Abstract:

At EU level, a set of eight key competences for lifelong learning has been defined. Among others, digital competences and sense of initiative and entrepreneurship are particularly important for employment, personal fulfillment, social inclusion and active citizenship (Recommendation 2006/962/EC; Entrepreneurship Education at School in Europe, 2012). Although most of the Member States have adopted national strategies to develop key competences, further support is required for the development of transversal competences such as ICT and entrepreneurship. There are different ways to integrate these competences into the curriculum across Europe. Among them, the cross-curricular approach is followed by most EU countries. However, this strategy has several challenges to be tackled. First, there is a low level of integration of digital competence in mathematics, sciences and languages. Second, teachers need to improve their skills in ICT and entrepreneurship and collaboration crossing subjects boundaries is required. This change is difficult to achieve since many countries have subject-based organisation and specialization, which is the case of most secondary education systems. (Developing Key Competences at School in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities for Policy, Eurydice Report, 2012).

Moreover, entrepreneurial thinking is related to problem-solving competence, which is defined as an individual’s capacity to engage in cognitive processing to understand and solve problem situations where a method of solution is not immediately obvious. It includes the willingness to engage with such situations in order to achieve one’s potential as a constructive and reflective citizen (PISA 2012 Assessment and Analytical Framework, 2013). Engagement or, in other words, motivation is critical to use skills and knowledge to solve problems.

This paper will show the results of an Erasmus+ project called MOTIVA, which aims to achieve the following objectives:
1) Fostering cross-curricular development of transversal skills by innovative learning approaches. Entrepreneurship and digital competences were fostered in Secondary Schools, by adapting and creating digital contents to be implemented in different subjects.
2) Improving students’ motivation. Using ICT-based methodologies improves students’ motivation and performance. The key concept of this project is that introducing ICT in the classroom goes far beyond placing the students in front of a screen, to watch an interactive activity or animation.
3) Fostering ICT and entrepreneurship teachers’ skills. First, training activities and results were considered in how to interact and develop common goals in terms of transversal skills across different subjects. Second, assessment tools were researched and tested to foster a common evaluation framework that can be used and adapted in different countries to assess sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and digital competence.
4) Improving ICT implementation efficiency and access to OER. To achieve this, economic and technical issues were considered. The e-learning system runs with no need of investment in additional hardware devices. Smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices can be incorporated as available options to its deployment.

Keywords:

MOTIVA, Entreprenaurial skills, lifelong learning, ICT.