LEAD-project

About the project

• Project period is October 2018 – April 2021 
• It is an Eramsus+ KA201 project, code 2018-1-EE01-KA201-047085
• LEAD - Learning and digitalisation in home economics education. See the project at Estonian Research Information System - ETIS.
• Coordinator  - Jaana Taar, Lecturer of Home Economics. Tallinn University School of Natural Sciences and Health
• The outcome of the project: completed materials in 5 languages (EST, ENG, FIN, SWE, NOR)

The LEAD-project (Learning and digitalisation in home economics education) sets home economics education in contemporary schools into the centre for integrating students’ previous knowledge and building organized knowledge structures. The target group in this project is comprehensive school students in Estonia, Finland, Norway and Sweden, who are reached by home economics teachers in given countries. 

LEAD seeks to develop learning materials (at least for 12 home economics lesson) that are innovative in the context of home economics education as these apply methods of science education, enabling students to experiment and by that construct knowledge. Developed innovations help teachers to purposefully integrate digital technologies into home economics teaching and thereby to prepare lessons according to the contemporary needs of the subject.  In addition, each lesson has written didactical explanation which opens the principles of developed learning materials and offers ideas how to use these effectively in home economics education. 

LEAD includes several activities to reach the goals. The work is organized mainly through meetings on national level (group work) and internationally through online meetings. Although, common study activity and transnational meetings are needed to have shared understanding and make decisions. To raise the quality of innovations, partners will work together and give feedback on developed materials throughout the developmental phase. Developed materials will be tested in contemporary schools, in each participating country, for evaluating the quality and suitability. The impact will be evaluated by participating teachers, students, teacher students as well as partner organizations through qualitative data collection. Data is collected primarily for the purposes of improving the materials and getting feedback for project impact, although, it will also be used for scientific purposes.

Developed innovations will be adjusted and translated to be suitable in all participating countries. The principles and good practices will be shared to subject teachers in every participating country, organizing one-day training events. All developments are made freely available through national online possibilities. After the project, home economics teachers in particular countries have the knowledge and novel skills to use designed learning materials in their lessons. It is predicted, that developed materials raise the quality of subject teaching as developed materials widen teachers understanding of didactic possibilities of using ICT for learning. These help students to deepen their knowledge structures and promote the acquisition of skills and key competences. Developed materials can be modified by users to apply in another school subjects or out of school activities. Gained knowledge will be shared to academic readers through scientific articles.