Evaluation of the project

Introduction

As discussed in the chapter about the model, an effective evaluation is based on its planning in the beginning. The coordinating team of this project has led this work very well and it has been a valuable learning process for all partners.

The project was organised in three phases over three years and two meetings were held within each phase. A formal evaluation took place after each meeting based on each meetings objectives, and that work influenced strongly the ongoing development the whole time.

However, in the first application form in the beginning, following objectives (goals) were set for the project:

• To exhange experiences about complimentary-teaching activities (CTA) with other schools. To analyze different CTA-models to see how to involve the whole school environment into the project and how to reflect in the activities the country's culture and traditions. To reach this goal we should be able to increase our pupils' participation, perhaps from the very moment these activities are designed.
• To benefit from those who are not directly linked to the educational institution such as other associations, organisations, companies, individuals and the students' family.
• To identify and compare strategies in each participating school and develop as many ways of integrated studies from different school-areas as possible, in order to improve the quality of the complimentary-teaching activities.
• To design and develop a model of CTA and show examples of our practice that could also encourage and help teachers in other schools of Europe to adopt and use complimentary-teaching activities.
• And finally, we defined goals for the participating teachers. They will get benefits by getting knowledge of:
• Achieving more skills and abilities in complimentary-teaching activities and creating a model of CTA.
• Being informed about and trained in Information Technology (IT).
• Improving their communication skills in foreign languages.
• Practicing methods of evaluation and reflection.
• Visiting different schools in each participating country and studying their cultural and social reality.

To evaluate these objectives each partner team was asked to answer what are the strong and weak points of our project? What are the future opportunities of our project results (products) and what impact has the project had in our school? The results are as follows:

Strong points of the project?

We have reached the major part of our objectives. This has been based on a very well organised meetings, useful exchange of information about CTA and each school's approach to intergrate the model in whole or in parts.

It was very interesting to learn to know each countries school and educational system. Also to compare the systems, cultural and social reality in the participating countries and each school's opportunity to organise and execute CTA.

In the first phase, each school introduced its CTA development, gave visual and written description of it. All partners agree it was one of the most valuable steps of the project.

During the project many teachers in each partner school have accomplished valuable experience and skills in preparing, executing and evaluating CTA. Also all teachers participating in the project and its meetings have considerably improved their foreign language skills.

One of the project's major success was to fulfil the objective to develop a model, that describes the process or the steps from first preparation, through execution and evaluation of the whole process.

In the beginning all partners agreed to design a common acitivity based on the intergration of the model. This objective was partially accomplished depending on each school structure, some developed just a part of it, following few steps of the model but all schools did a great job due to their situation.

Weak points of the project?

Looking back, communication between partners was weak in some respect.

A decision was made to have all communication between partners within WebCT and also to use that system to store all the project's documents and information needed during the work. However, some partners had from the beginning difficulties using that system and some partners forgot for weeks to check the mail in WebCT and thus did not participate in the discussion or follow the flow of information very well. This also became evident in partner's respect for deadlines when information or work was required.

During all our work, it became clear, that the participating schools are from countries where democratic ways of working are based on different traditions.

For example, it was difficult to connect the school's work with the local environment, due to difference in school's opportunity to break up timetables. Also the flexiblity in the school's curriculum is very different between project partners. For example the tradition to visit local companies and institutions (for educational purpose) is very different between countries and companies are very differently prepared to participate in CTA school work.

Finally the partners failed to integrate a new partner team in the project, which only followed the project through the second year.

Future development of the project and the use of the model

All participating teams do have a clear vision of future usability of the model developed. All teams, regardless of whether the schools have tried the model out in whole or only followed a part of it, state they see further possiblities to export the model to other local schools together with examples of CTA-ideas developed by participating schools.

However, in some schools the school's curriculum is strongly fixed and the room for flexibility is very narrow. Thus, it can sometimes be very difficult to find a topic that is suitable for all subjects to approach. Small steps have been taken and new ideas need time for adjustment and further development.

The impact the project has had in the participating schools (or their school environment)?

In all participating schools the impact of the project has been great. All teams agree that each school has increased the quality of pupil and teacher participation in CTA. In some places the teachers have to face very strict curriculum and unflexible timetables but still try to promote their own teaching and develop this idea of CTA more in their school.

However, the project has made impact on the vast majority of teachers in each school requiring teachers and other staff to work together with a new approach. Also, many teachers are now more skilled in managing integrated projects and more aware of what steps need to be taken in order to make a CTA happen successfully. The biggest advantage has though been the use of the model, which makes every step of the process from preparation phase through the evaluation phase more clear and evident to everyone involved. All teams of participating schools agree that they have learned how important the preparation phase is. Every school has changed the way the preparation has been organised. All teams agree, that following the model, in whole or just part of it, saves time and peoples energy, not only because everyone can see clearly what has to be done and in what order, but also because in the model it is defined who is responsible for what and when (in the workprocess). That counts for all staff, students and other people outside the school.

During the development of three years many parents and other staff of the participating schools have become more aware of the role of CTA at schools and in some cases other teachers (than participating teachers) have become more positive to organising students' education through CTA. That is a victory in itself!

Finally, most participating teachers have improved their communication skills in foreign languages and even decided to do further studies in field of "untraditional teaching".

As can clearly been seen this project has been a great success for the partners and their schools. Precious connection between countries have been made and it has been a very valuable experience, fruitful in terms of school development and very enjoyable to participating individuals, both socially and professionally. It is sometimes important to learn to know what and how others do, to be able to reflect on your own school work and take it one step further, and closer to become a better school.