CONCLUSION BOOK AUSTRIA

DANMARK

GERMANY

NORWAY

SPAIN

Multilateral Comenius Project

2013–2015:

Development of teaching

models to support

methodological skills

Austria

Volksschule Stainz

Primary school Stainz is located in a suburban area in

the south-west of Styria.

In the school there are 145 pupils in the age from 6 to 10.

12 teachers are currently working in the school. A part of

the pupils are using the childcare in the afternoon, which

takes place in the school. At the moment there are no

pupils with special needs and with social problems

Denmark

Eggeslevmagle Skole

The school is a public school situated in West Zealand.

The area is fairly disadvantaged and social deprived

The Eggeslevmagle Skole is a school with about 750 pupils

in the age from 6 to 16.

The school has a huge responsibility to develop the young

people intio tolerant and open minded persons. The pupils

are very much attached to their local area.

The school has developed an international class which has

become quite popular in the region.

Germany

Grundschule Baiersdorf

Grundschule Baiersdorf is a primary school with about

260 pupils in the age from 6 to 10. There are 40

employees. 25 of them are working as teachers.

The school is located in the small town of Baiersdorf, next

to the Cities of Erlangen and Nürnberg.

In Baiersdorf you find a diverse social structure. The

percentage of foreign families is below 10%.

60% of the pupils attend the “Gymnasium“ after

4th grade.

Grundschule Baiersdorf is the coordinator of this project.

Norway

Wilds Minne Skole

Wilds Minne Skole is a primary school situated in the

southern part of Norway, in Kristiansand.

In the school there are around 330 pupils in the age from 6

to 12. The school has 40 employees, 25 of them are

teachers. The teachers are working in teams with 2 or 3

teachers.

Over the last years the school has focused specifically on

pupils learning strategies.

The school has pupils of various social backgrounds

Spain

Colegio Rural Agrupado Entretierras

The school is a primary school, divided into three

branches that are located in three small villages along the

southeastern cost of Spain. The school is situated in an

agricultural and disadvanteged area with low

socioeconomic status. There are about 180 pupils and 23

teachers. About 50% of the pupils are immigrants from

Latin America; Africa and Eastern Europe.

The school adapted the methodology and didactic

strategies to be prepared for all levels and needs. The

school is involved in a spanish-english bilingual program,

using CLIL methodology (Content and Language Integrated

Learning).

Mobilities

Leader meeting in Germany

3rd to 6th of february 2013

School visitation in Denmark

7th t0 11th of october 2013

School visitation in Spain

24th to 28th of february 2014

School visitation in Norway

14th to 18th of may 2014

School visitation in Austria

20th to 24th of october 2014

Leader meeting in Austria

2nd to 5th of february 2015

School visitation in Germany

20th to 24th of april 2015

Leader meeting in Spain

1st to 4th of june 2015

Method week

In December 2014 and January 2015 the five schools

have planned and carried out a method week. The teachers

worked with special methods they`ve seen in the other

countries as well as they improved their own organisation

and

learning strategies.

The project leaders of each country presented the results

during the leader meeting in february 2015 in Stainz.

Method week

15. – 19. of December

VS Stainz

During our methods week, we decided to visit other

teachers in our school to watch their teaching. We tried to

find out what is special for each teacher of our team.

As each teacher has his own personal strenght, this was

very interesting for all of us. We know each other quite well

but to see a collegue in the class, working with the kids is

something special.

On the one hand we could watch how each teacher was

preparing the lesson and how she managed to get into a

new topic. On the other hand some teachers showed their

way to fix new knowledge in different ways.

We also took the time to talk about what we`ve seen.

We discussed the different ways to manage the lesson and

so we could get an other view over all. The very good

athmosphere in our team let us lead intensive and

interesting talks and reflections of our daily work.

It was good for everybody to get to know small things we`re

doing in class, we don`t recognice anymore.

Positive and negative things.

As each of us has his own personality, we could see

this also in the work with the kids. We`ve seen that the

personal interests of a teacher are influencing the work in

the class.

The musician is using music and rythme even in maths to

give the kids a new way to learn or to exercise.

The art specialist is working more with creative work, the

sporty one tries to bring movement into the kid`s learning.

All of us always try to bring all this parts into our lessons but

as a result of our observations we could see that everyone

is using more of his own skills. That was and is a very

important message for our work. We realized that we have

to take care more about all the other skills, we maybe don`t

like that much, because we have to reach all kids. And all

oft hem have their own learning strategy. So we have to give

them their „best way“.

We decided that we will exchange thoughts more often. We

try to create new strategies for our work. We try to make our

offer to the pupils more flexible and interesting. When we

plan some special lessons we ask the specialists about

their ideas and what we can to with the topic.

Special things we`ve seen:

+Daily singing and using that for each

subject.

+„open learning“, preparing many learning

stations fort he kids.

+„Leseoma“ – „reading

grandma“ Parents and grandparents are invited to school

to read with the kids

+self organised learning with a plan what to do. (one day up

to a week)

+using the whole school for

learning stations

+kids oft he 4th form are

working together with kids oft he lower forms

+partner and groupwork

+studios: small groups of students from the 2nd to the 4th

grade are working in special subjects. as theatre, sports,

music, arts, exploring, learning in the forest, dancing…..

They work for two lessons a week over a period of ten

weeks.

Method Week

19. to 23. of January 2015

Grundschule Baiersdorf

1st grade: German language

Reading and writing together with a partner

Various methods

- Example: the magic hat

2nd grade: German language

Working together with a partner

- reading without help

- listening to the partner

- discussing the content

Method: think—pair—share

Aim: to be able to act according to a written work order

3rd grade: mathematics

•Working together with a (new) partner at different working

stations in 3 learning centres:

„The room of money“, „The room of weights“,

„The room unit of lengths“

Organization: 2 classes were split off in 3 groups

Used methods: Think-pair-share, Placemat

•Aims: self-directed learning, learning by discovering

4th grade: mathematics

•Working together with a partner in 3 learning centres:

„solving problems“, „unit of lengths“, „litre and millilitre“

Organization: 3 classes walk during the week through 3

learning centres

Used methods: Placemat and others

Aim: discovering questions according to a problem and

different ways to solve it“

Method week

15. –19. of december

C.R.A. Entretierras

Kindergarden (3years)

Sensory workshops

Sense of sight:

Using a microscope and some coloured papers, students

can experience, with their own eyes, the caracteristics of

the different objects.

Sense of smell:

Children smell different foods and liquids and they classify

the smells as either pleasant or unpleasant.

Sense of hearing:

The teacher provides the children with a selection of

different sounds (some imitations of sounds of animals,

humans and objects). They also try to imitate these sounds.

Sense of touch:

The teacher provides the children with a selection of

different sounds (some imitations of sounds of animals,

humans and objects). They also try to imitate these

sounds.

Kindergarden (4years)

Grafomotricity/Fine Motor Skills Workshop

Children train their hand-eye coordination and writing

perception through sensory activities. Experiencing with

their own bodies as a preliminary phase to writing on paper.

Kindergarden (5years)

Mathematical Logic Workshop

Children classify polygons by fitting them

into a model.

Puzzles help children to solve problems using

logic and persistence.

The students work on the concept of logical

order through colours and numerical series.

Finally, they practice addition with numbers from 1 to 10.

Level 1 (6 to 8 years)

Language and Maths Workshop —

Children create polygons using a rope strung with 10

straws. Next, they have to draw the figure and write its

name.

Children compose 3 digit numbers using clothes pins

clipped on a clothes hanger. After that, they have to

separate them on a sheet to form the number.

Students roll two dice and add the two numbers. Then, they

collect the number of blue stones matching the result of

the addition.

Every time they get to ten stones they have to swap for a

red stone.

So, in this way, we work in units and tens, even up to

hundreds (green stones).

Finally, children go to the supermarket and buy healthty

food. In this way, money is used in a real world context,

where they also have to check that correct amount of

money has been given back to them.

Working in pairs, one of the partners goes around the class

looking for hidden sentences. Once the child finds one of

them, he memorizes it and comes back to his partner to tell

them the sentence and his partner writes it down.

Level 2 (9 to 12 years)

Language and maths workshop

Working in pairs, children roll the dice and add the two

numbers. After that, they go to the bank to collect the

money they have won.

The bank is made up of the teacher and two helpers. They

control the players and give out the right amount of money.

They may also change small coins for bigger ones.

Level 2 (9 to 11 years)

Spanish, english and maths workshop

In pairs, children roll the dice and multiply the two numbers.

Now, they takes the money according with the result of the

multiplication. Then, everyone has to give his partner the

quantity of money he has won.

The winner will be who wins more money at the end of the

time limit

In level 2, students play with euro coins and notes, while in

level 1 they use only cents and coins of one and two euros.

Students are divided into groups of

three.

The teacher reads a definition and

children have to guess the word

according to the first letter of the

alphabet.

There are 5 seconds to guess the word,

if they don´t find the answer, they lose their turn.

The definitions follow in alphabetical order.

The game “hidden sentences” from level 1 workshop is

repeated but this time the sentences are in English and

children are in groups of three.

Also, on this occasion, the game is organized as a relay

race.

The winners will be those who write more correct sentences

within the time limit.

Level 2 (9 to 11years)

Scientific workshop

Presentation. Assembly. “What does the scientific method

consist of?

Purpose. Stating the problem

Research. Finding out about the topic.

Hypothesis. Predicting the outcome to the problem.

Experiment. Developing a procedure to test the hypothesis.

Conclusion. Compare the hypothesis with the experiment

result.

Organization and materials

Groups are made of three students.

Students work at their own pace.

Register booklet.

Experiment 1.

Split of solid mixtures.

Objective. Splitting sand from tiny pieces of iron.

Solution. We mixed sand and iron shavings in a small bag

and introduced a magnet. We close the bag and shake it.

After a while, the small pieces of iron are stuck to the

magnet.

Experiment 2.

The balloon inflates by itself.

Steps.

1)We put some vinegar into a bottle and 4 spoonfuls of

baking soda into a balloon.

2) We attach the balloon to the mouth of the bottle and

pour the baking soda into the bottle.

3) The balloon inflates itself until the chemical reaction has

finished.

Solution:

The effect is the result of mixing a acid reactant (vinegar)

with a base reactant (baking soda).

Experiment 3.

The liquid doesn’t spill out when we turn the bottle face

down. Even though the bottle is covered with a piece of

plastic which is full of holes.

Solution:

The piece of plastic exerts a higher atmospheric pressure

from below than the water does from above, keeping the

water from flowing through the holes

Method week

8. -12. of December 2014

Wilds Minne Skole

Aim for the week

More English

English in different areas/lessons/subjects

Possibility for teachers to visit lessons of colleges

Use of digital medias

More practical work 1.grade

Method week

15. – 19. of December 2014

Eggeslevmagle Skole

Goals for the method week

To introduce the students to practical learning activities

that support the literary education in Danish and Math

That the students achieve understanding for how practical

learning activities can make them learn certain issues and

subjects better

Plan of action – we’re working on:

Danish

Structures from Cooperative

Learning that supports

learning

Danish (spelling)

Maths

Activities that makes it clear to the children, how to use the

different calculating rules in real life

Evaluation

The teachers make qualitative evaluation with the children

Conclusion

The five schools have been very happy to work in this

program during the last three years. All the exchange

teachers as the ones who hosted teams from the partner

schools got a lot of new ideas about teaching methods as

they`ve been able to get new contacts for their own

“lifelong learning”.

It was a wonderful experience for all of us and it has been a

magnificent way to open the horizon in our daily work.

Quite a lot of new ways of teaching will influence our work in

the different schools and therefore we are really thankful to

our national agencies as to the EU to finance this project.

Stainz, 17th of September 2015