Erasmus KA2 Teachers Observation Pedagogy Has Officially Started

We are thrilled to announce the TOP programme, a joint KA2 two-year Erasmus+ project, has officially started. It sees four institutions collaborating in a job shadowing project, including EOI Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, CPIA, Milan, Univerzum Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Atlantic Centre of Education.

The core organiser of the project, Cristina Monti from the EOI, took time out to speak to us this morning and share what propelled the leading institution to initiate and carry through this ambitious project.

Cristina Monti is the Erasmus coordinator at EOI Maspalomas, a public adult language school. She has worked in the European Education field for decades, pioneering and conceptualising many projects and partnering with countless organisations. She is hugely experienced in organising Erasmus+ activities and is keenly aware of the benefits to participants. Over many years, Cristina has gathered feedback from programme participants to ensure projects she co-creates meet participant needs.

Seeds of TOP

Bearing in mind teachers’ objectives and day-to-day career requirements, EOI Maspalomas undertook to create a job shadowing programme with a difference. The objective is to run the two-year programme culminating in the co-creation of a job shadowing framework that language teachers can use and share with colleagues.

Cristina started by contacting previous partner institutions to lay out success criteria for the project. CPIA in Milan, Univerzum Ljubljana, and Atlantic Centre of Education emerged as partners and jointly applied and prepared for the official start of the programme.

This proposal rates in the top 5 in Spain with most proposals falling short of the EU’s tough selection process.

Together Observing Peers – Teacher Observation Pedagogy

The TOP project will see 12 pre-selected teachers participate in a 1-week kick-off course at Atlantic in Galway in February 2025. More participants will later join further meetings and activities.

Between the programme weeks, participants and their colleagues will test the content harnessed from each programme week. Teachers in each country and beyond will be able to refine co-created job shadowing tools and framework at each turn.

At the end of the final week in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, stakeholders will come away with an actionable and shareable job shadowing framework and tool for language teachers.

In our conversation, Cristina emphasised that she intends to broaden the scope of the tools by making them available to teachers of all subjects in the future.

Integrating the Four EU Priorities

Unlike most Erasmus+ projects TOP will integrate all EU horizontal priorities, including inclusion and diversity, digital transformation, participation in democracy, and the fight against climate change.

At each step of the programme – from conceptualizing the initial idea to reaching the objectives – organisers and participants will actively implement best practices relating to each principle.