The Da Vinci Code

About the project„The Da Vinci Code“:

Project has been created as an answer to numerous research studies in the area of science education, which have proven the fact that students have a negative attitude toward studying scientific subjects. Studies have shown that the lack of understanding is the main problem for students’underachievements. Students study without any actual comprehension and are mostly passive in the educational process, which hinders their ability to use the knowledge in everyday life, decreases their functional literacy and the development of key competences. On the other hand, this problem lowers teachers’ motivation for work and introduction of new pedagogical tools and instruments. The problems in secondary education lead to the declining interest in science studies, which leads to the decline in innovations, which is indirectly creating new problems for the European economy. The PROJECT GOAl is to increase student interest and understanding of STEM disciplines by using new innovative methods and approaches which will enable students to actively participate in interdisciplinary lessons, as well as in project-based learning.

The project TARGET GROUPS are teachers of STEM and IT subjects in secondary schools and their students (aged 14-19). Digital technologies have an impact on education, training and learning by developing more flexible learning environments adapted to the needs of a highly mobile society. Skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, ability to cooperate, creativity, self-regulation are more essential than ever before in our quickly changing society. They are the tools to make what has been learned work in real time, in order to generate new ideas, new theories, new products, and new knowledge. Therefore our project aims to build on the next level of understanding science through the formation of key competences.

The FINAL GOAL of the project is to prepare 12 interdisciplinary key competences lessons (2 per country), 30 STEM projects for project-based learning that use real-world problems, as well as a system for evaluating them. These products will be distributed to all schools in partner countries and will be available on the project site. Through their application, the following key competences will be acquired: Digital competence, Mathematical competence and competence in science, technology and engineering; with the solution of real problems set in the projects – Citizenship competence, Entrepreneurship competence; for participants in international meetings – Multilingual competence, Cultural awareness and expression competence. Through these products and their dissemination, we will achieve our goal of open education and the creation of innovative practices in the digital era, which will be a sustainable investment in quality and effective education and training.

The first meeting of the “The Da Vinci Code” project, under the Erasmus + program, “School Sharing Partnerships” started on 28th November 2019.The coordinator of this two-year project is the “Asen Zlatarov” Vocational School, Vidin, and our partners are schools from Italy, Latvia, Romania, Portugal and Serbia. The main goals of the project are to improve science education by creating interdisciplinary lessons, incorporating new teaching approaches and project based learning. The first meeting is attended only by teachers from partner schools. During the November 28th-30th meeting, the main activities are school presentations, good practices, organizational issues, developing lesson templates and project assignments. We have also planned two trainings with guest lecturers.

29/11/2019 – Second day of the Erasmus + international meeting of “The Da Vinci Code” project. Today our guest lecturer and consultant was Ivo Jokin – Scientix Ambassador of Bulgaria, Galileo teachers training programs ambassador and head of the municipal center for out-of-school activities in the village of Baykal, municipality of Dolna Mitropoliya. He presented to the team resources for an interdisciplinary approach to science education from the Scientix portal, the largest project of the European School Network, GoLab, NextLab, mobile and online laboratories and inspirational science education – Inspiring Science Education. The resources and approaches presented were very useful for the partners. They gladly got involved in the tasks of studying secret boxes, sundial, spectrometer and more. Frameworks for developing interdisciplinary lessons and project-based training were discussed and developed. After lunch, the guests had a tour of Vidin, guided by the students involved in the project.

A training on using new and exciting approaches in the classroom was held on 30th November, 2019 within The Da Vinci Code Erasmus + project. The lecturers were Greta Raykovska and Radina Mladenova. They presented two interesting methods for making classroom learning more interesting – Art in STEM and Escape classroom. The aim of the training was to present to the project participants various good practices and methodologies and how to use them in the interdisciplinary lessons that will be developed in the project.The project partners and teachers from the “Asen Zlatarov” Vocational school participated in the training.

Desislava Tsokova, PG “Prof. d-r Asen Zlatarov”, Vidin

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