Creativity
As the world becomes increasingly digital, both students and teachers face a number of unprecedented challenges. The key question is how schools may develop new learning and teaching methods to integrate digital media technologies across the curriculum while sustaining a balanced focus on the cognitive, affective, social and creative competencies needed by young Europeans in the 21st century.
Creativity - “The use of skill and imagination to produce something new or to produce art”
This is the definition of creativity provided by the Oxford Dictionary. As part of the Erasmus + project in Barcelona, we, the participating students got the opportunity to investigate the importance of creativity within all project modules developed for 'Transdigital Education'.
Creativity is a vital aspect of our learning process. It is directly linked to one's culture, social environment and the space provided for creative freedom. The Erasmus+ Project is a fitting example of this specific space, inspired by the intercultural and open-minded company of international students. We would like to dig into this topic and present some of our creative output to showcase the importance of creativity within the Eramus project.
What does CREATIVITY mean to you?
Module 1 - The Concept of "Bildung"
This was the kick-off activity and the starting module of the main project “Transdigital Education” by Erasmus+. Due to the pandemic no project week took place. Instead, the students worked together on the online platform eTwinning. The project focused on education as a whole and the different approaches to providing education. Students in their schools were asked to describe their personal views on education and their hopes for improvement. Through the creative process of designing mindmaps, participating students not only dealt with the question, but also with creative ways of visualizing their ideas. After they had creatively and digitally presented their ideas, all participating schools exchanged their results with each other.
Additionally, the students dealt with the question of how to express the fundamental goals of their Erasmus+ project by designing a project logo. The designing process was set up as a competition, in which students from all countries could submit their suggestions. The focus of the logo was to represent the international values and the collaboration beyond digital platforms. Afterwards, students from the participating schools could vote online for best logo.
Module 2 - Envoirnmental Awareness & Engagement
Despite the pandemic students met in Ikast (Denmark, 20.-25. September 2021) as part of a rewilding project. The focus of the project was to look at how we can repair damaged ecosystems and restore degraded landscapes. This is important because it helps to
- absorb carbon,
- reduce the effects of climate change,
- reverse biodiversity loss,
- improve human health and well-being.
Creative ways of exploring our relationship with nature and hands-on creative pieces of work were also part of the project.
Some students made photo leporellos to show unexpected beauty in nature. Others thought about our relationship to nature and wrote creative speeches from the point of view of different animals. This required intellectual curiosity and the creative adoption of an entirely new perspective.
The goal of this project was to raise awareness for the loss of biodiversity.
Making insect hotels and nesting boxes for birds proved to be a collaborative which required artistic and practical forms of creativity, often underrepresented in school. It was a truly holistic learning experience, fostering our understanding of how easy it is to improve wildlife habitats in people's gardens.
Module 3 - Democratic & Civic Participation
This project took place in Strasbourg (France, 3.-8. April 2022), where the participants looked at civic engagement in today's communities and its effects on our respective democratic systems.
Active democratic participation is the foundation of our democracy!
We will not see real change unless we work towards and vote for it. In Strasbourg we discovered the difference between simply being a citizen in a democratic country and being directly involved as a member of a democratic body on various levels, like councils or parliaments.
Next, it was discussed how society should prepare young people for civic duties and rights, such as elections in democracies. How can schools encourage students to take responsibility, how can they make us understand how democracy works and what it requires? We reflected on whether schools may raise democratic awareness through projects such as ERASMUS+ or MUN and what benefits these bring. The main creative approach in this project was the production of videos about the options you have for democratic and civic participation in your hometown, -state or -country.
As a preparation, the participants had committed themselves to voluntary activities in the fields of arts and music, sports, and social engagement and reflected on their activities and the benefits they bring on, a personal level and for society as a whole.
Creativity was a key, too, when students reflected on the issue of logic, or rather the lack of it, in everyday situations (and populist claims). Short videos showing examples of fallacies (logically invalid reasoning) were prepared by the students and presented during the meeting. So, creative action was followed up by critical assessment. Students needed to tap into their creative potential and their critical thinking skills when choosing the right form to clearly express their ideas about everyday fallacies.
During a separate teacher training, which took place in Ikast (Denmark), the international teachers exchanged views on different approaches to promoting European values and understanding democracy and civic engagement at school. Colleagues and schools benefitted from this sort of collaboration, as our creative mind is nurtured by collaboration and new ideas are being developed.
Module 4 - Character-Building & Personal Development
This project week was organized by Siauliai Didzdvaris Gymnasium (Lithuania, 29. May - 3. June 2022). During the week students worked in mixed groups to prepare podcasts about how people react to social media, how it affects their personality and how dependence on the internet can have negative effects on life styles, communication, relationships. Podcasts were efficient formats to boost creativity and to provide a platform for expressing oneself. Firstly, one had to decide on a catchy topic for discussion, think of a number of thought-provoking questions, prepare the scenario and then present it in an informative and entertaining way, paying attention to ones’ tone of voice, intonation, informal speech. Secondly, one had to choose the podcast software with possibilities to edit and add audio effects if and when needed. The podcast had to inspire responses or other forms of feedback in the audience.
Finally, students learned that every person respond to social media differently, some are happy as they have more opportunities to express themselves more than before, for example to connect with their families across the world, make new friends, explore and exchange ideas on local and global issues.
What kind of impact may social media have on the development of a person’s character?
Everyone on the internet can connect with anyone through games, chats, and other social platforms. We talked about how the change in our image / alter ego on the internet affects others worldwide. Filters and other photo editing programmes are misleading in real life and create insecurities due to the alleged perfection of ideal bodies and personalities presented online. Especially young people often believe in the authenticity of these pictures. Through the creative process of recording and writing a podcast, students addressed this critically and offered their own solutions.
Module 5 - Digital Literacy & Learner Autonomy
During this module students from the five countries met at the Miedzynarodowe Liceum Paderewski w Lublinie, Lublin (Poland, 25.-30. September 2022) to discuss the trends that are believed to have a lasting effect on the future of the European Union.
Mega trends of the 21st century: urbanisation, digitalisation, gentrification, climate change and educational change
Each of these trends was presented in an infographic as a result of intensive research and reflection within groups of 4-5 students.
Creative design - a result of collaboration and communication!
Making effective infographics takes an intense exchange of personal, often local, experiences, but also of necessary research, reflection and dicussion on the subject. The actual design of the infographic was a challenge. As collaborative products, these infographics required intense communication across language barriers to decide on a design suitable to convey the essential information in a clear, concise and appealing way.
Here are some examples of infographics about...
… the causes, advantages, and disadvantages of urbanisation, as well as the differences between high- and low- income countries.
… the history and future trends of digitalisation worldwide, as well as within the EU, its advantages, and disadvantages in the project countries.
… what gentrification is and why it happens, as well as examples of it in Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Germany.
… the causes and consequences of the greenhouse effect, as well as climate change in general, available technologies to reduce climate change and how to reduce our carbon footprint.
… the importance of educational change, its actual development and local factors that either promote or hinder educational change.
Module 6 - Forms of Learning
This project week took place at Miedzynarodowe Liceum Paderewski w Lublinie, Lublin (Poland, 9.-14. January 2023), where students collaborated on different types of learning. They investigated three different approaches to learning in international groups, in which they exchanged ideas and shared observations. The diverse approaches to learning included
- media-supported teaching activities,
- exploratory / independent digital learning,
- and learning outside the classroom / on-site learning.
Students observed IB lessons, discussed the creative use of digital media in classrooms in their home schools and host country, visited educational places outside the classroom.
For their analysis of media-supported learning students used their own classroom observation sheets.
A different approach was taken for on-site learning when students visited Madjanek Death Camp and the Holocaust memorial in Kazimierz. Through the creative process of journaling they were able to document and evaluate their personal impressions and analyze their emotional responses to this particular form of learning.
Module 7 - Deep Reading in the Digital Age
In this module, which took place at Goetheschule Essen, in Essen (Germany, 17.-22. April 2023), students studied and discussed different “bildungsromans” and coming-of-age novels. In preparation for their project week, they reflected on their reading strategies and the difficulties they encountered. To dive even deeper into the novels, the groups from each country produced creative adaptations in different formats, which were presented during the project week.
Our creative work:
- a Twitter novel based on “Benedict’s Thresholds” by Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė (Lithuania)
- infopages about “Springtime / Przedwiośnie” by S. Żeromski (Poland)
- Fan fiction based on “Looking for Alaska” by John Green (Spain)
- Fan fiction based on to “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky (Denmark)
- a theatrical adaptation of Robert Seethaler’s “The Tobacconist / Der Trafikant” (Germany)
Within the Erasmus workshop during the project week, all students from the 5 participating countries creatively combined their prepared work into another theater play.
This required an immense amount of creativity, as the different excerpts came from different novels, countries and periods and told different stories.
The final play consisted of a newly developed introductory story, leading a detective and a scientist through time by using a time machine, as well as an unexpected ending. While designing the scenes, all participants improved their key competencies in creative thinking and acting. They put together the script, worked out intonationa and body language, as well as the set, the lighting and sound effects. The result was a coherent play based on five completely different novels, which was still true to value of each of these novels.
Let us also not forget that a group of passionate students dedicated their time to the press team, which allowed them to creatively visualize the process of staging in the magazine “ERASMUS on Stage”.
Module 8 - Transdigital Perspectives
This final module was set at the Escola Voramar Barcelona in Barcelona (Spain, 21.-26. May 2023) where students worked on the concepts of the 4Cs: Creativity, Critical thinking, Collaboration, and Communication.
In order to prepare for making this website, we all studied MOOCs before the start of the project week. MOOC stands for “Massive Open Online Course” and describes a variety of courses that provide valuable information in various forms. In Spain, we were split into separate international groups to focus on the creation of our own website as the final product of this project. This process was also shaped by our creativity, for example when we discussed and brainstormed content and produced the website design. We had to agree on font style, colours, layout, pictures, links, user-friendliness. The main goal was to present the information as densely and creatively as possible. As some of us had participated in prior Erasmus projects we knew of the creativity involved in every step of this 3-year project - and we hope we managed to let is show!
Conclusion
Our mini-products of the Eramus+ modules over the last 3 years illustrate and reflect the creative input and dedication of all participants - teachers and students alike. Through tireless work, the international members of the Erasmus+ community explored, applied and expressed their creativity through podcasts, journals, info graphics, reports, mindmaps, videos, theatre plays - and all the time practised their communication and collaboration skills in mixed international groups.
Creativity was stimulated through the constant exchange of different cultures and perspectives as well as the awareness of the significance of this programm. We are thankful for the opportunity this project has given to us. We have not only found creative solutions; we have created a community of international friends with the abilities of applying the knowledge and skills that are needed in the 21st century!