Maureen Amoroso – Education Officer – KTI Achieve
Participating in an Erasmus+ experience had always been a priority on our initiatives’ list as King’s Trust International Achieve team, and this scholastic year we managed, for the first time ever, to participate in a staff mobility experience through participation in the Traditional Arts and ICT Art Tools for Teaching Your Subjects and Promoting Life Skills course in Amsterdam. Participants were myself as Achieve Education Officer and Lorraine Caruana, Graziella Erkayasi and Stephen Micallef Cucciardi as Achieve Heads of Department. During the one-week course we also met and networked closely with participants from Greece, Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia and Czech Republic.
During the course we were exposed to different ways in which to integrate the use of traditional art techniques and ICT art tools into teaching. The course was based on the notion that the language of art is universal, and it connects the left and the right sides of our brain, completing an experience that involves our senses, our emotions, our creative and critical thinking, and enhances the development of all life skills. During the various sessions we practiced drawing and painting (doodling, traditional drawing, intuitive drawing, drawing and painting with specific Apps and photography (traditional and creative photography in various techniques). Guided imagery and short techniques for meditation were integrated and completed the creative experience. We were also introduced to the notion of Artificial Intelligence and enhanced our skills in Canva, CapCut and various translation applications to facilitate the social sharing of the proposed activities in the classroom.
As active participants we were involved in an active learning process, also focusing on personal experience and self-expression, combining cognitive and emotional elements to make the learning process easier and ensure long-lasting retention of the new knowledge.
The course definitely helped us in:
- Using traditional art techniques and ICT art tools in order to deliver Achieve in an interactive way
- Understanding how to actively maintain students’ attention and motivation throughout a class
- Improving the use of doodling and guided imagery to stimulate creative and critical thinking, as a useful starting point in the learning process
- Having more confidence within our own creative process
- Being able to combine the acquired techniques with the learning outcomes of Achieve
In addition to the academic competences acquired during our Erasmus+ mobility, we surely also enriched our intercultural awareness and immersed ourselves into the Dutch culture through various extracurricular activities offered. Our personal highlights were the guided walking tour through the historic city centre, the visit to Zaanse Schans, various museums and the Lights Festival on the canals.
We are extremely thankful for having the chance to live this experience, meeting the amazing people we met and getting introduced to the incredible opportunities Erasmus+ projects have to offer. We have already started dissemination of new skills learnt with around 100 Achieve educators and we look forward to continue disseminating newly acquired skills achieved through this experience with all Achieve educators. We look forward to future similar experiences to be able to continue gearing ourselves towards innovation, well-being, arts, and improved school environments, with a constant focus on 21st-century skills, whilst becoming more knowledgeable in relation to latest trends, methodologies, and tools in teaching and learning.
