The Mentoring for School Improvement (MenSI) project is a 28-month Coordination and Support Action (November 2020 – February 2023) funded by the European Commission H2020 programme. The project will carry out a pan-European investigation into how different approaches to mentoring can support the mainstreaming of innovative digital teaching practices in primary and secondary schools. It builds on the outcomes and lessons learnt from the earlier EU-FP7 Living Schools Lab project (2012-2014), which provided support to school clusters via ‘regional hubs', and will also leverage the network of learning labs that are part of the current European Schoolnet Future Classroom Lab initiative.
Partners
- European Schoolnet – EUN, Belgium
- INDIRE – National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research, Italy
- The Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia
- Czech National Agency for International Education and Research – DZS
- Educational Authority, Hungary
- The Directorate-General for Education – DGE, Portugal
- GO!, Belgium
- Brunel University London, UK
How to take part?
- Sign up for the Future Classroom Lab newsletter here to follow up updates from the MenSI project
- Read here how to become a MenSI Advisory Member and fill in the application form here
- Follow the hashtag #Mensi-schools on Twitter
School-to-school mentoring
Transferring and scaling innovation related to digital technologies in school education is an ongoing policy challenge across Europe. At individual teacher level, peer-to-peer networking and mentoring – an experienced teacher guiding and supporting a less experienced one – are effective mechanisms for career-long professional learning. However, at whole-school level, such approaches are less widespread despite the evidence for their potential.
School-to-school mentoring entails holistic, active collaboration between two or more establishments for specific purposes, such as professional development, to overcome isolation or overall organisational improvement. Such mentoring often takes place through school networks but there can be large differences in outcomes, depending on factors such as whether participation is voluntary or compulsory, instigated externally or internally, or recognised and supported by education authorities. It is therefore important to understand better how ‘top-down' and ‘bottom-up' approaches work and to explore different incentives and rewards that can motivate schools to be become engaged in whole-school peer learning.
Involving ministries of education in six countries (Belgium-Flanders, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Portugal), MenSI will create a network of 24 Mentor Schools working with some one hundred Mentee Schools. By the end of the project, the network will open up to other schools interested in applying school mentoring approaches to develop innovative pedagogical practice involving digital technologies in teaching and learning.
Disclaimer
The MenSI project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101004633. Neither the European Commission (EC) nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for how the following information is used. The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EC.
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