NatGEO
Na(e)tGEO – Complex Skill Development Using Experience Based Approaches
RATIONALE, SUBJECT AND LEARNING NEEDS ADDRESSED: The na(e)tGEO project seeks to reflect on the public education problem which all European institutions are struggling with. The curriculum is overcrowded, information-based, there is a lot of demands for lexical knowledge, and there is hardly any time to develop the competencies that can utilize the entered knowledge. Our students are lost, tired and unmotivated in the flow of information, while – finishing schools – the lack of transversal competences hinders knowledge being utilized. The labor market and practical life experience are completely separated from the dry school curriculum, not to mention the fact that the educational process is slow and painful, which the children do not enjoy. Recognizing the problems, many alternative teaching methods have been written, but their application in the success-oriented educational environment is almost impossible. The motivation of the project is to develop and present a model that can be introduced into public education as an alternative to these problems. The na(e)tGEO project presents a learning process based on experience pedagogy, which breaks down, opens the closed framework of school education, connects with the outside world, transforms the acquisition of information into a competitive and exploratory adventure for which students have to mobilize all their competences together – This will make the acquired knowledge complex, projectbased, combining the curriculum of a wide range of subjects from lexical natural sciences through language learning to digital competencies, and the mobilization of transversal competences such as communication skills, problem solving skills, conflict management, creativity, innovative thinking or team spirit.
OBJECTIVES: – Increasing students’ motivation, making learning more attractive with alternative pedagogical approaches. Focusing on awakaning inner motivation. – Providing methodological examples of a complex, competence-based teaching-learning progress supporting interdisciplinarity, usable and practical knowledge, taking into account individual characteristics and personalities – Making the social surroundings connected with involving parents and civil society into the learning process – Developing students’ fundamental and transversal competences
IMPACTS: Next to pupils’ personal skills development and strenghtened fundamental and transversal competences, the project also increases their lexical knowledge on defined topics of natural sciences. Parallel to pupils’ development teachers also gain knowledge about innovative methods applicable for other subjects, learn teaching applications and best practices making their work more efficient and enjoyable, and build better understanding of their pupils. This methodological aspect could form a sort of change in the institutional pedagogical manners both for teachers and pupils, and assure longlasting information capture and raised motivation for the institutional learning process. The itinerary is based on intercultural dialogue between participants from 4 countries (Portugal, Hungary, Poland and Italy).
