Our city, a better city!

OUR CITY, A BETTER CITY!

Students from four schools and three different countries (Italy, Turkey and Portugal) have explored their cities to check sustainability and quality of life, in compliance with the basic Slow Cities parameters. They have analysed the results of their research in transnational teams and presented a list of suggestions to local authorities to turn their cities into better cities, thus becoming active citizens in their community. 

 

The leading methodological choices shared by all partners were  flipped classroom approach and  project-based learning. The students, working both independently and in small national and international groups, have been the protagonists and the centre of the projects, their curiosity and involvement have been encouraged, and they have tried to solve real-world problems which are meaningful to them.

The frequent use of polling for the choice of common tools or products, the request for students’ opinions in forums and even gamification in certain phases have stimulated students’ participation. The results of their research on sustainable policies in urban communities have been collected and reorganized in a deep comparative study of the different cities involved, in order to foster the students' critical and creative thinking.

The project has been embedded in the school common teaching plan and teaching via Etwinning has become an effective and motivating way to improve crosscurricular skills and competences. The learning units planned by the Foreign Languages Departement (the details of which are more clearly visible in the plan uploaded on Twinspace), based on the synergic development of  common key competences among  curricular subjects, have largely benefited from the precious contribution of this project, expecially in terms of vocabulary expansion and communicative skills.  A deeper knowledge of the local area and the preservation of its peculiarities has deeply met both Curricular and Crosscurricular Learning Units objectives, contributing to the development of  the assertive skills and the critical approach required in the different products of the project. The different tasks  carried out in both national and transnational teams encouraged  flexiblility, mediation and  new points of view.  Their sense of responsibility was extremely stimulated by the relantionships with local authorities: their interviews, the letter of transmission of the list of recommendations and the praise received in local press and institutional media made them experience the real meanìng of  active citizenship.

The founder teachers have involved all partners since the project moved its first steps. The relationships benefited from the intensive use of different channels (Twinspace, mails, a whatsapp group, videocalls, etc...) in order to discuss on any single point and choose common strategies. Some tasks were specifically attributed to a teacher (as for me, I was in charge of  initial and final surveys and I suggested to introduce the meetings with local authorities to better bridge the students' research with the real world, and created the final digital board for the project).

As a mentor teacher for my national and transnational teams I fostered discussion in forums and tried to support the weakest students who were more reluctant to collaborate. I helped my international team a lot in the creation of a list of recommendations to my target city to be used in the second online meeting and to be sent to local authorities.

As for the students, they welcomed this innovative and dynamic learning process and found energy and inspiration in the direct interaction with peers from different countries. They found the icebreaking activities and the games proposed for the first online meeting extremely amusing and motivating and improved their technological skills in familiarizing with new tools.  The second online meeting was a great success, since they used their products to lead a debate on the cities' sustainable policies and giving suggestions for improvements. They  gave their best in the creation of a  booklet about strengths and weaknesses in their city,  a teaser and the final common video revising the result of their research and suggesting the tool to be used.  My students contributed a lot to this task, offering to merge and create transactions among the single parts.

The contribution to the final  collaborative poem on Zumpad , used in the final video called “ A message to the world”,  sums up the spirit of the project and the impact it has had on the students' daily life.

The use of technologies and webtools has intensively been encouraged at different levels. A list of useful tools has been shared since the beginning with all partners and new tools have also been suggested by students when necessary (as in the common video shooting phase).

 The respect for Esafety, Netiquette and Copyright have been a priority and has improved their awareness in using the Net. Esafety issues  were  tackled in  different forum threads and on Safer Internet Day a crossword puzzle and a matching game were posted. The students and teachers  meeting recordings and the students’ videos and teasers have been published on a dedicated Youtube channel (with protected contents).

The great variety of tools used made the activities very engaging and fostered the students' creativity and expressiveness.  From Canva to Flipsnack, from Linoit to Zumpad, from Googleforms to Padlet, from Voki to Pixton, from Youtube to Filmora, and tools for gamification like Quizlet, Kahoot and Mentimeter, a wide support has come from technologies which have made the activities more enjoyable and appealing to students and teachers alike.

The project has left an indelible mark on my teaching strategies and on my students’ attitude, since we have opened our class to a more involving and active learning experience.

This opportunity was really precious in a long period of lockdown imposed by the pandemic and helped both teachers and students to come out of isolation,  to stay anchored to their urban realities and still take care of the world around them. 

The interviews with local representatives and the recommendations sent to local authorities (who praised and appreciated the iniziative with a letter of thanks sent by the city Mayor to the school headteacher and published on the Municipality official website) and the spreading of the project goals and results in school social media and local press gave more visibility to the entire educational institution. The project was also opened to visitors (students' parents and some school colleagues who left their impressions and assessment on a dedicated forum), raising interest on the extraordinary potentialities and effects of eTwinning projects.

The most valuable result  is undoubtely the students' growth as active protagonists of their local community and as members of a more and more global world, leading them to make "greener" choices and helping their home cities  to adopt more sustainable policies.

A  certificate of attendance has been released by partner teachers to all participants to thank them for their commitment.

https://earth.google.com/web/data=Mj8KPQo7CiExQ096RTlYMzl6eVY1UEZMTVpnTWtOajMybk0zV24xZWgSFgoUMEZEMzExOUQxMjFBMTlCNjJBQTM

All the project partners have been awarded a National Quality label and a European Quality label.