The purpose of the project “Game to EMbrace INtercultural education” – GEM IN is to support intercultural education at school and in non-formal youth environments as vehicle to foster social inclusion, cross-cultural dialogue and active citizenship by promoting European values. At the same time the project intends to provide inputs and policy recommendations for intervention strategies to promote intercultural education and active citizenship through an innovative educational framework. GEM IN aims to disseminate and scale up a selection of good practices developed within a previous project titled GEM in schools, non-formal and youth educational environments, promoting intercultural education as key lever to enhance the acquisition of social and civic competences and to promote the ownership of shared values.
Supporting intercultural education at school and in non-formal youth environments.
- To support intercultural education at school and in non-formal youth environments;
- To enhance the acquisition of social and civic competences;
- To promote the ownership of shared values;
- To promote critical reflection and innovative approaches to discuss about citizenship education under an intercultural perspective.
WP1. Project management and coordination.
WP1 consists of the overall management and coordination of the project including the financial management. The objective of this WP1 is to guarantee that provisions for the planning, organisation and monitoring of the project will be managed in an effective and efficient way. It includes details about the project implementation, meeting of project objectives and all technical activities and legal aspects of a coherent project implementation. Also, this WP1 includes: efficient time management and sound financial management at consortium level, coordination of the Work Packages, management of the project’s external relations with EACEA and stakeholders, and risk management.
WP2. Preparation for scaling up of the GEM good practice: adaptation of the learning practice and set up of strategic framework for its implementation.
WP2 insists on the assessment, sharing and validation of the selected set of good practices, methodological approach and learning experiences, first at partnership level, then by involving first-hand users (teachers, educators and social workers) in the content update and uptake of the product (including the development of a new digitally based tool).
WP3. Implementation of the GEM-IN learning practice & upscaling.
WP3 insists on the piloting of the board game and complementary tools in the framework of a more comprehensive education programme enabling critical reflection about multi-level and variegated concepts such as EU common values, social and civic competences, intercultural dialogue, etc. The feedback gathered through the envisaged activities will be of fundamental importance for the consistency and the upscaling of the good practice while finalising the renewed products. Main activities are: Preparatory training for teachers, Piloting of the GEM IN pedagogical kit, Finalization of the GEM IN educational programme.
WP4. Exploitation, policy impact and follow-up.
The aim of WP4 is to provide educational stakeholders and policy-makers with operational policy recommendations in the field of education and training that are relevant to the objectives of the Council Recommendation on promoting common values, inclusive education, and the European dimension of teaching and of the Paris Declaration. The WP aims to generate an impact at systemic level enhancing awareness and visibility of activities and outputs to an effective exploitation and long-term sustainability of the GEM IN project which will be guaranteed through a set of strategic activities for its transferability and scaling up at system and policy levels.
WP5. Dissemination and Communication.
WP5 focuses on the dissemination of GEM IN project and its activities, outputs and objectives. Dissemination activities take place during the entire project life-cycle in order to guarantee a wider impact and visibility of the project and effectively reach a wide audience. The dissemination activities put in place aim at ensuring the visibility of the project action, objectives and results, thus preparing the ground for the long-term sustainability of the GEM IN educational approach and for its mainstreaming in the educational field across partner countries and across Europe in different geographical and socio-cultural contexts.
WP6. Evaluation and Quality Assurance.
WP6 aims to monitor, collect data to track the progresses and make the necessary improvements in order to ensure the quality and relevance of project outputs and outcomes. The actions within this WP ensure a high quality of the GEM IN activities and results thanks to a regular monitoring and evaluation during the project lifetime.
The methodological approach: the use non-formal educational approaches in formal and non-formal field in the framework of the GEM project, had positive impact on the learning process of the involved teachers and youth workers as well as on their perception of the European community and the societies they live in. This methodological approach will be analysed in terms of impact, adapted and replicated in the GEM IN project. The methodological approach to be upscaled will be based on the following components:
- Learning by playing is the main methodology proposed, enabling to promote educational pilot programmes for intercultural citizenship through playing combined with other non-formal methodologies, empowering participants to the project’s activities to develop their knowledge and ownership of the common European values and increase their intercultural awareness.
- Experiential learning: students and young people will not only study about the topics of the board game, but they will experience the common values while playing and exchanging with each other.
- Cooperative learning promotes a flexible and productive exchange between participants. Each participant is expected to bring his/her previous knowledge, skills to share and learn from others, thus creating a collective pool of knowledge and providing diverse angles on the issue.
- Learning & working in intercultural teams is a strong opportunity to become aware of the relativism of the cultural paradigms.
- Learning by doing stresses the importance of learning directly from experience and active participation.
- Learning by teaching, enabling teachers and educators to experiment new pedagogical approaches using the GEM good practices while transmitting their knowledge to students.
- Participative approach, envisaging direct participation of students, young people and educators in the development of a new methodological approach;
- Transnational and multi-stakeholder approach, able to trigger and enrich reflection and to ensure flexibility and adaptability of the project results while encouraging cooperation between key stakeholders in the field of training and education