неделя, 18 септември 2022 г.

LTTA in Montana, Bulgaria "Soft skills-key to career successs" 2020-1-BG01-KA229-079053_1 , 29.05-4.06.2022

 

LTTA in Montana, Bulgaria

Soft skills-key to career successs

2020-1-BG01-KA229-079053_1

29.05-4.06.2022

The activities of the Erasmus+ project Soft skills-key to career success, 2020-1-BG01-KA229-079053_1 Learning Teaching Training activity “Leadership and responsibility”  that was held in Montana, Bulgaria between 29 May - 04 June 2022 (with travel dates included) was developed in accordance with the required specificity of the application form.

Thus, on Monday 30 May the partner meeting was officially opened for the project at a Foreign Language High School “Petar Bogdan” in the presence of local authority and Montana School inspector of foreign languages. The activities included welcoming concert, short speeches from the Principal of FLHS, from the representatives of the local municipality.  Yana, one of our students involved in the project, presented the guest teams in a very artistic and unforgettable way. At the background, the flag and coat of arms of each country was presented. The coordinators presented their teams and greeted all participants in a unique way. The main activities of the first day were presentations: Bulgaria- How to be a leader, Poland-How to spot a bad manager, Italy-Effective working in a group: Why it’s important and how it’s achieved, Romania-How to develop your future leader skills.

Cross- cultural activities promoted creativity, imagination and leadership, group discussion, a consensus about the most effective steps to take in a leadership situation. In the afternoon all participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with the sights of the city, in order to take the first steps in communication-team building.

          Activities were the occasion for focusing on seeing different cultural understanding, awareness.  Thus, we visited the ancient fortress Kale.

In the evening the groups were invited to attend a creative and entertaining activity “Wine and Art” at a romantic place in the city (The Hub). Both students and teachers had canvases brushes and colors and under the guidance of one of our students had the chance to draw a picture and take it home in a relaxing atmosphere with a glass of juice, cup of tea, or a glass of wine for the teachers.

          On Tuesday 31 May 2022 Workshop-Situational leadership activities took place: 
“Jumping ship”, “Ducks in a row”. Workshop Games and activities to learn: “Planning 
strategies, Move the egg”, “Same or different”. The workshop was conducted by 
Aleksandar Todorov, a volunteer, graduated in Scotland, psychology. Participants took
 part in Quick self-assessment test- to raise their awareness.

          In the afternoon they visited Klisurski monastery and Chiprovtsi, where they got acquainted with the traditional crafts - Chiprovtsi carpets, known not only in Bulgaria but also in many countries around the world.

On Wednesday 1 June 2022 we visited Belogradchic rocks, a famous cave “Venetsa”, where they developed joint activities regarding soft skills concerning how to deliver information, how to communicate in order to be persuade, how to strengthen their active listening and speaking, how to be aware of and effectively express body language facing obstacles in real communication.

On Thursday 2 June 2022 Workshop /seminar/–“Leadership and development of leadership skills. The workshop was conducted by Maria Derizhan, lecturer from Training and educational centre  “Happiness”, Sofia.

Expected results:

- sharpened interpersonal skills- leadership, communication, negotiation.

- knew how to collaborate.

- planned properly to design and implement communication strategy.

- sharpen interpersonal skills including leadership, communication, negotiation,

 expectation management, influencing, problem-solving, and decision-making;

- know how to collaborate;

- knew how to establish group norms, how to determine and assign roles to team

 members to be critical in order to achieve a successful learning experience.

The schools benefited by improving their curricula, management strategies a focus

 On global and European values.

 

Working together to figure out which leadership style was used in each scenario

and talking about whether it is effective, or if a different style could work better

. Encouraging participants to think about themselves in a similar situation reflected

on a particular leadership style.

 

After the break teachers discussed the interdisciplinary approach. As an innovative school, the coordinating school “Petar Bogdan” shared the experience in this field, working on national projects, visiting different innovative school in Bulgaria, as well.

Later on, students and teachers filled  Workshop Evaluation survey and LTTA mobility survey.

In the evening students and teachers gathered together for farewell party- certification ceremony. First, Bulgarian students prepared and showed an amazing video about the most beautiful places in our country, second they prepared a presentation of the most unforgettable moments during the LTTA in Montana.

Students were given:

Certifications of participation in LTTA from 29th of May to the 4th of June 2022.

          Certifications of participation in a seminar on “Leadership and development of leadership skills” as a part of 2020-1-BG01-KA229-079053_1 “Soft skills-key to career success”/Erasmus +Project in Montana, Bulgaria.

          Declaration of Attendance

          On Friday 3 June 2022 we visited Sofia.















понеделник, 25 октомври 2021 г.

 DIGITAL IN-DEMAND DICTIONARY


Digital in-demand soft skills dictionary




 

Short-term joint staff training report

Within the Erasmus plus project ‘Soft skills-key to career success, 2020-1-BG01-KA229-079053_2, the short term joint staff training meeting took place in Comiso, Italy, from 13 to 17 July 2021.

Ten teachers including one principal, coming from Bulgaria, Romania and Poland met the Italian teachers’ delegation from Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore ‘Giosuè Carducci’ after a long pandemic period which made it necessary to reshape the previously scheduled meetings.

The aim of this transnational meeting was that of sharing good practices in “Teaching Methods for Inspiring the Students of the Future”.

During the first day of workshop, in respecting Cooperative learning and Peer tutoring approaches, the Italian group presented all partners the idea of using a brand new application called ‘ App-Erasmus’. This application was created by the Italian partners by thinking about a way of involving either students or teachers in building up a sort of logbook of our Erasmus adventure , by keeping a record about places, traditions and habits shown by the partners taking part to this project. App-Erasmus will grow up during the remaining time of the project and the next mobilities. Inside it, the puzzle pieces showing the flags of Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Italy represent the partner countries. The hosted partners could easily download it through a file shared by Google drive. By clicking on the flag of each country it will be possible to travel virtually through traditions, art and customs of each partner country, which students and teachers can experience themselves during their mobilities.

The idea was that of moving from the virtual to the real, from the pandemic time of imaging how to move into a better world, to a real world of great things to do for the future. Students guided by the teachers have to upload news, music, pictures, videos about all those aspects.

During their call conferences, partners specifically had asked Italians to explain them how to use Thinglink, an education technology platform that makes it easy to augment images, videos, and virtual tours with additional information and links. Actually, Thinglink was the application used to present a video about introducing Italian students to the project members, the presentation video had been shared in Facebook and E-twinning.

So, on the second day of workshop, Thinglink platform was introduced by using a tutorial video. After creating a Google account, each partner guided by Mrs Zago, who showed the peers all the tools contained in the application, could practise in creating their own products. In the end , everybody displayed the results of their research, shared opinions and made questions that could help the entire group.

On the third and last day of workshop, partners discussed about "Survival kit", decided about possible dates for next mobilities and shared clear rules regarding students accommodation, transportation, costs. Those rules will be written by the leading country in this project , Bulgaria, shared, accepted and signed by all the partner countries before mobilities. We used technology to record, presented videos about the hosting and hosted schools, submitted a final evaluation and suggestion questionnaire online for recording the outcome of the meeting . We found many benefits and challenges of peer tutoring for teachers and students. As next mobility to Romania, from 3 to 9 October, will include students in Romania, the leader of Romanian group , Mr Dragomir suggested about what to work on, involving students before moving to Ploiesti. As a matter of fact, one of the planned activity in developping life skills will be a fair in Ploiesti exposing products created by partners responding to principles of creativity, originality, sustenability. The fair will also be a competition and the best product will win a prize.

Next scheduled mobilities will be:

Bulgaria 7-13 November

Italy 12-19 March

Poland 3-9 April

Romania 1-7 June

This schedule could be changed if the pandemic situation will request it.

Besides workshops, as shown in the agenda previously presented to Bulgarian, Romanian, Polish partners, they took part to a guided tour of the town of Comiso, visited Gulfi winery where they could learn about winemaking systems and taste some of the most popular wine produced in the South-eastearn part of Sicily, experienced Chiaramonte Gulfi extra virgin olive oil served on bread, they had a typical Sicilian lunch at Ganzeria farm, they visited the Castle of Donnafugata and spent the last day at the seaside where at Kaukana Sailing Club, visited the fisherman village of Punta Secca and saw Casa Montalbano, where the famous tv serial is set.

Three days, a short but very fruitful time in order to decide how to cooperate, work and involve students in the process of developping life skills and make them successful people in their career. The impression was positive as we had been working as a team, sharing experiences and helping each other in finding solutions to problems. The evaluation questionnaire will tell us about strengths and weaknessess of this first meeting, but we are already satisfied as Italian group gave its best in hospitality, as the Mediterranean, Greek origin has handed down from father to son.









неделя, 17 юни 2018 г.

Children's Conference project

Children's Conference project 

We met at the eTwinning conference on Creative and Cultural Education in Munich last year in May. I not only remember  the special and entertaining conference opening by the Paper Theatre group and its »Children's Conference« project that you've been promoting and supporting  ever since but also I started working on some good ideas.

During the years I have been working on creative ideas with my students through project works

“Art in foreign language learning” – https://stvs-sts.blogspot.com/2014/07/blog-post.html   

We have come to the conclusion that learning a language is not just grammar, it can become something interesting and fun.

My blog          https://stvs-sts.blogspot.com/ 
 I am confident that cultural education encompasses a wide variety of practices, the potential to develop skills and approaches that students need: the ability to ask questions, to make connections motivates me to choose a professional development seminar in Munich last year.
In my everyday teaching process, I have always tried different techniques to stimulate my students in accumulating new ideas and creative paths in their learning. From the conference  in Munich I got a lot of experience and inspiration. When I came back I put ideas into practice. I started working on the questionnaire or the topic of children's rights and the rights to express themselves.
The motivation to participate in the project corresponds to the results of the current project work and supports the School Development Strategy Plan, in particular: to encourage pupils to think creatively and independently, to argue convincingly, to take responsibility and make decisions, to work in a team.


In class I worked using the questionnaire book by selecting some of the questions related to our English syllabus. These are: What is happiness according to you? How do you imagine the world in 20 years?  Which are the most important things you need to have around you and the things you do not need? What sentence would you write in capital letters on a wall that everybody could read? Write a letter to the government with questions and proposals!
 After a series of lessons, I summarized the topics, then trough a lotto approach the students got questions to think on and present their view. They self-organized groups of interests and collaborated with how to present their ideas. Posters, flip-chart, computers were their tools. The classroom turned into a creative space. As a result, students prepared very interesting presentation “School in 20 years". Some of the students were overwhelmed by the idea to create a logo of a creative classroom. It was a sign for every product. The students not only painted, drew and decorated but also developed strategies on how to present their works to the other school students.
They made an exhibition and not-stop rolling PPP in the lobby of the school. That attracted everybody’s attention and my students were very happy to give explanation of the products and answer questions to the audience.
The most effective methods were enquiry based approach, problem solving, critical thinking, project-based approach, presentation and teamwork; speaking techniques – practice and prepare, organize material in the most effective way, let your personality come through, use humour, tell stories, use your voice and hands  effectively, grab attention; creative writing- Accurate and concise use of language (vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, ease of readin
I shared my ideas with colleagues from my school PMPG “Kl. Ohridski” Montana. It was cross work because some of them also had nice ideas and good approaches in developing cultural education. Most of them worked with the kids in clubs:  Unicef, club “Europe”, English language-easy and interesting, Traditional art festival   etc. Step by step through art, discussions, problems solving and variety of social events we tried to reach students confidence and self-esteem. Our students are at different age, that’s why we always gave publicity to our work – school website, posters, blogs. Some of the most remarkable events are:
-Traditional annual carnival where students present their hand made masks and costumes and compete into two categories for artistic make up and costumes.
- MultiTalent Quest, where Gergana Tsvetomirova Tzvetkova from the 11th grade of the PGP presented our school remarkably, demonstrating knowledge, talents and skills during the second round of the competition, conducted entirely in English, in Blagoevgrad. She was chosen among the 64 finalists of the first round of the competition, where she successfully expressed herself through a creative video-CV and a successful online English test.
The organizers of the event from the American University in Bulgaria gave special thanks to the Montana PGPM for encouraging their students to participate in projects that develop creativity, critical thinking, teamwork and leadership skills of young people.
-          Deputy for a day –Euroscola, Strasbourg- Students from our school won the contest to participate in the debates of Euroscola. They discussed six main themes: environment and renewable energy; security and human rights; 2018 - European Year of Cultural Heritage; the future of Europe; migration and integration; Youth employment. As MEPs, they showed confidence, dedication, and perfect English. Their participation showed their peers from all over Europe that our school prepares future leaders and gives them opportunities to realize themselves.