External Evaluation of SEED Final Report - SEED - Schule.at

D. Internal Evaluation – Reflections
Reflections about the COMENIUS I Contact seminar December 2002
(Irene Krug und Günther Franz Pfaffenwimmer)
We had 70 enthusiastic and well experienced teachers from 14 countries at the seminar. Building and presenting the
poster exhibition gave an impressive picture on the variety and professionality of Environmental Education activities of
schools present.
It seems that focusing on a special topic “Environmental Education as driving force for school development” helped to
invite (= pre-select) interested and experienced teachers who found common interests and understanding. 2/3 of the
school present had contacts to ENSI in their national Environmental Education (EE) programmes.
The lectures by Michela Mayer on ENSI and its pedagogic approach and by Franz Rauch about the connection of EE and
School development helped to gain a common understanding of ENSI/SEED principles.
The different methods used to structure and moderate the contact seminar (lectures, group work, moderated group
processes, exhibition plus market, excursion/walk,) helped to keep up high working intensity.
Due to their intense communication and seemingly common ground teachers formed their project teams smoothly and
quickly, except one teacher who did not find an appropriate project.
Comments on preparing the contact seminar:
We had an e-mail exchange with the Belgian/Flanders National Agency. In the end they did not send any school to
Austria.
We had an e-mail exchange with the school in Germany /Hessen. The teacher was allowed to come but obviously he had
no clear mandate from his head of school and could not join a project.
We had confusion with some national agencies about who should pay the travel costs of teachers. Finally from Sweden
(totally) and Norway (partly) the National Board of Education paid travel costs of their delegation.
On request of the Hungarian SEED partner it was necessary to in-officially/officially contact the National Agency so that
they would allow the Hungarian applicants to come to Austria. The National Agency´s feed back (told by Attila Varga)
was that this additional intervention by the Austrian organisers was necessary to support the formal application of the
teachers for travel allowance.
The French delegation was a ”surprise parcel”. They arrived although nobody had informed the Austrian organisers. Due
to the flexibility of the organisation and of the venue it was no problem to warmly welcome and integrate them.
The feed back of some national agencies showed that the connection with COMENIUS III was not clear and not a reason
for supporting applications
The Austrian Socrates bureau was very helpful and supportive. The high number of participants (70) caused some initial
doubts, if the seminar could be managed successfully.
The representatives from other Socrates Bureaus who attended the contact seminar were very supportive for schools in
their planning processes.
It proved manageable and helpful to have English as only working language.
The co-operation with ENSI experts was seen positive by participants. The connection between SEED and ENSI could be
made visible.
Working and living incl. staying overnight in the same venue proved to be supportive, especially for the long informal
times used for exchange.
Reflections on ARION 2003
(Irene Krug, Günther Franz Pfaffenwimmer and Johannes Tschapka )
We had 13 interested and interesting participants from 9 countries. Some of them did not have special practice with
Environmental Education. They came due to the fact that seemingly the title of the ARION Study visit was not
communicated in its full length (showing ECO schools as common ground).
Yet it proved that all participants had some experience with Environmental Education and their point of view helped to
enrich the discussion.
Seemingly the date of the ARION seminar was communicated incorrectly by some national authorities. I.e. the starting of
the study visit was falsely interpreted for Monday 9.00 instead of Monday16.00 hours.
There was confusion about the working language due to the form of announcement by the EU (Language of the country:
German, Working language: English).
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