St’ART Project

Throughout this project, students and teachers from different countries collaborated by sharing their knowledge on common topics and were involved all together in a wide variety of activities during all the phases of the implementation of the project. 

This approach ensured a continuous comparison of ideas at didactic and methodological level, both locally and internationally. Moreover, by collaborating positively and actively, students and teachers could build and maintain a network of relationships. This strong bond that was created was desirable but not necessarily expected.

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The main positive effects that were observed in students during this period of time include:

• An increase in the involvement of the students in the developmentof European Community favoured by their travels and the artistic activities they were involved in (postering, stop-motion videos, photography, collages, artistic interventions, etc.) while guided by teachers and local artists. 

• A higher awareness of the students of how art can contribute to social changing.

• A growing open-mindedness of the scholars encouraged by the many cultural exchanges and the experience made during their stay with hosting families.​​​

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Teachers learnt from each other by sharing CLIL lessons, working together in the preparatory and evaluation activities and by planning the mobility during the project meetings. 

Teachers acquired a better understanding of practices, policies and systems in education across countries.

Students and teachers improved their English communication skills and witnessed an increase in motivation and satisfaction in their daily work. 

Schools and local communities (families, municipalities, artistic associations, etc.) realized the importance and scope of the Erasmus program.

 

The main results of this project were:

• The arrangement of a contest for choosing a Project logo among students of the partnership,

• The design of gadgets promoting the project,

• The creation of Power Points, PDFs, videos, stop-motions, pictures, designs, posters, architectural designs and models.

• The provision of school corners dedicated to Erasmus plus: on the website of the schools as well as physically in some areas of the partnership schools.

• The creation of an online Twin Space dedicated to the project.

• The creation of CLIL lesson plans for the project as a resource for teachers and students.

• The ad hoc publication of St’Art book: the book was used by the participants during their mobility as a logbook. It was also useful in the phases of monitoring and assessment of the project.

• The creation of this Website, a Facebook page and an Instagram portfolio.

 

The results that were not achieved due to the Covid-19 pandemic and related restrictions: 

• Final Exhibition of the project in the building of the Municipality of Pistoia

• The Conference

• The final Artistic Performance.

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As we outlined in the application, throughout this project we wanted to stimulate the cities involved in this partnership to look at themselves and at their needs.

We aimed at reaching awareness about problems but also at setting possible solutions through artistic interventions or by simply analysing how the past events may have contributed to the current situation in all the cities involved.

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Each school tried to identify specific patterns of action connected to their own reality, through the analysis of their own history and traditions. To do so, they involved local institutions, museums and sometimes artists. These latter have been involved in the various activities of the project in its different phases: from the design to the implementation of the activities during the mobility.

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With this project we wanted to promote cultural heritage as a creative input for our students. The activities listed below helped us acquiring awareness of particular and interesting aspects of the local culture, which would be otherwise unknown: 

• Bilbao, the city of women: stories of tradition and folklore of characters representing  women of Bilbao’s industrial era.

• Reykjavik, Once upon a time the magic nature around the city: the Icelandic folktales as a teaching for preserving nature.

• Porto, Ilhas do Bonfim: relief on characteristic urban spaces as evidence of the local industrialization process at the end of the 19th century.

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The preparatory activities for the mobility consisted of lessons based on CLIL methodology, structured on the topics that would further be developed during the mobility and conceived as Open Educational Resources. The lessons were given to all the students of the partnership three weeks before the departure both via e-mail and through the Twin Space of the project in order to encourage dialogue and comparison for the further implementation phase. Each lesson suggested at the end of the path a creative activity connected with the topic that was then exhibited during the mobility.

The lessons are in the form of individual interactive PDFs and are available on the websites of the various partner schools as well as on the website of the project. They will also be soon available on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform.

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The activities that the students benefited from helped them to:

• Improve their artistic creativity thanks to the various workshops and common preparatory activities (photography, collage, video, logo design, gadget design, digital simulations, architectural project, postering...)

• Improve their teamwork skills thanks to international meetings and the fact of being part of mixed working groups

• Improve their level of English language in listening, writing and speaking by attending and completing the CLIL lessons and experiencing the “linguistic shower” during the their international mobility.

• Improve their digital skills through the use of computers and tablets equipped of specific graphics and image editing and video production softwares (logo design, gadget design, video presentation, slow-motion video).

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The activities that the teachers benefited from helped them to:

• Improve their teamwork skills thanks to international meetings while designing the project activities, sharing ideas, competence and points of view. 

• Acquire a better understanding on how to manage the Erasmus project in its different phases (implementation, monitoring, evaluation, dissemination)

• Gain a broader understanding of practices, policies and systems in education across countries.

• Improve their communication skills in English.

• Improve their digital skills by managing and sharing files using Google drive, organizing virtual meetings, designing multimedia lessons through the CLIL methodology, producing multimedia presentations, setting up systems for monitoring and evaluation through Google Modules, updating and using the Twin Space and editing videos and the website.

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Overall, the results of the project correspond to what was planned and are perfectly in line with the priorities that were established at its start.

Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 emergency, we were unable to accomplish the last mobility in Pistoia, which was conceived as a big opportunity to discuss the project results and open to possible future collaborations between the cities of the partnership.

For this mobility we had involved the municipality of Pistoia and obtained the collaboration for holding a Conference, managing to also invite the representatives of the political and cultural institutions of the other European cities. Furthermore, we had obtained the permission of staging the final exhibition of the project in the frescoed rooms (Sale Affrescate) of the building of the Municipality of Pistoia, which was a great opportunity to obtain visibility at city level. 

Since the current Covid-19 restrictions don’t allow for physical meetings, all the material produced and prepared was conveyed to this dedicated website, in order to create a virtual exhibition of the activities carried out during our two-year project.

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