Are you looking for a way to encourage interaction and collaboration in your classroom? In this article you will learn about a method called World Café.

The World Café is a method for creating a collaborative learning conversation around questions that matter to you and your students. World Café is a great way of sharing knowledge, generating ideas, and constructing dialogues with both large and small groups (either students or adults).

Consider all the learning that occurs as students move from table to table in your classroom, carrying insights and ideas from one conversation to another about the certain topic, project idea, reflection of the hour, managing conflict, etc. The invisible connections among these conversations and the actions that emerge from them can help you to build more engaged and passionate learners.
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With participation in the world Café, students practice also wide range of social capital skills such as:

• working in a team,
• active listening and discussing diverse ideas,
• building a collective diagram or model,
• managing time,
• taking a leadership role,
• putting abstract ideas into visual model,
• framing powerful learning questions and peer learning and coaching.

The Café format is very flexible and adapts to many different purposes, information sharing, relationship building, deep reflection, skill building, project planning.

The basic model of the method consists of:

1. Setting: prepare a cosy and welcoming environment for the participants to feel safe and engaged. Small round tables with flip chart paper, markers. Something small to bite, can make a big difference.
2. Welcome and Introduction: make the participants of the world cafe feel welcome and safe with an introduction, setting the context of your World Café.
3. Small Group Rounds: process starts with the first of three twenty minute rounds of conversation for the small group seated around a table. At the end of the twenty minutes, each member of the group moves to a different new table. They may or may not choose to leave one person as the “table host” for the next round, who welcomes the next group and briefly fills them in on what happened in the previous round.
4. Questions: are one of the most important contents of the World Café. Choosing a powerful question that starts the process is very important, so take your time with it.
5. Harvest: after all the rounds of conversations, the groups are welcomed to share their insights and reflect on the whole process. They can use the flip chart paper or use some new innovative method they are up for.

The basics of the method are really easy to grasp and learn. However the details, like what are powerful questions to start the process, how to make the harvest and so on that can really make a difference.

Would you like to experience the method and learn more about how to use it in your everyday school practice?Join our course Learner voice: engage students in participative and collaborative learning, where you will have the opportunity to learn and practice methods along with colleagues from all over EU.

Some of the methods also presented will be Circle, Open Space and Appreciative Inquiry.

Check for next opportunity. Don’t miss it and apply now!

Here are some of the testimonies from or participants that have already attended the course. Published on the SchoolEducationGateway page:

Author: Petra Založnik, BSc in Teacher Education and Sociology of Culture, is educator, evaluator and designer of innovative approaches to learning and teaching in the field of education, also our trainer in the course Learner voice: engage students in participative and collaborative learning

​Source: http://www.theworldcafe.com/key-concepts-resources/world-cafe-method/

By reading this article you will learn basic principles on how co-creating the process by students can help you get more involvement and satisfaction during your school year.

Participatory learning methods (know as Art of Hosting) are practices that allow people to learn together. They offer us a new way of leadership and teaching.

We all know this Confucius quote by hearth: “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand.”

But HOW can we do it?
Basic principles of the participatory methods are:

• Offer a simple structure that helps to engage small or large groups in conversations that lead to results.
• Dialogue. Speak when you have something to say and listen to understand.
• Put away your assumptions. Learn to listen without bias.
• Use a circle. It’s the basic organisational form. Meeting in a circle is meeting of equals. Generally all these methodologies inspire peer-to-peer discovery and learning.
• Use of powerful questions. We will dedicate a whole blog post to powerful questions in the future. Quickly, those are the ones that make you stop. and think.

Are you interested in learning more?
Since we strongly believe in learning by doing, we welcome you to join our course Learner voice, where you will have the opportunity to learn and practice methods along with colleagues from all over EU.

Some of the methods presented will be Circle, Open Space, World Cafe and Appreciative Inquiry.

First opportunity is already in December 2019. Don’t miss it and apply now!
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Here are some of the testimonies from or participants that have already attended the course. Published on the SchoolEducationGateway page:

Author: Petra Založnik, BSc in Teacher Education and Sociology of Culture, is educator, evaluator and designer of innovative approaches to learning and teaching in the field of education, also our trainer in the course Learner voice: engage students in participative and collaborative learning

Teachhub posted an article about professional development skills of a modern teacher in 21st century. Professional development can be increased by improving any of the required skills of an individual. Read on to find out which course is appropriate for the improvement of a specific skill.
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#1 Adaptability
​Adapting lesson to each student can be very demanding. Especially when number of students with special needs is increasing. Teachers need to adapt to this trend by creating inclusive school environment, understanding students with special needs and planning inclusive lessons. Did you know autistic students often find tasks requiring a lot of planning and organisation too difficult to manage? It is recommended to allow them to take photos of complicated instructions using their mobile phone or tablet.
Course: Yes, I can: Special needs students and inclusive education 


#2 Confidence
Sometimes it’s hard to be confident and believe in yourself. Having confidence in your students or colleagues can be even more demanding. It’s easier once you know your character strengths and strong points of others to focus on them. By taking free survey (http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey) you will find out which are your character strengths and how to use them.
Course: Teaching character: Positive psychology for every teacher 

#3 Communication
Communication skills are important when working with students, parents and colleagues, since they can as well improve your conflict resolution skills. Substantial understanding of psychological dynamics can benefit your communication and relationship with others. Once you realise people are often communicating from different ego states instead of reacting to the present moment, it’s easier to avoid conflicts.
Course: Developing effective communication skills

#4 Team player

Teachers encounter team work daily. This can be very beneficial, since team members help each other find solution in difficult situations. To make this process efficient, it’s advisable to use coaching skills and tools. When colleagues are facing problems, people tend to advise them instead of posing questions. On the other hand, researches show advises are less beneficial when solving problems than questions. By posing questions we encourage colleagues to think and find a solution that’s the best for them, instead of imposing ours.
Course: Peer coaching as a sustainable source of professional development 

#5 Continuous learner
As a teacher you know learning is a lifelong process. All our courses are about encourage learning new techniques, skills, sharing ideas and examples of good practice.
Courses by topic.

#6 Imaginative
Thinking of new ideas for your lessons can be easier when using tools that enhance creativity. You can boost your student’s imagination by using DeBono’s thinking tools, such as PMI (plus, minus, interesting). After you gather different ideas, evaluate them individually by considering their pluses, minuses and interesting points. After that it will be easier for you to decide which idea is the best one.
Course: Teaching Creativity in Schools, inspired by De Bono

Source: Cox, J. (2019). 15 Professional Development Skills for Modern Teachers. Teachhub. Retrieved from https://www.teachhub.com/15-professional-development-skills…

​With love,
Primera Group

​Plastic objects that we use once and discard, or single-use plastics, are a growing critical problem of global proportion. That’s why this Earth Day, April 22, 2018, is focused on Ending Plastic Pollution by Earth Day 2020, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The resources below are designed to help you inform, inspire and organize your students to take action to on Earth Day 2018 and beyond.
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This year’s Climate Education Week Toolkit is a web-based, cross-disciplinary resource that includes a range of lesson plans and educational activities focused on the issue of Plastic Pollution. Climate Education Week begins Monday, April 16th and provides a week’s worth of activities leading up to Earth Day on Sunday, April 22nd.

The comparative overview of national policies on teacher careers across Europe, which covers 43 European education systems, provides an analysis of different aspects of the teaching profession. The report focuses on primary and general secondary education.
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The main themes include:

• forward planning and main challenges in teacher supply and demand,
• entry to the teaching profession and teacher mobility,
• continuing professional development and support,
• career development, and
• teacher appraisal.

​Link to the publication: here.

Entrepreneurial education seeks to support students to develop the capacity to do
new, creative, innovative things that add value for themselves and the wider community,
in response to opportunities or needs.
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Find ideas, how can you foster entrepreneurial mind in your classroom. Here is the handbook of different ideas from the field.

The handbook presents several wonderful practices for entrepreneurial teaching, including:

• Creative Undertakings through Musical and Visual Languages
• Entrepreneur’s Social Responsibility – Co-Marketing Contract
• Examples of embedded entrepreneurial skills within Scottish Practice
• The Innovation Challenge
• The Classroom We Want
• Children Reading and Creating Stories
• The Alchemists’ Night
• Learning by Doing. The Simulated Enterprise IS GREENTEX SRL
• ​B-Kids, Business Kids

A practical guide on strategic internationalisation in Vocational Education and Training

​The aim of this guide is to assist in the strategic planning of international activities in VET and to help in defining the role internationalisation plays in the development of vocational education and training, VET qualifications and VET systems.

It is almost the last part of the application form but it does not mean it is less important. Far from it. The evaluation demonstrates to what extent the objectives and desired outcomes were achieved at the different stages of your Erasmus+ mobility project’s lifecycle. Here is a guideline on how to prepare effective evaluation of your project.

#1 Assessment plan. Systematically done evaluation can actually simplify the development of the project, completion of the application form and reporting. But you need an effective plan to simplify it. In the assessment plan define and prioritise the project objectives. It is impossible to evaluate everything. Select the areas you want to focus on. Define who will manage the evaluation of your project impact and dissemination. It is good to have a responsible person who will monitor project implementation. It might be project coordinator or some other team member. State what you’re assessing and set concrete indicators such as examples below. In the next step choose an appropriate assessment method and tool for collecting and analysing data. After data collection analyse the results and ask yourself the right questions, e.g. what does it mean if the participants established contacts but no new partnership occurred out of the network. Act consequently, e.g. following this analysis we will organise a brainstorming session on developing new project idea and after encourage participants to write their new contacts and propose project idea to them. Additionally, you will have to present intermediary reports and final report of the project to your national agency. Having good assessment plan will help you to write efficient reports.

#2 Critical events to evaluate. In order to ensure holistic evaluation mind different levels of evaluation, short-term and long-term impact, and all stages of the project. Levels of evaluation refers to relevant people who benefits from the project: students, teachers, school, teacher training provider and other stakeholders depends on your project objectives. In some cases, you might include parents, local community or administrative staff. Usually applicants define short-term impact indicators such as number of training hours or number of satisfaction with the in-service training. But remember long-term impact and how will you measure and show it. Plan evaluation activities for instance 3 or 6 months after the mobility. Assess what participants of the mobility actually use in their everyday practice. Since high quality training providers assess the effectiveness of their courses as a follow-up activity after a certain period upon the course ending, you can ask them to share information with you. Plan also to evaluate different stages of the project and not just the mobility itself. Holistic evaluation covers assessment of the project management, preparation of the participants, mobility period, dissemination, and effects of the mobility after the mobility is concluded.

#3 Examples of the indicators. Ideas for indicators below are adopted from the MICE-T project (www.mice-t.net).

Evidence of impact on students:

• Knowledge: better knowledge about the topics involved, better insight in practical applications of the subject, better insight in the European context of the subject
• Attitude: student takes initiative to know more about the subject, student asks more questions during the lessons, student shows more motivation
• Foreign language skills: better oral performance in foreign language, students speak more often in the foreign language in the classroom
• European citizenship: have knowledge and experience of democratic structures and decision-making at local, national and European level
• Management skills: problem-solving, budget management, negotiating skills, collaborative skills.

Evidence of impact on teachers:

• Project based teaching: increased implementation of active learning methods, comparing teaching methods and approaches with colleagues from the partner schools, use of new technologies
• Subject skills: consultation with partner teachers on subject related matters, ability to put the subject in a European context, integration of genuine material from project partners in the lessons
• Foreign language skills: more fluent use of the language, better performance in writing the foreign language
• Motivation: applies more often for extra in-service training, study visits, conferences, undertakes extra work, starts new initiatives, takes initiatives to disseminate the results of the project, feels an ‘ownership’ for the project
• European citizenship: facilitate and stimulate contacts with teachers and pupils in different countries, stimulate the introduction of the European dimension at school

Evidence of impact on school:

• School policy: staff meetings related to the project take place, involvement of the senior management and the school principal, appointment of a European school co-ordinator, existence of a strategy plan for the introduction of the European Dimension at school
• Community links: regular contacts with media, contacts with the local authorities, contacts with local societies, dissemination to other schools, participation in activities organized by the community, involvement of the parents where appropriate
• Whole school involvement: number of teachers actively involved, are all teachers informed, number of students involved, discussion of the project at staff meetings
• Project visibility: a leaflet or regular newsletter about the project is disseminated within the school and local community, the resources in the school (ICT, language labs, library) are used in a different way, specific events for teachers and other members of staff has taken place, the students’ project-products are displayed and/or available

​#4 Tools for evaluation. Data collection methods and tools depends on the impact you want to show. Suggestions below serve as an inspiration for your project:

• Surveys and questionnaires: design questions beforehand based on type of impact
• Individual and group interviews with participants of the mobility or other stakeholders
• Observation: design an observation guide based on what you want to observe, by observation we usually evaluate changes in attitudes
• Statistics: e.g. number of participant in dissemination event, number of readers of a blog
• Skills tests: skills assessment might be done before and after mobility
• Document analysis to evaluate the European aspects of the products
• Language portfolio
• Group discussion about the mobility experience: brainstorming, world café, storytelling

Criticism may sound like something negative but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be very beneficial, if it’s done in the right way. It helps students to learn from their mistakes and motivates them to improve their skills and expand their knowledge. But the question is how to criticize effectively? We prepared some tips on how to give a constructive feedback:

1. Criticize behavior, not person
Has it ever occurred to you that you gave critique with the best intention but it wasn’t received well? Often, especially when filled with emotion, people tend to criticize others on a personal level instead of criticizing their behavior in a particular situation. Student, who has been criticized, may have felt he was personally attacked and consequently acted defensively. Imagine you are being told you are boring, just because some of your coworkers didn’t like the way how you teach some topics in the classroom. This kind of critique would only make you feel bad about yourself, but it wouldn’t be very useful. It would be much better if you were told that they didn’t like some of your classes and offered an explanation. In that case you could see where the problem is and do something about it. For the same reason you should be careful and criticize particular behavior of your students. Replace statements like “You are lazy.” or “You are reckless.” with “What you did in that situation was irresponsible.”

2. Be specific, focus on the situation
Another important thing, when giving critiques, is to be specific. If you tell your student that he got a low grade because you didn’t like his essay or you thought his essay was really bad, it won’t be much of a help to him. Be more specific and offer him a critique like: “I had to give you lower grade because you focused on a wrong topic. You should have written about characters in the book, but you wrote your whole essay about the plot. It might be better if next time you write a concept of your essay before you start writing. I could help you stick to the rules and keep in mind what is the purpose of the essay.” Make sure your critiques are not general, but as specific as possible. Avoid statements like: “You are always late”, “This is just not your thing” or “You never listen to instructions when I tell them.” Focus on the situation and break it down to some specific key points.

3. Try the “Sandwich method”
When dealing with students who are less confident or feel insecure, it could be even harder to give critique. You don’t want to hurt their feelings but you still should somehow tell them where they performed poorly or behaved inappropriately. That’s where the sandwich technique comes in:
At first, provide a positive feedback. Give them a compliment on something they did well recently, tell them you appreciate their effort.
Provide a critique. Make sure you criticize specific situation or behavior.
End it with a compliment.

​When using the sandwich method, be honest and make sure your critique is not misunderstood. Critique, in combination with compliment, usually motivates people to improve their performance, which is why it’s beneficial to use this method also with students who are not necessarily insecure or unconfident.

4. Give recommendation on how to improve
To encourage your students to improve their work, help them find out what they can do about it. Ask them what do they think and then point them into the right direction. Again, when giving suggestions, be specific. Giving recommendation after critique is what makes your feedback constructive. With doing so, you clearly reveal your expectations and show them how to reach them.
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Although it might not be easy to criticize your students or coworkers, critiques could be very beneficial. Just make sure you do it right!

Employability affects both personal and professional fields and it needs time and room in order to be well processed. Students should think about their employability when they are still in the school system. But of course we can’t force them. Here the role of teacher is crucial. How can teacher work on it? How can teacher increase the employability of his students?
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In Primera we borrow the approach to employability development by The University of Queensland:

1. Awareness: understanding employability as both educational knowledge and the attributes that guide workplace performance
2. Experiences: engaging with a range of experiences to develop the skills and the attributes for employability
3. Learning: using self-reflection to translate experiences into employability development
4. Transfer: communication employability effectively in the recruitment process and transferring learning into workplace performance

The model is focused on learning from experiences to develop employability and recognising how that learning makes people more effective in the workplace. School teachers play an essential role on it since they have to support students in getting familiar with such important model. The method we borrowed by the Queensland University is the SEAL process of self reflection.

• Situation: what was the new experience or challenge you faced and what happened to you?
• Effect: what impact did it have on you, what were the consequences of this impacts?
• Action: what action did you take to deal with the new situation and any challenges, and why did you do this?
• Learning: what did you learn from the experience and how will you apply this in the future?

This method is based on experiential learning. Indeed we believe that LEARNING COMES FROM REFLECTING ON EXPERIENCES. According to philosopher and educational reformer John Dewey, “We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience.”

But technically how a teacher can support students in developing and increasing their employability skills? The role of teacher lies in creating an environment that support students in this learning-transformative process in every phase:

• Teacher can support students in understanding the deep meaning of “employability”: let’s invite an HR responsible and an employer in the classroom and ask them what they look for when they need to hire someone coming from the school. Let them talk about what they check in a candidate, what knowledge, competences, attitudes and skills should have the perfect candidate. In a simple sentence: what they expect from him.
• Teacher can support students in understanding the importance of doing experience and acquire new skills and knowledge by going out from the comfort zone; let’s invite some of your former students in the classroom and ask them to illustrate their most challenging experience they have done (studying abroad for one year; volunteer experience in an NGO dealing with disadvantages people; summer job far away from family-home for the first time). Focus the dialogue on how they felt in doing that, how much it was difficult at the beginning, how they tackle coming problems. And now ask to your hosts how much these challenging experiences were important for the job that they are doing now. Let them speak about the importance of these experiences in their personal and professional growth.
• Teacher can supports students in learning what they have experienced by the process of self-reflection; now it’s time to let talk your students. Use the SEAL model for doing that by supporting them in every single step: hear carefully their experiences; help them in well clarify impacts of these experiences; observe how they acted in dealing with these experiences and ask them why they had these reactions; support them in understand what they have learnt from these experiences, what are the final results and what they would do in case of similar situations in the future. And now, let’s do the most important task: help them to identify what skills they have developed as result of their experiences and self-reflection on them.

Once students have identified the learning they have gained from their experiences, they can better realise their own employability and determine just what makes them particularly employable. This is a great beginning for starting to think to their career. They won’t feel so disoriented and frustrated in moving their first steps in the labour market.

Key-insights:

1. Learning comes from reflecting on experiences
2. The role of a teacher is supporting students in their learning/transformative process

​Matteo Paradisi