The minutes of the Transnational Project Meeting
for the Erasmus+ project
"My Micro-region in Macro-Europe – A Young European in Restructured Space"
held at the Zespół Szkół Ogólnokształcących Nr 2 –
XI Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Marii Dąbrowskiej w Krakowie
from 16 – 18th November 2016
Attachements: 1. The programme of the meeting
2. The attendance list signed by all participants
The participants of the meeting:
Monika Bartos, Adam Jończyk, Maria Luisa Pino, Maria Jose Barrios, Ana-Cristina Manea, Alexandra Manuna Marcu, Sanita Meziniece, Olga Vinogradova, Costanza Chirico, Adriana Mincione
It has been agreed that unless any partner school raises any objections as to the content of this document within two weeks after it is sent to all partners by mail, all the decisions and obligations are considered as accepted by all partner organisations.
The following points have been discussed and decided during the meeting:
1. Recruitment of participants
It was decided that for the soft skills workshop to be effective there must be a minimum of 12 participants at any stage of the project. They do not have to be the same participants throughout the whole project – as for some schools it is impossible due to organisational aspects (i.e. students going to exam classes will leave the project) A maximum number of participants depends on each school and participants can also be non-travelling students. Each school will prepare and conduct transparent and fair recruitment procedure, based on the rules published on the school website prior to application of procedures. Each school must prepare and publish rules regarding recruitment, participation, mobilities, hosting and being hosted, resignation from the project and anti-crisis rules (i.e. procedures in case of participants failing to fulfil the project requirements). The following common recruitment criteria have been chosen:
· Fulfilling formal requirements – providing the coordinators with the required documents signed by participants and their parents.
· Participation in project local activities
· General participation in school regular activities
· A participant questionnaire – self-assessing their motivation, reliability and willingness to work
· A participant’s form teacher’s/class teacher’s questionnaire - – assessing the participant’s motivation, reliability and willingness to work
· A covering letter explaining why they want to participate in the project and how the experience will be useful for them
· A test of communication abilities in English – in order to take part in international activities a participant must be able to communicate (B1/B2 level)
2. Soft skills workshops
Since there are 4 international meetings during which we are going to work on “The Book of Good Practices”, soft skills to be practiced have been divided into 4 areas (dealt with one at a time) and within each area the following skills have been chosen:
1. managing yourself (to be worked on before and during the meeting in Riga)
· ability to present yourself
· time management
· decision taking
· recognising your skills: strengths and weaknesses
· the sense of dignity
2. motivation and communication (to be worked on before and during the meeting in Romania)
· communication between people
· styles of motivation
· starting a conversation
· a sense of when to say sth or when to stay quiet
· gathering information: asking questions, interviewing and presenting it
· preparing and leading a discussion: being a leader of a discussion panel
3. interpersonal abilities (to be worked on before and during the meeting in Spain)
· cooperation
· group work
· common decision taking
· taking a responsibility for a commonly attained results
· common problem solving
4. entrepreneurial skills (to be worked on before and during the meeting in Italy)
It has been decided that the specific skills for the area of entrepreneurial skills will be discussed and chosen during the next international meeting.
Each meeting will be dedicated to one area. The minimum number of participants for a workshop to be effective is 12. Non-travelling students can take part in the workshop. The maximum number of participants is to be decided individually by each partner. Each partner will be working on a given area before the meeting in the following way:
● organise a sufficient number of workshop sessions during which students will take part in activities which focus on practising the commonly chosen skills within a given area.
● At the beginning of a series of workshops on a given area, students will be given a questionnaire (test) which will indirectly, by problem-solving questions, assess their skills in this area. The tests will consist of 3-6 questions each and will be prepared by the Polish partner. The same questionnaires will be applied at the end of the workshops devoted to a given area. This will allow us to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the work, the activities and the project itself.
● At the end of each workshop session both the participants and the instructors/observers will fill in assessment questionnaires about each task. The participant questionnaire will focus on how they perceive each task, how it helped them recognise their skills, how they used the skills, if they thought it was helpful/useful. The instructor/observer questionnaire will be a simple chart where pluses/minuses will be given for each task/participant i.e. the performance of each participant in each task. Based on these questionnaires, each school will choose one best activity for each practised skill that will be brought to international meetings.
● During international meetings the chosen tasks will be done in international groups of students - which will allow us to assess how the activities work on the European level and they will be included in “the Book of Good Practices” with comments on how they work on international level - i.e. work well for students from all countries in the partnership.
● All assessment forms and quizzes/tests used during workshops as well as short reports written after the workshops will be kept for further reference to document the work and the process of selecting the best activities for the chosen skills
For the introduction of the “Book of Good Practices” each school will prepare some photographs and a paragraph as a presentation of the school. It should be a presentation of specific school activities, i.e. how each school does things connected with the area worked on in the project (entrepreneurship, employment, soft skills etc.)
Also the results of peer-teaching/learning session regarding presentation, negotiation and creative problem-solving will be included in “The Book of Good Practices”
3. Videos about regions
The videos will present regions and their socio-economic environment
During the international meeting in Latvia the videos will be a material for comparisons, discussions and conclusions. The Latvian team will plan and prepare activities for students to find similarities, differences and draw conclusions by groupwork method in international groups. To make sure the videos will be comparable and possible to put together they will be made according to a common outline. The videos should mainly present the process of restructuring each region/area/city (depends on each country) and its various aspect. The points will be covered in the same order, so that it is easier to compare the regions during common activities:
● Information about the history and culture of the city and the region, taking into consideration economic changes (if any) between approximately 1945-1990 (each country will choose a period that is relevant to their history – the point is that it is not too distant and not most recent)
● Information about economic changes in the city and the region (if any) from approximately 1990 till today (most recent period in history)
● information about the current economic situation in the city and the region: population, employment profile, unemployment rate, the structure of companies and businesses, main forms of enterprise (relatively less information on the current situation, as the two main points are crucial to showing the process of restructuring*)
*current economic situation will be extensively discussed in the maps
The length of videos – 7-10 min
Technical requirements: video format .avi
4. Maps showing the current economic situation and illustrating the process of restructuring of the regions
Maps will be done based on the current situation.
Aspects to be covered in the maps:
● Demography: Current demographic structure of the city and region (density of population, age structure, social and professional structure, the level and structure of education, birth rate, migrations, men and women, working people and retired people)
● Geography: Information about the natural environment of the city and region (landform features, natural resources, types of soil, forests, protected areas, water management, climate)
● Economy: Information about the economy of the city and region – current situation (unemployment, location of companies and enterprises, schools and universities in the city/region, job market)
Technical requirements:
For now it has been agreed the maps will be made in the form of slides. The Romanian partner will consider this matter further and final decisions regarding the technical aspects of the maps will be taken during the next international meeting in Riga.
Since the maps will focus on the current situation, in order to understand and show the process of transformation, presentation changes in the following aspects (historical data till now – the starting point will be any point that is relevant for the given region) will be prepared in visual form: graphs, pie charts etc:
· unemployment
· the structure of employment
· migration
· level of income
· age structure
· structure of companies
· pollution
The presentations will include 5 slides about how information was gathered
Since one of the main objectives of this part of the project is making students discover/realise what kind of job market/business environment surrounds them the participating students must use various sources of information and use discovery approach, including contacting and interviewing/surveying local businesses and public institutions. (Students should, for example, request public information from local and government institutions, survey several business managers about e.g. barriers they encounter in their activities and interview a worker of unemployment office about what job offers are popular, etc.). The partner schools will organise this part of local activities in the way that excludes limiting the sources of information solely to the Internet. This way we train students to be independent in gathering information and processing it. The way some of the information was gathered will be included in the presentations from all partners.
5. CV in Europass
Every participant - travelling and non travelling - will be required to prepare their CV in Europass. Each school will be responsible for organising the procedure and making sure CVs are written correctly.
6. Peer-teaching/learning session for presentation, negotiation and creative problem solving skills
The materials developed in this part of the project will be included in “The Book of Good Practices”
Each school will prepare a theoretical and a practical part on one aspect of presentation skills and one aspect of negotiation skills. By a theoretical part we mean a slide presentation/video and by a practical part we mean activities to be used for practising given skills. The Spanish partner will divide skills regarding presentation and negotiation among partners so that every school works on both areas (i.e. presentation and negotiation) but they don’t work on the same aspects of them. This way different aspects will be covered and no aspect will be presented twice. During the international meeting in Spain, the Spanish partner will prepare common activities to apply the prepared tasks in international groups.
For creative problem skills – every school will prepare one problem to be solved in this way. During the international meeting in Spain the Spanish partner will prepare common activities in international groups during which students will solve tasks.
7. The interactive game simulating starting and running a business.
The educational game will allow for a practical application of the knowledge about starting and running a business including preparing documents, taxation etc. It will be created by an external contractor employed by the Polish partner, who is responsible for coordinating the work on this product.
The materials for the input will be prepared by students as business plans and simulations as well as preparing information about legal requirements etc - for the international meeting in Italy In Oct 2018.
The Polish partner will find a contractor and acquire information about the details of the game which will be realistic regarding technical possibilities and the given budget, and especially the details of the input that needs to be prepared by partners by the time of the meeting in Romania in October 2017.
The game will simulate starting and running a company in one of the regions where partner schools are situated. The game is supposed to give a player choices about various aspects and stages of the process, which will lead to other choices etc. At some point of the game, after choices regarding the profile of the company etc. have been made, and the player needs to deal with formal aspects of registering their company, the game should include 5 different paths, depending on which country the player wants to work in, and then, since the markets work in a similar way in all the 5 countries, the player should come back on the common path. The game will not be fully realistic, because the choices cannot be open-ended but obviously the number of them must be limited, but it should try to put in practice the theoretical information students learn in economy/entrepreneurial classes. Choices are obviously limited in the game -it’s more like a revising of information they have learnt during the classes - it should show how starting and running a business works, what the steps are, what aspects need to be considered. The game should also be in some way exciting and include some outcomes like, e.g. going bankrupt or signing a promising contract.
The following aspects are to be covered by the game:
● Analysis of the idea (do you have enough skills/knowledge/qualifications? legal risk? unique selling proposal? business plan - brainstorm, SWOT analysis, Mind Map, Business Model)
● Identifying target group (who are your customers? What are unique characteristics of your product/service - benefits for your customer? Size & dynamics of the market (business, consumer, intermediary)? Entry barriers? Is the market segmented? Have you selected target market correctly? Are your products seasonal? Distribution? Pricing policy? Analysis of competitors? Positioning of the product in the minds of target customers?)