MusE Project
Priorities & Topics
School education
Reinforcing the development
of key competences
Youth
Promoting engaging, connecting and empowering young people
Horizontal
Innovative practices in a digital era
Summary
The aim of MusE was to provide to teenagers the necessary skills and tools to overcome the hardships life puts them through, making them develop resilience. The project has envisaged the use of an innovative methodology, based on the use of music as a support to the development of resilience, due to its ability to evoke, identify and process emotions and due to the fact that it is a common phenomenon that crosses all borders of nationality, race and culture.
OBJECTIVES
The aim of the project was to promote the development of some of the factors that make a person resilient, such as positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, and the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback. More specifically, the teenagers involved in the project have developed the following traits:
- emotional awareness and the ability to regulate their emotions
- control over their impulses
- an optimistic mindset
- flexible and accurate thinking
- empathy towards others
- self-efficacy
- a willingness to seek help when needed.
The students experienced a different learning method, that was focused on personal understanding and sharing through music. The MusE project, in fact, had its main output in the production of a Pop Symphonic Poem on the topic of adolescence, in which the lyrics have been composed by the students themselves. They have been involved in engaging and stimulating activities that gave them the opportunity to get in touch with people coming from different countries.
ACTIVITIES
The participants have been engaged in activities based on collaboration and mutual help, as a way of enhancing all the skills and competences resilience consist in. The classroom became an inclusive environment in which everyone was invited to participate and share his feelings and experiences.
PARTICIPANTS
The project engaged all the adolescent students of the partners schools. Special attention has been given to vulnerable individuals, for example the ones who are experiencing economic hardship or that have behavioural, emotional, family or socialisation problems, the ones that are facing more serious challenges like family breakdown, family illness or death, or bullying, as well as the ones that have learning difficulties or disabilities, or simply more anxious personalities.
METHODOLOGY
The methodology was based on the use of music to promote activities aimed at developing resilience. In particular it was used some approaches and strategies like:
- cooperative learning
- classroom discussion
- brainstorming activities
- use of technology to promote transcultural and transnational communication.
IMPACT AND LONG TERM BENEFIT
The project had an impact on the education system, as it enabled schools to participate in Erasmus+ projects that otherwise would not have had the opportunity.
Associated partners
Outputs
MusE Broadcast & DVD
The performance has been broadcast on television. Television has provided the opportunity to reach a wider audience and to share the project’s objectives and results.
MusE Handbook
MusE Pop Symphonic Poem
The primary output of the project: POP SYMPHONIC POEM. Moreover, one of the main innovation consisted in the interaction and cultural immersion to optimise the experience of music and its meaning and to advance the understanding of the topic addressed in the project. The lyrics, instead, have result from the contributions of the partner schools’ students.
MusE Collaboration Web App
The App has been conceived and mainly used to let the students collaborate, communicate and share information in order to contribute to the creation of the lyrical poem. Technology, which is increasingly becoming an essential part of teenagers’ lives, is used in particular to:
- connect with, comment on and discuss things with others;
- learn more about interesting topics;
- easily access information to inform and educate oneself;
- maintain and develop supportive relationships;
- form a personal identity (through self-expression, learning and communication);
- promote a sense of belonging and self-esteem through being involved in a community of users.
The MusE Handbook offer a broad theoretical background, as well as practical information aimed at understanding resilience and how to develop it in young students, as well as how to use music as a powerful tool to promote resilience, inclusion and communication. The manual has been divided into different sections where different types of information and activities have been provided.
Creativity and culture. Early School Leaving / combating failure in education. Pedagogy and didactics.
MusE aims to achieve the following objectives for teenagers
The project aimed to create 4 innovative tools (IO1, IO2, IO3 and IO4) available to teenagers (direct addressees). Students from
the three countries involved (Turkey, Romania and Portugal) in the MusE project have worked for three months to draft the narrative plot of a symphonic-electronic music poem, in which they reflected on their adolescent age phase (involving psychologists and teachers). The plot was developed by the students at transnational level through the use of a mobile APP (developed during the project itself) for student collaborative working. To make sure that the priorities and objectives identified were addressed in a comprehensive and valid way, the project adopted: a cross-sectoral perspective - the partnership was composed of a third sector, universities, schools, societies - multidisciplinary - cooperate educational and technical staff - and a multi-method approach - takes cognitive behavioural psychology into account, emotional motivational education, non-formal education.
The partnership involved six countries: Italy, Turkey, Ireland, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia. The applicant, Rosso Arancio, dealt with everything pertaining music such as the compositionof the music work, the management of a two-way communication with the writer of the lyrical poem’s text, and the coordination with the other partners involved. The partner responsible forthe technical part has been Demetra SPV. The University “Roma Tre” dealt with the project psychological aspects, in particular concerning the activities that have been carried out todevelop resilience. The National University of Ireland Galway (Ireland) focused instead on the aspects concerning “physiology and development” and implemented the project Handbook.Comunità Autogestita Costiera della Nazionalità Italiana (Slovenia) has been responsible for sharing and communication activities.The project is aimed to adolescent students, so threeeducational Institutions have been involved in the project: Ozel Kumluca Sinav Egitim Kurumu (Turkey), Escola Secundaria Alves Martins (Portugal), and Liceul Tehnologic Ticleni (Romania).