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"The complex challenges of today's world make it necessary for the European educational systems to adapt and respond with a new approach to learning. Learning must be seen as an on-going progress, building up continuously at every stage of life. Schools must equip students with the necessary skills to face a multicultural and multilingual reality, ruled by increasing accessibility to information technologies. Today, technology is changing how and what we teach. Knowing how to embrace this important change and how to utilize it in the best possible way is a mission that must be embraced by all levels of schooling. Our modern society has been defined as a ""fluid"", because it isn't based on the traditional and safe pillars of what had become the traditional lifestyle, but floats on new morals, new ideas, and a new perspective of the world, less dependent on traditions and more reliant on technologies. In this context, our project aimed at the introduction of transversal or soft skills in everyday teaching practice, in order to create a fundamental heritage for all students, a base upon which educators and learners will build a personal response to the complex requests and challenges of today's world. It is necessary that the schools form individuals and citizens who are able to react to problems by using their minds, will and emotions, people in whom competence and creativity, technique and humanism, sensitivity and vision are fully integrated. The inclusion of soft skills into everyday didactic will change the notion of learning as a reciprocal exchange which does not end with the acquisition of concepts, but it must provide the students with the skills to learn continuously, a continuous process of ""learning to learn"". In practice, the project started with an initial conference, held by Professors from the University of Ca' Foscari, Venice, who have already collaborated in our last Erasmus+ project. It focused on the introduction of the importance of soft skills and their practical application to didactics. The conference was open to the local teachers community and was an opportunity to launch the project as an international event. Right after the conference, two teachers from each partner country and a group of 8 Italian teachers moved to a residential, three-day training course held at H-Farm, Venice, a world-leading innovation hub (connected to the University of Venice) that seeks to explore new practices in education and designs approaches towards digital transformation. After this initial stage, all stakeholders of the project were personally involved in the creation of project-based activities which would promote students' engagement through deep investigation of complex questions and real problems, addressed using soft skills. During each international project, students worked in groups to seek solutions to real-life situations and practical problems presented by the local community. The involvement of local institutions was an essential step towards the final dissemination of the project results. Each group presented their proposal and, in the future and where possible, the winning one will be realized in the local community. At the end of all activities, a report was created, introducing soft skills in school practices and collecting all project-based activities which were shared with other teachers not involved in the project. For each international project, each partner school selected an average of 10 motivated pupils, and two accompanying teachers (among those who participated into the training program). All students were eligible to participate, but each school assured to include students with lower possibilities or social disadvantage. Students were engaged actively, in order to encourage their creativity and work in a cooperative way, leaning empathy, passion and resiliency. They also practiced their soft skills (communication, critical thinking, social responsibility, problem solving, teamwork and leadership, creativity and innovation) exploring problems with an authentic approach while building friendship outside their traditional learning environment. Students learnt to work in a team, sharing the same objectives in order to find solutions to real questions and issues. They also learnt to think critically and produce solutions in a competitive way. In the long-term, the final impact of our project will be the introduction of a new idea of learning into the traditional school systems, a continuous building up of experiences and skills in order to critically face the challenges of the modern world, equipping students with the necessary tools to address real problems. Project- and problem-based learning will increase young people's motivation, put subject content into context, and offer opportunities for the development of social, civic, and entrepreneurship competences for the challenges of the future."
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