The fourth all-Poland “School with Class 2.0” Festival was held in the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw on June 17-18, 2014. The festival served summing up the year’s work of students and teachers participating in the “School with Class 2.0”. The festival was organized under the honorary patronage of the wife of the President of Poland Mrs. Anna Komorowska.
Under the “School with Class 2.0” program, during the whole school year 350 headmasters, 2,000 teachers and 50,000 students from schools all over Poland have learned how to wisely use new technologies in learning and teaching and how to use the Web in a responsible way. Also, the program participants were developing skills of cooperation, problem solving, critical thinking and presentation. During the Festival 250 students and teachers from 50 most outstanding schools presented results of their educational projects, classes conducted using the mutual learning method. They also had an occasion to tell about their passions and present their exhibits prepared along the lines of those of the Copernicus Science Center.
On the first day, the Center for Citizenship Education Foundation and the Copernicus Science Center held the substantive workshops for students and teachers. The second day of the festival had an official character: schools were presenting their achievements to experts and visitors. Among invited to do so was the Elementary School No 11 in Wejherowo with its “Më ùczimë jinszich – Learn with us” project promoting the Kashubian language learning and folklore of the region. The students developed the multi-media self-study guide with the basis of Kashubian language as well as quizzes and crosswords, among other things. The Elementary School in Kuchary Kościelne at its stand invited visitors to “Wandering in the wilderness of Nadwarciański Landscape Park and Pyzdryska Forest” – the students prepared videos, interviews and publications presenting this region. One junior high school in Warsaw presented a stop-motion animation encouraging to learn French. In total, visitors could see close to 50 projects from all over Poland. The experts’ assessments of the students’ projects were enthusiastic – they emphasized their multidimensionality, self-reliance and cooperation as well as wise use of new technologies.
At the Festival plenary session four students presented their interests which they were pursuing during the entire school year as part of Student Scientific Forums. Student Scientific Forums are a special path of the School with Class 2.0 consisting of preparing interesting in form and content presentations comparable to speeches at well-known TedX conferences. In the Copernicus Science Center, on June 18, 9-year-old Michał told about bikes and bike paths, Karolina from Łódź spoke about ladybugs, Bartek looked for scientific answer to the question why people are afraid of darkness, and Kuba from Wrocław explained the rules of effective communication and rhetoric on the example of Student Scientific Forums.
During the Festival Alicja Pacewicz of the Center for Citizenship Education Foundation, initiator of the “School with Class” action, disclosed the motto of the next round of the program, which will be: “Read and discover”. Michał Boni, MEP, spoke about the European dimension of the School with Class and former Minister of Education Katarzyna Hall emphasized the diversity of topics and various forms of activity of young enthusiasts – participants in the Festival.
The Festival ended with a debate on “What does our school teach us? The most important challenges for Polish education in the years 2015-20″ with the participation of experts, teachers, representatives of ministries, public institutions, NGOs, local governments and media. The introduction to the debate was made by Piotr Pacewicz of Gazeta Wyborcza, who presented the dynamics of Polish education results in the world surveys carried out in the years 2000-2013. The experts analyzed to what extent good results in rankings reflect the condition of Polish education and what future educational models should be like in Poland for the school education to keep up with the changes in the globalized knowledge society. The conclusions from the debate will be published by the Center for Citizenship Education.
“I can say with pride that the Festival is a real feast of modern education, student-oriented, encouraging young people to ask questions and search for answers to them,” Agata Łuczyńska, director of the School with Class program summed up a two-day Festival.
More information can be found at: http://www.ceo.org.pl/pl/szkolazklasa2zero
The “School with Class 2.0” is a program carried out as part of the “School with Class” action that has been implemented since 2002. It promotes the use of information and communication technologies in learning and teaching. The organizers of the program are the Center for Citizenship Education Foundation and Gazeta Wyborcza. The Polish-American Freedom Foundation it the partner in this undertaking.
