Teaching Creativity and Critical Thinking in the classroom

Course overview

In our pursue of preparing students for real world careers and challenges and equipping them with 21st-century skills, we often forget that as educators, we have a duty to dream and create spaces where everyone has the opportunity to be creative and bring out the best in themselves. The aim of this training is to raise confidence and broaden knowledge in educators and teachers in adopting different techniques and methods of encouraging their students to become more creative and develop their critical thinking and problem solving skills in the classroom. In this way, we will be effectively preparing them to be manager and directors of their own future, a constantly changing reality where they will be able to successfully apply their 21st century competences to take on complex and open-ended challenges.

Main objectives

This training course aims to provide participants with different strategies, tools and ideas tailored to their needs and realities in order to inspire students’ creativity and critical thinking through innovative and interactive teaching methods based on experiential learning. The general aim of this course is to foster excellence in education by empowering teachers, trainers, headmasters and other education staff to find strategies and ideas to foster creative learning while sharing best practices and experiences with fellow participants and trainers throughout all Europe gaining as well a broader understanding of education in Europe.
Thanks to this course the participants will:

Develop a greater understanding of the differences between formal, non-formal and informal learning as well as the basic non-formal education principles;
Broaden knowledge about the importance of developing creativity and critical thinking;
Learn activities and games aiming at shaping creative thinking;
Develop tools based on their students’ realities and concerns;
Learn how to engage students and motivate them to establish effective collaboration and develop problem solving skills as well as their self-esteem;
Learn how to lead and deliver experiential activities to stimulate the students’ creativity in problem-solving;
Get to know Outdoor Education principles and advantages using a practical and experiential approach;
Exchange good practices and discuss challenges with fellow colleagues and the course trainers.

Sessions planned

Bologna
01/12/2019 - 07/12/2019
03/05/2020 - 09/05/2020
23/08/2020 - 29/08/2020

If none of these dates suits you please mind that if there are at least 8 participants interested we may organize an additional session ad-hoc for your school.

Target audience

This course is addressed to teachers, trainers, educational counsellors, career counsellors, school psychologists, headmasters, school management and administrative staff working in primary schools, secondary schools, vocational schools, training centres, adult education schools, higher education, kindergarten and NGOs.
Please mind that the course may include teachers from different school levels. In case you would like to attend a session tailored for your school level, please write to staff@ifom.info to check if there is any session planned.

Language

The course is held in English. For groups with at least 8 participants, we can organize an ad-hoc session in a different language.
Please write an email to staff@ifom.info to get more information about it.

Standard daily programme

Please find below the standard indicative daily programme that will be personalized on participants needs and professional profiles.
Our standard program comprises 7 days of course, of which the first one is dedicated to networking, preparation and cultural immersion and the last one to follow up, specific needs and cultural activities. Please note that we always do our best to accommodate the specific needs of our participants in a flexible way, including but not limited to budget restrictions and travel arrangement. Participants can choose to arrive 1 day before the start of the course and/or leave one day after the end of it in order to enjoy a deeper cultural immersion. Upon specific request we can organize longer or shorter versions of this course.

Sunday	- Participants arrival - Individual orientation and information about the venue and the city - Networking activities - Guided visit in Bologna (optional) - Welcome dinner
Monday	- Course introduction - Competences ex-ante evaluation - Ice-breaking activities - Teambuilding exercises - Basic concepts and principles about non-formal education as method to develop and reinforce 21st century skills - Reflections on current teaching practices and styles
Tuesday	- How to foster students’ motivation, participation and creativity through non-formal, informal and experiential learning activities - The importance of creative thinking when working in groups: benefits and challenges - Experimenting group exercises, problem solving games and experiential activities to establish effective collaboration through creative thinking - Cultural activities in Bologna and traditional Italian aperitif
Wednesday	- Key principles and benefits about outdoor education and outdoor learning - Philosophy, theory and practices of experiential education and environmental education - Experiencing outdoor group exercises and problem solving games to foster creativity through environment - Guided visit in Florence (optional)
Thursday	- Using tools and activities to foster creativity in critical thinking - Practicing activities to develop creativity in support of language development - Non-Formal methods and pedagogies to strengthen creativity in problem-solving - Tools and guidelines for assessing and validating in a creative way through non-formal activities
Friday	- Experiencing creativity based-pedagogies to teach and foster sense of entrepreneurship - Practicing and designing lessons using creativity skills and tools - Delivering your own creativity workshop to apply in classroom - Dinner in traditional Italian restaurant
Saturday	- Space for discussion of future cooperation and planning follow up activities - Course roundup and final evaluation - Validation of learning outcomes and certification ceremony - Additional training session tailored to specific needs (optional) - Cultural activities or additional guided visit in another major Italian city (optional) - Participants departure

Pre-registration

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Other relevant facts

Methodology
Costs and Erasmus+ Funding
Certification and Validation of learning outcomes

We tailor the working methods based upon participants’ needs, attitudes and professional profiles in order to ensure high productivity, effectiveness and transferability into practice.
The standard methodology is highly practical and participative with hands-on approach that comprises real-job examples, case studies examination and simulations. We embrace collaboratively working methods that foster mutual learning and cooperation among participants. Our focus is on learning in an interactive and international environment knowledge applicable to the real contexts and/or in the classroom. The pedagogical methods that we use are based upon experiential training, group and peer activities, learning-by-doing and best practices’ exchange. They include visits with local schools and institutions allowing the participants to better understand the local education system as well as exchange ideas and contacts.
Morning Wrap-up and brief daily evaluations are foreseen to ensure quality of education and to adapt the learning programme to participants' needs better tailoring the education.
We organize optional social, networking and cultural activities in order to give participants the opportunity to know Italy as well as to exchange best-practice and establish professional cooperation and links.
The training and staff team is multinational thus giving a full European dimension to the course.

Teachers, trainers, headmasters and any other staff of education organizations are eligible to receive an Erasmus+ grant covering all the costs to attend our training courses including travel, board and lodging, cultural activities and all fees. Our training courses are tailored to be fully funded by Erasmus+ and we offer different options to ensure that the Erasmus+ grant will be sufficient. Read more about Erasmus+ funding, shall you have any problem with your grant please let us know and we will see how to accommodate your needs.
The most common option that we offer costs EUR 1220 and includes course fee, certification and support fee, accommodation in single room, all coffee breaks, 3 meals per day, walking tour in the venue’s city and local transport during the training course. Based on your preferences and budget you can request different services, a less inclusive/cheaper package or you can choose to organize the board and lodging by yourself and opt to just attend the training course. Read more about how we take care of your subsistence.

At the end of the course, each participant will be awarded a certificate of attendance including a description of training content and as well as its starting and end date, together - if requested - with the Europass Mobility Certificate.
We support the participants in every step of certification an d validation of learning outcomes with specific focus on European instruments and Erasmus plus requirements such as staff mobility/learning agreement, quality commitment and Europass mobility certificate.
We experienced that schools and education organizations may require additional documents to certify the competences learned or the presence in the training course. Upon request we can provide additional certification and reporting documents as well as we provide photos of the training course and a sum-up video that can be used for visibility and dissemination purposes.

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