Out and About - Developing Functional Knowledge through Outdoor Learning

The School Team for the evaluation of the final exams of the students of grade 8 in Serbian schools as well as in Turkish school, had been pointing out for several years back that our students str...

One of the objectives of the project was to integrate outdoor learning approach in the regular classes on regular basis. Furthermore, we wanted to focus primarily on the STEM subjects, and link this so-called 'difficult' subjects to real-life situations , raise the level of motivation of students to learn these subjects and ultimately, as a sustainability goal of the project, to reach better results in the final exams. The collaboration with the Faculty of Education in Jagodina was to deliver research of the impact of functional knowledge implementing outdoor learning. The tests were created so as to cater for the needs and achievements of the students taught according IEP who more than other need functional knowledge to ensure their safe, successful and efficient transition to further levels of education. Our general goal was to motivate students to learn more , be more inquisitive, more self-confident and happy while learning.

The main activities of the partnering organisations are three transnational project meetings, four learning/teaching trainings. First training was delivered by the professors of the Faculty of Education on the principles of OL, next seminar dealt with the techniques and digital tools for evaluation of the outcomes of OL, and two LTTs were students mobilities during which the OL lessons and activities had been implemented and their outcomes evaluated. For the purpose of dissemination of the project results 4 multiplier events were organised with local, national and international participants.

The three project results have been created. PR1 is a digital collection titled OUT AND ABOUT TREASURE CHEST consisting of 40 outdoor lesson plans created in the Serbian, Turkish and Greek schools. PR2 is a research on the impact of outdoor learning on the level of acquiring functional knowledge of the primary school students. PR3 is a digital application named DIGITALLY OUT AND ABOUT which consists of the tasks from maths, science and social studies for the students of year 3 and 4 and they are created in four languages: Serbian, Turkish, Greek and English. During the project, it is noticeable that the students' level of motivation and satisfaction with the outdoor learning method has considerably risen. The students with weak academic results in regular classes participated much more actively engaged in the activities and the level of their self-confidence have been boosted. - The teachers and the students developed their intercultural competence particularly during the mobility of Turkish students in the Serbian school and when hosting Serbian students in the Greek school. - The level of English language knowledge of participating teachers and students has been noticeably increased. - The self-confidence of the students with weak results in the regular classes will be boosted, - Students’ motivation and satisfaction with the learning process considerably raised, - Teachers’ motivation for the participation in this kind of the projects, namely KA2 projects increased and it can be seen by the number of teachers who took part in different activities of the project, particularly in the creation of lesson plans and multiplier events.