GROWE – Get Readers on the Wavelength of Emotions

Project No. 2018-1-IT02-KA201-048481

Project duration: 1 September 2019–31 December 2022

Project co-funder: EU program Erasmus+

Project coordinator: University of Gloucestershire (UK)

Project partners:

Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci (Italy)

Asociatia LSDGC (Romania)

Šiuolaikinių didaktikų centras (Lithuania)

Project website

Project team

PROJECT RELEVANCE

Both literacy and social-emotional skills are of crucial importance for lifelong learning. Pupils who do not master literacy skills are unlikely to succeed in formal education. Throughout a child’s development, the time devoted to literacy-related activities remains essential to the acquisition of reading literacy skills. The European Literacy Policy Network therefore recommends that all teachers receive effective initial teacher education and professional development in literacy teaching and learning in order to be well prepared for the tasks of making all Europeans able to read and write at a level that enables them to function and develop in society, at home, at school and at work, in order to achieve their aspirations as individuals, family members, workers and citizens. This recommendation calls for so-called disciplinary literacy approaches. Disciplinary literacy refers to the specifics of reading, writing, and communicating within a discipline, focusing on the ways of thinking, the skills, and the tools used by experts in the disciplines. Each discipline has a specialized vocabulary and components unique to that discipline and we believe that teaching these can be best achieved by using authentic texts. In this regard, our project aimed to blend disciplinary literacy and social-emotional skills with the aim of ensuring children’s metacognitive development in terms of key curriculum subjects.

PROJECT AIM

This project aims to develop teacher trainers’ and subsequently teachers’ competences to address students’ literacy and emotional learning needs by developing a model of integrated intervention relying on the use of high-quality authentic texts (different from school textbooks) selected from contemporary children’s and adolescents’ literature.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

1.  Increase the partner Organisations’ capacity to support teachers in developing their students’ literacy and social-emotional skills.
2. Develop and test an in-service teacher training course in blended learning format to prepare teachers for addressing students’ literacy and social-emotional learning needs.
3. Develop a toolkit (OER) featuring good practice to inspire teachers to adopt effective strategies for developing their students’ literacy and social-emotional skills.

PROJECT TARGET GROUPS

The project is aimed at adult educators and teachers of various subjects. Project participants – schools and students – tested the integrated program for developing subject literacy and social-emotional skills.

PROJECT INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS

GROWE Training Course Curriculum (2022)

This training course addresses primary and secondary teachers in pre-service or in-service. The course aims to develop the teachers’ professional skills to address students’ literacy and social-emotional learning needs.

Download LT, EN, IT, RO

Methodology for Data Collection to Document Piloting (2022).

This intellectual output will allow us to study the effects of the training course on the trainee and existing teachers and their students, based on which we will be able to revise and finalise IO1

Download LT, EN, IT, RO

Data Analysis: Survey of GROWE Training Course Piloting 2020–2022 (2022)

Siekiant pamatuoti integruoto dalykinio raštingumo ir socialinio-emocinio ugdymo mokymų programos efektyvumą, buvo atlikti tyrimai, kuriuose dalyvavo mokytojų rengėjai, mokytojai praktikai , mokiniai bei pasiremta įvairiomis duomenų rinkimo ir analizės priemonėmis.

Tyrimas parodė išaugusias mokytojų žinias bei supratimą apie DR ir SEĮ ugdymo svarbą ir gebėjimą paremti bei palengvinti mokinių DR ir SEĮ mokymąsi bei įgyvendinti GROWE strategijas savo klasėse. Nustatyta, kad po GROW programos metodų taikymo pamokose, pagerėjo mokinių dalykinio raštingumo, socialiniai-emociniai, kalbėjimo bendradarbiaujant, skaitymo supratimo, rašymo mokymuisi, savęs pažinimo, santykių palaikymo įgūdžiai.

Download EN

Good Practice Toolkit  (2022). [Open Educational Resource in national languages]

The current toolkit is aimed at sharing key ideas of the GROWE approach and examples of good practice to inspire teachers to adopt effective strategies for developing their students’ literacy and social-emotional skills and insludes practical tips from the project’s implementation by secondary school teachers in Italy, Romania, Lithuania and the UK.

PROJECT RESULTS

• The project brought together four partner institutions (youth and adult education NGOs, higher education institutions) from four countries (the United Kingdom, Italy, Romania, and Lithuania).
• Four intellectual outputs were developed.
• 12 teacher educators trained how to deliver the teacher training programme (participants in the LTTA).
• 100 trained teachers highly skilled in developing literacy and social-emotional skills in the classroom while teaching various age groups and disciplines.
• 2500 students improved their literacy and social-emotional skills as a result of participating in classroom activities that pursue these goals explicitly, in addition to discipline-related learning objectives.
• 4 schools adopted school-wide practices to improve literacy and social-emotional skills in an integrated manner to support their students’ academic success and personal growth.

PROJECT DISSEMINATION

The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.