GEM IN first international workshop: best practices regarding education and intercultural citizenship

From the 16th to the 18th of June 2020 the first international workshop of GEM IN has taken place, after the KOM of few months before.

The meeting was held online because of the sanitary emergency caused worldwide by COVID 19, but this hasn’t been an obstacle for ideas sharing or to the building of a good network.

Indeed, the workshop, led by CESIE, has seen a great involvement from all the partners and very interesting results have been achieved.

The main topics that have been discussed are:

• EU values, social and civic competences, fundamental rights, education to intercultural citizenship: how to transmit them using the learning by playing approach;
• Sharing of the impact studies conducted by the partners on national level on the needs of spreading new values in educational contexts through the mean of the boardgame;
• Rationale for selecting GEM good practice and effectiveness under quantitative and qualitative terms;
• Adaptation of the learning practice to new target groups and features from field implementation;
• Set up of strategy and methodology for its implementation;
• Further innovative elements to be included as the Digital Archive of Common Values

After a brief introduction of the previously implemented project GEM by CESIE, different brainstorming have followed, in order to identify the values, the activities, the topics and methodologies that are important to develop in and with the boardgame, with a special focus on the methodologies of creative thinking and learning by playing, core of the project.

The role of digitalization within the game has had some room to be discussed, through the explanation of the Digital Archive of Common Values: its aim is to build a bridge between the boardgame and the webpage of the project that will contain all the topics of the game.

It will enrich the learning experience of the students and will provide a valuable tool for the teachers thanks to its innovative resources; it will be also an important tool to promote the European values of intercultural dialogue and social inclusion.

After three days of intense work, the meeting has ended in the best possible way; we can sum it up by quoting a feedback from a partner: “We shared among us the values we want to promote with the project”.

About the project

GEM IN – Game to EMbrace INtercultural education is a 24 months project cofunded by ERASMUS+ KA3, Support for Policy Reform, Social inclusion through education, training and youth.

Partners

• CESIE (Italy)
• SYMPLEXIS (Greece)
• Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece (Greece)
• INOVA+ (Portugal)
• CASA DO PROFESSOR (Portugal)
• CARDET (Cyprus)
• THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL (Cyprus)
• Compass – Beratung, Begleitung und Training Gemeinnützige GmbH (Austria)
• ALDA (France)