
• all managers to compile report of School Visits when hosting
• host organisations to arrange logding
• travelling organisations to each arrange own travel
• 4 school visits to be led by each host organisation
• training material for 4 school visits to be compiled by each host organisation
• disseminate project, results and EU funding Programme

 

Rabat Primary school, as the lead partner will be tasked with the overall implementation and

 

evaluation of the project. Listed above are the roles and responsibilities of each partnering

 

organisation. Sound management will be ensured through a hierarchy of roles. Malta as the lead organisation will appoint an overall project manager, post signing of the grant agreement, tasked with overseeing all proceedings within the project. Moreover, the participating organisations (Portugal, Slovenia, Italy) will each appoint a manager, post signing of the grant agreement, tasked with the preparation, implementation, and evaluation of the project in their host country. Each individual manager is tasked with the general roles and responsibilities outlined above.

 

Communication and collaboration will be formally initiated through an internal partnership agreement. The agreement is to be drafted and signed after all partners sign the grant agreement. The agreement includes provisions for decision-making within the project, activity timeline, duties of all project partners, budgetary spending, project activities, dissemination and evaluation.

 

A number of virtual/transnational meetings will take place periodically between managers to discuss the preparation, implementation and evaluation of the project. A Skype meeting in Dec 2018 will initiate the project management and coordination, introducing all appointed managers. A transnational meeting is to be hosted in Malta in Jan 2019 bringing together all managers to develop a work plan for the upcoming months. Moreover, a Virtual meeting between managers will be held 3 weeks prior to the mobility, in preparation, and 1 week post-mobility, to evaluate reports and questionnaires.

 

How were the partner countries chosen?

 

In developing this project we sought to include partners which we know and trust, meaning partners we have worked with before. During a seminar in Montpellier in October 2017, the partner had met to discuss the topic of Coding and Robotics and the benefits of Digital Literacy on the students. From there, the etwinning project of Coding and Robotics started. Each school sent a mysterious code to the other schools. They had to crack the code and discover their partners. We managed to involve all our learners and even students with low abilities got interested. Prior to this application, each individual organisation was contacted to determine interest. Needless to say, all participating organisations accepted, contributing fully to this application.

 

All the four schools have the same vision to achieve better results in teaching and learning through coding and robotics. Al partnering schools believe that some of the teamwork skills learnt through robotics are ones used for the rest of one’s life. When students work in groups on a project with a robot they quickly see that technical skills, such as coding, are very important. All four schools are involved in project of coding and robotics in their own school and also in a current and ongoing etwinning project. Their acceptance to partnering within this project came as a result to provide high quality education to their learners.

 

Lastly, each of these schools has particular expertise to exchange with the other partnering organisations. Whilst interest of robotics and coding is the same between schools, the methods used and experienced achieved differ from each participating organisation. Thus this project will create an opportunity to exchange good practices which differ from one school to the other and can be shared among themselves. This will help us learn from each other.

 

Only the school from Slovenia has ever participated in a strategic partnership in the past. Nevertheless, the determination is present within each organisation and the main priority for this project is set at the exchange of best practices. Thus, having an experienced partner will serve the project better, as it provides a chance for those experienced to expand their expertise and those not experienced to learn.

 

Arrangements for the Learning, Teaching and Training activities

 

All participants (teaching staff within the respective schools) will be selected through an open call. Only teachers whose subjects are relevant to Numeracy and Literacy were eligible to express interest in participating. We selected participants based on their availability to participate in the respective mobility, their competence in expressing themselves in and understanding English (for communication purposes) and their willingness and ability to communicate learning outcomes to other teaching staff.

 

Prior to each mobility/ transnational activity each Project Manager within the partner schools will call a meeting with the teachers participating in the activity and go over the day by day programme and expected results. Project Managers will address any queries or difficulties and report back to the other partners during the Virtual Meetings.

 

On the first day of each activity we will have ice-breaking events to get all participants acquainted. The activities planned are not dangerous and will take place within classrooms/ school property (indoors) or in the vicinities. All participants will be adults – teachers who teach subjects relevant to Numeracy and Literacy and are therefore responsible enough to stay within the group and participate in all activities with the rest of the participants. The Project Manager of the partner school hosting the mobility will also distribute a sheet with emergency numbers at the beginning of the mobility. Participants will be asked to have a valid European Health Insurance Card and bring it with them during the mobility.

 

Integration in the Classroom and Benefits of Good Practices during Mobility in Malta

 

After each mobility the participants will discuss with the administrative staff of their respective schools the learning outcomes, resources and knowledge gained and how these can be incorporated in Numeracy and Literacy classes. Other teachers from the school who teach topics related to Numeracy and Literacy (such as maths, language classes, etc) will also be invited to these meetings in order to discuss how best to implement these within the classroom.

 

Resources shared with participants during the school visits will be made available to other teachers, who will also be taught best practices on incorporating them within the classroom, adapting them to different students’ learning and skill levels and answering any questions they might have.

 

Knowledge and best practices will also be communicated by the teachers who participated in the mobility to the other teachers. It will be up to the administrative staff of each school to discuss with the teachers who participated in the mobility how these can be incorporated in the school’s development plans/ strategies, since it is the administrative staff who best know their school’s practices and needs. It will also be up to the administrative staff to discuss with the relevant teachers the learning needs of their respective students and how best to go about incorporating the best practices within the classroom. These will be discussed during the follow-up Skype meetings amongst the Project Managers, which will be held after each mobility. We will troubleshoot any difficulties or problems that teaching staff within our respective schools might be having in incorporating resources and best practices within the classroom.

 

Participants will gain:

 

• New skills
• Expansion of their knowledge on coding and robotics as teaching tools
• Access to resources being used in other schools
• Exposure to best practices from other teachers
• Being able to ask questions where they do not understand, or to be able to adapt best practices and resources into their own lessons

 

School visits will enable participating teachers to see classes being implemented, have the opportunity to participate in hands-on exercises in the classroom and to have site visits relevant to the topics being covered. Participating teachers will have the opportunity to participate in workshops to discuss methods put in practice, any questions or suggestions and to undertake capacity-building among themselves.

 

Assessment of Project’s Objectives

 

During the Project (short-term assessment):

 

• Pre-project questionnaires will be given to participating teachers in training sessions before the beginning of the project to measure what they already know and their expectations of the projects, so as to be able to improve upon the objectives and impacts of the project.
• Post-participation questionnaires will be given post the project to all participating teachers to see the impact of the project on their teaching methods, what they learnt and if their expectations were reached, as well as the way forward.
• Focus groups between teachers and students to see their preferences on using coding and robotics for teaching purposes.
• Dialogue between the participating teachers and their Heads of School with the Ministry for Education to further develop and incorporate digital tools in the learning environment as part of the School Development Plan.

 

After the Project end-date (long-term assessment):

 

• Observation and assessment by the Heads of School and Assistant Heads of Schools on whether the teachers have incorporated what they learned through their teaching methods.
• Analysis of the feedback questionnaires by participants of the mobility.
• Questionnaires will be given post the project to all educators to see the impact of the project on their teaching methods, what they learnt and if their expectations were reached, as well as the way forward.
• Analysis on whether the project actually impacted students’ results in Numeracy and Literacy through the use of digital tools.
• Skype conference with all partners to discuss the successfulness of implementation of the project and how the project could have been improved.
• An Action Plan including coding and basic programming through the use of digital resources explored will be included in the School Development Plan of each school involved, and utilised by teachers in their scheme of work.
• Keep a record of how many people accessed the project website and from which countries, to see how far-reaching the project was; as well as analyse feedback forms available on the same website.

 

Plans for Dissemination and Results

 

Within the partnership

 

The school leadership and administration can disseminate our good practices through School Development Plan Meetings and through Council of Heads Meetings. These will first be given information about the project, they will be involved in the project themselves and will be part and parcel of the success of the project. Therefore it will be in their interest to help disseminate our activities.

 

Local Communities

 

Educators will also disseminate the activities. The Maths Support teacher can involve other Maths Support teachers during curriculum time and maths support meetings to help them see the benefits of using Coding and Robotics to make maths attractive to our learners. The other Maths Support teacher,

 

in their turn will disseminate these practices in all the schools they work in all over the country. The same goes for the Literacy Support teachers and the Maths and Literacy Head of Departments. They will be a focal point in spreading these practices to all schools all over the country. Each country can use their own Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to showcase our good practices.

 

Wider public – through the use of ERASMUS+ online platforms:

 

eTwinning Platform (https://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htm)

 

eTwinning is an ERASMUS+ platform that promotes school collaboration in Europe through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by providing support, tools and services. Different pages for each country have been created and the whole plan of our project can be found in the Twinspace, through which dissemination or the project could take place, as well as long-term impacts on the international learning community.

 

EPALE Platform (https://ec.europa.eu/epale/en/)

 

EPALE is an ERASMUS+ platform. It is a multilingual open membership community for teachers, trainers, researchers, academics, policy makers and anyone else with a professional role in adult learning across Europe. One of the Digital Literacy teachers is an EPALE ambassador in our country. Therefore project dissemination will also be done through this platform.

 

Wider public – through the use of other European educational online platforms:

 

European Schoolnet Future Classroom Lab (FCL) (http://fcl.eun.org/)

 

FCL is an inspirational learning environment in Brussels, challenging visitors to rethink the role of pedagogy, technology and design in their classroom. One of the Digital Literacy teachers is a lead ambassador of the Future Classroom Lab concept. Therefore project dissemination will also be done through this platform.

 

Edmodo Platform (https://www.edmodo.com/)

 

Edmodo is a global education network that helps connect all learners with the people and resources needed to reach their full potential. All the material and resources of the project will be shared on this global platform.

 

Short Summary of the Project

 

Coding is like a language. It is a way to instruct a computer or a tablet what you want it to do. It may be seen as the modern literacy and it is important that the teachers within our educational systems are well versed in this field so that they will also be able to pass on this knowledge to our pupils who will constitute the generations of the future. In fact, young children can learn the foundations of coding before they can even write and spell. Learning to Code will prepare our pupils for future jobs, jobs which don’t even yet exist, hence the importance of it all.

 

This project will focus on the teaching of Numeracy and Literacy skills through Coding and Robotics.

 

The objectives of this project may be listed as follows:

 

1) Provide training to at least 40 teachers about Numeracy and Literacy skills through Coding and Robotics

 

2) Enable at least 40 teachers to expand their expertise on the teaching of numeracy and literacy through Coding and Robotics through exchange of good practices

 

3) Establish a good relationship between the 4 participating schools

 

The planned activities to be undertaken over two years are 1 Kick-Off Management Meeting in Malta, 4 school visits in Malta, Slovenia, Italy and Portugal, and 1 structured training course for staff in Italy (Milan). There will also be 3 dissemination activities by each participating school in their own country.

 

The concrete results of this project will be the following:

 

– At least 40 teachers will receive training on the teaching of Numeracy and Literacy skills through Coding and Robotics;

 

– At least 40 teachers will be more knowledgeable about the best way to teach Numeracy and Literacy skills through Coding and Robotics via the exchange of good practices with other European teachers;

 

– 4 European schools will undertake mutual capacity-building activities

 

Participant teachers will be equipped with the necessary training which is then transferred to other teachers within the school. Educators in our school will be using online resources and other Coding equipment with their learners once we disseminate the knowledge gathered from this project. These online resources will be available on the eTwinning Platform – available for all. Here we’ll have all our activities together with an eWorkbook. This can be viewed by all the school partners and also by schools in other countries. This will be a good way to show our good practices and the success of our project.