EUROPEAN CLASSES PROJECT: A COEVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO CURRICULUM
INNOVATION
CONFERENCE PROMOTING INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY :
Schools’ Response to the Challenges of Future Societies
Katja Pavlič Škerjanc, Brdo 8 -10 April 2008
EUROPEAN CLASSES PROJECT
• pilot project in upper-secondary general
education (gimnazija: 4-year program, students aged 15-19):
– set up to supplement the program with new program
elements and innovative approaches to teaching and
learning,
– designed by the National Education Institute of Slovenia,
– approved by the National Council of Experts for General
Education,
– launched in 2004/05 by the Minister of Education and
Sport (to be evaluated in 2008/09),
– implemented in 16 schools (out of eligible 54).
Purpose and aims of ECP
• to meet both deficiency and growth needs:
– personalise the curriculum: increase its openness, ie.
scope and number of options for schools and individual
students (core – elective – optional → modular structure);
– make the curriculum more authentic for the
students: provide meaningful contexts – bring the real
world into the classroom (and vice versa);
– integrate the curriculum: increase its flexibility to
overcome fragmentation of knowledge (set up curricular
connections, eg. tranversal competences as cross-curricular goals);
• to provide convincing proofs of concepts and
ideas and, finally, a fully functioning prototype
Gimnazija program adaptation
E UROPEAN CLASSES
• European and global dimension
• intercultural communication:
crosscultural (intra- in inter-cultural)
encounters and cooperation
KEY CONCEPTS
AUTHENTICITY OF
LEARNING
• goals
• content
• activities
• assessment
• environment
• integrative curriculum:
multidisciplinarity- interdisciplinarity transdisciplinarity
• collaborative teaching (many
forms, including team work and pair
teaching)
• inquiry-based learning and
project approach to teaching
and learning
• diverse learning tools (ICT and
others)
• information/digital/media
literacy)
Co-evolutionary approach to
curriculum innovation
• Pilot projects are designed and implemented
with three complementary goals in mind:
– by aiming to improve the curricula as well as the
teaching and learning process they address
students,
– at the same time motivating and supporting teachers
in their continuous professional development and
capacity building
– and providing project managers (national education
authorities and reasearch & development agencies) with
pragmatic knowledge and skills of the teachers and
headteachers (ie. aligning beliefs about the potential for
effective action with the lessons of past and present experience).
Different roles of teachers in ECP
Teachers participating in the
project are expected to
assume different roles:
•
•
•
•
•
•
teachers,
change agents,
course designers,
materials providers,
researchers,
evaluators.
• Teachers as
reflective
practitioners
• Schools as
learning
organisations
PROJECT
STRUCTURE
National Education Institute
PROJECT TEAM
Project Manager
Core & Extended PG
German language
WG
English WG
European
Studies WG
Intercultural
Education WG
Project Team
coordinators
French WG
Slovene language
WG
◄ external
collaborators
(teachers from
participating schools)
Working Groups (WG)

School Project Teams
PT
Jesenice
PT
Koper
PT
Nova
Gorica
PT
Brežice
PT
Ljutomer
PT
Ptuj
PT
Slovenj
Gradec
PT
Celje
Gimnazija program adaptation
E UROPEAN CLASSES
PT
Kočevje
PT
Lj
Poljane
PT
Lj
Bežigrad
PT
Kamnik
PT
Mb
I. gimn.
PT
Mb
II. gimn.
Project structure and communication
• close links and interdependence between the NEI
project team and participating schools/project partners;
• communication at and between all levels is constant
and intense, both direct and indirect (via e-mail), aiming
to secure not only an uninterrupted information flow on
the progress of the project, but also ongoing
exchanges - as well as evaluation - of project
products (lesson plans, teaching materials, etc.) and
examples of practice of all kinds considered illustrative
and supportive:
– best (tried and tested out several times by more teachers),
– good (tried at least twice by one teacher) and
– promising (still in the planning phase).
EUROPEAN CLASSES PROJECT
• The overarching goal is the search for new
organisational solutions and innovative
implementation approaches at all levels,
– from the structure of the program,
– the placement and role of both subject areas as
well as individual subjects within the program
– to the lay-out of subject syllabi, which in the case of the
new electives faithfully follows a competence-based approach
and differentiated levels of autonomy, as well as
– the learning and teaching approaches and
methods.
Subject modules
Modular aproach:
• openness
and flexibility
1. core
2. elective
3. optional
• increasing level of
teacher autonomy
– increasing level of
flexibility
optional
elective
core goals/content
full teacher
autonomy
limited teacher
autonomy
no teacher
autonomy
Innovations on the level of SUBJECTS can be observed in:
• a changed identity of the elective subjects, which are
transdisciplinary in nature and based on discovery learning,
requiring active methods of instruction, primarily the task-based,
project-based and inquiry-based approach;
– European studies, e.g., are such a subject, in the context of
which students gain knowledge anddevelop skills to critically
evaluate European integration processes, human and civil rights
issues, the role and the activities of European institutions, as
well as other relevant social and cultural issues in Europe and
the nature of European inclusion into world currents;
• the differentiation of the learning goals of foreign languages by
means of and within different subject modules (refer to the next
chapter):
• the emphasised role of mother tongue (refer to the next chapter).
The only useful answers
are those that pose
new questions.
Le sole risposte utili sono quelle che
propongono nuove domande.
Vittorio Foa
EUROPEAN CLASSES PROJECT
INTRODUCING CHANGES
IMPORTANT CHANGES INTRODUCED INTO
– goals of the gimnazija curriculum
– structure of the curriculum
– subjects (structure, aims & objectives)
– didactics
INTRODUCING CHANGES
INTO CURRICULUM GOALS
 European and global dimension
 from Slovenia’s point of view
 intercultural education / communication
 by involving native speakers and/or
teachers from other countries/cultures
 synthetic thinking - holistic knowledge
 through integrated curriculum
INTRODUCING CHANGES
INTO CURRICULUM STRUCTURE


integrated curriculum
changed role of the flexible (elective) part

integration of elective subjects
- linking their
 aims and objectives
 content
 instruction
INTRODUCING CHANGES
INTO SUBJECTS
 new electives - ECP specific
 multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and
transdisciplinary approach
 integrating traditionally separate disciplines into new
subjects
 upgrading the taxonomy of FLL goals
 CBLL content-based language learning
 FLAC foreign language across the curriculum
INTRODUCING CHANGES
NEW ELECTIVES (ECP specific)
 Foreign Language in Focus:
English, German, French, Italian, Spanish.Russian
 FL: Slovenia in the World
 FL: Culture and Civilization
 Slovene
 Social Roles of Slovene
 Slovene Literature in Translations
 European Studies
 citizenship & human rights education, environmental
issues etc.
INTRODUCING CHANGES
INTO THE DIDACTICS
• collaborative teaching
• authentic learning & assessment
•
•
•
•
•
active learning
inquiry-based learning
problem-based learning
collaborative learning
project approach