Open Vilnius

Goal

Learning can happen anywhere. The city is full of spaces, businesses and institutions that can enrich and deepen the learning experience, which is why we aim to turn Vilnius into one big school.

We encourage schools to combine traditional classroom lessons with lessons in the capital's public spaces. This combination gives more freedom for students' individual creativity, arouses curiosity and motivates them, as knowledge is immediately linked to experience, subjects are integrated and universal skills are developed.

Description

The platform www.vilniusyramokykla.lt provides ideas and lesson plans, itineraries for integrated activities, and spaces and lessons offered by institutions and companies in Vilnius.

Streets and parks, architecture and urban planning, museums and galleries, institutions and businesses - Vilnius opens up and becomes a school for all teachers and students in the capital.

Teachers, businesses, institutions, organisations are invited to give the capital's pupils a lesson!

Biology, physics and chemistry lessons can take place in state-of-the-art laboratories in Vilnius. Museums and galleries offer history and art education. Pupils can go to the cinema to watch films in the original language and develop their language skills. In this way, knowledge is immediately linked to experience, subjects are integrated and curiosity and motivation to learn grow.

But the platform is not the only activity of the 3-year project. In addition, training for teachers and a methodology to facilitate the integration of out-of-school learning into the general education curriculum are also planned.

Achievements in 2024

More than 4,000 teachers have already joined the platform. More than 600 unique lessons and almost 30 spaces have been uploaded. More than 14,000 students have visited the lessons taking place in the institutions. We have almost 120 partners offering lessons in their spaces. Lessons have been downloaded 110 000 times from the platform.

On the occasion of the Platform's one-year birthday, 10 of the most active organisations were presented with Mayor's Certificates of Appreciation and a one-off artwork "Going" by artist Miglė Grigutytė.

Teachers who are the most active in delivering lessons outside school were also awarded. Each of the 115 schools under the Vilnius City Municipality selected one teacher to receive an exclusive set of project merchandise at the end of the school year.

The 4 most active teachers were awarded €1000 gift vouchers at the Vilnius Teachers of the Year Awards concert.

For the second year, we also organised the project's training course to support teachers in teaching in the city, which this year was attended by 350 teachers.

The platform has been updated with a new plugin - the Lesson Calculator. The plugin, located in the schools' account, allows the administration of each school to see the percentage of time spent in lessons outside school.

An additional 16 schools with the largest number of pupils have been given extra guide kits to allow more classes to go to class in the city at the same time.

The platform has been updated with a new plugin - the Lesson Calculator. Located in the schools' account, the plugin allows the administration of each school to see the percentage of time spent in lessons outside school.

An additional 16 schools with the largest number of pupils have been given extra guide kits to allow more classes to go to class in the city at the same time.

The platform has been updated with a new plug-in, the Lesson Calculator. The plugin in the schools' account allows the administration of each school to see the percentage of time spent in lessons outside school.

An additional 16 schools with the largest number of pupils have been given extra guide kits to allow more classes to go to class in the city at the same time.

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Project partners: Vilnius City Municipality, institutions, companies and organisations located in the capital.

The project is implemented with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies' Global Mayors Challenge.

Contact

Project manager Snieguolė Kavoliūnienė
snieguole@eduvilnius.lt

Goal

The world is full of complex problems, such as climate warming and social inequalities, and the only way to learn how to tackle such complex challenges is... by learning from a young age.

Description

Phenomenon-based education is one of the Finnish methods of creativity education, involving students in exploring relevant phenomena, asking questions and finding solutions.  It is a method that proposes to look at a life scenario, a contemporary problem or a natural phenomenon as a starting point for learning. An education that is action-oriented and an active, learning person who seeks to make a difference in the world. For this reason, asking the right questions and opening them up to a perspective that relates global phenomena to our own experience is key to a new understanding of learning.

Starting in spring 2022, training is being organised to introduce school communities to the theoretical aspects of such education, to better understand the meanings and values of such education, and to empower them to put phenomenon-based education into practice.

The aim of the training is to provide school community representatives (teachers, administrators, other professionals) with knowledge of the basic theoretical and practical assumptions of phenomenon-based education and to train them to apply phenomenon-based education in school practice.

Achievements in 2024

In the period 2023-2024, 6 general education schools in Vilnius City - 4 pro-gymnasiums and 2 gymnasiums - have introduced systematic phenomenon-based education in their schools. 53 teachers tested the method in practice, working with 22 classes (grades 1 to 12). 7 phenomena were implemented in schools. 

A publication "Phenomenon-based Education in Vilnius 2023-2024" has been produced, presenting the phenomenon-based education method and its practical application, as well as the schools' experiences.

Contact

Project manager Asta Morkūnienė
asta@eduvilnius.lt

Goal

Cultural education not only helps to develop creativity and knowledge of one's own culture, but is also seen as a way to build links between people and shape society and its identity. 

For some children, school is the only one that helps them to learn about culture, which is why in Vilnius we aim to contribute to the cultural education of pupils from a very young age.

Description

Throughout the school year, we invite students and teachers in Vilnius City to be active and use the digital badges-keys introduced in the Cultural Education System, which Edu Vilnius has contributed to the development of. 

Achievements in 2024

The initiative to invite students and teachers in Vilnius City to be active throughout the school year and to use the digital badges-keys installed in the Cultural Education System continues. Each month a different badge-key was highlighted and the activities corresponding to its competences in Vilnius City were presented. Teachers were not only invited to award badges, but also to record their classroom achievements, which were rewarded by visits to cultural and educational activities. In this way, we encouraged cultural learning to become an integral, permanent part of education. At the end of the school year, the most active classes were awarded with symbolic badges-keys.

Contact

Project manager Jogailė Misevičė
jogaile@eduvilnius.lt