REPORT Artmile International Collaborative Learning 2021
Country/Region [ Lithuania ]School [ Laurynas Ivinskis Gymnasium ] Teacher [ Valdonė Verseckienė ] Grade ( 10th ) Member ( 21 )JP School [ Mukohigashi Junior High School ]Teacher [ Maya Shirai ]# Subjects, Activities and Hours of the lessons
Subject
Conception of the lesson
17 SDGs. Goals No.14 & 15.. Life on Land & Life Below Water. Japanese nature
English& culture. Educational system & school life in Japan. Reducing, Reusing,
Recycling: What can I personally do?
Japanese geography, economy & culture. Global warming. Its global & localGeography
consequences. 17 SDGs. Saving life on land & below water.
ArtDiscussing ideas & painting the Mural.

Hours10810# Theme and Message of the mural
ThemeMessage
United thoughts toshare with the world

Life on Land & Life Below Water: Problems & Solutions.
What if the forests disappear? What if the ocean is polluted? How can we survive? As
one of the species who will continue to live on the earth, we, human beings, should think
about the importance of nature once again. We have the responsibilities to protect theearth and we are the ones who can change the future of the earth. WE ARE AWARE,WE CARE, WE SHARE & WE ACT TOGETHER FOR A BETTER FUTURE.

# Effects and Problems
Effects your students have gained• They have developed a better cross-cultural •understanding.
• They have become aware of the 17 SDGs & have •increased their critical thinking skills.
• They have gained experience in active &interactive learning collaboratively on global
issues in cooperation with project partners.
• They have enhanced their ability to express theirthoughts & feelings both in words & in pictures.
• They have improved their English skills.
• They have developed their online communicationskills.

Points for further improvement
The 17 SDGs should be a compulsory part ofevery school curriculum all over the world.
If possible technically, it would be beneficial toestablish closer personal relationships between
individual students. Part of the project program
could be conversations between individualstudents during partners’ online meetings.

# How has your impression toward your partner’s country/region and the world changed?
Changes in the students
Changes in the teachers• They have broadened their horizons learning so • Teachers have built a friendly relationship withmuch about Japan, which has helped them
the Japanese teachers’ team and are gratefuldevelop a genuine interest in the partners’
to them as well as to the national project
country, Japanese people, their way of life &coordinators. It was an excellent example thetheir culture.
project activities.
• They have understood that while participating in • The teachers who belonged to the school
an international project & communicating withproject team have built closer relationships andproject partners, you become an ambassador ofhave developed teamwork skills. Art, Geography
your school & your country.
and English teachers have become a successful• They have truly understood the importance ofProfessional Learning Community ready to sharethe 17 SDGs and their personal & sharedwith other teachers the knowledge &responsibility to contribute to attaining theseexperienced gained from the project.
goals.
• The teachers have acquired more knowledge• They have really understood the true meaning ofabout the 17 SDGs and have started introducing
Reducing, Reusing & Recycling.
this topic while teaching other classes.

# Flow of the Activity
ContentMonth••MEET
Selfintroduction•June••

What you did
Got acquainted with the17 SDGs.
Prepared presentations
about our country & ourschool.
Had our first video
meeting on TEAMS
platform.
Teachers visited theJapanese Garden inLithuania.
Presented the firststeps in the project tothe school community.

Your students’ attitude/reflection
Students were excited to start thisproject, meet their project partners andget answers to their questions aboutJapanese students’ life.

SubjectEnglish•••

SHAREResearch onthe theme

Sep.
Oct.

•••••••

UNITE
Message ofunited thoughts

Oct.Dec.

In Geography & English
lessons, studied issues
related to the 17 SDGs,
the problems of Global
Warming and the ways
to solve them.
Studied SDG No 15. Lifeon Land in depth and got
better acquainted in
SDG No.14. Life Below
Water.
Learnedabout
Japanesephysicalgeography,nature,culture, traditions &economy.
Had a project about
Olympic Games held inJapan.
Prepared
avideointroducing our project
activities & sent it to ourpartners to help them
prepare for the Cultural
Festival they had.
Had our second video
meetingwith
ourpartners.
CommunicatedviaForum.
Wrote an article in theSchool newsletter toinform
schoolcommunity about theprogress of the project.

•

Communicating in theForum and during video
meetings of students &teachers, discussed andcame up with the united
messagetobepresented in the Mural.
Carriedoutenvironmental project
CHANGE
while
Japanese students werepainting the Mural: Eachstudent kept a diary for
6weeks& daily
recorded what he/shedid
eachday
tocontributeto
combatting
climatechange & once a week
discussed their progress& results in English
lessons.

•••

Students were interested toparticipate in Geography lessons
and study the issues related to theproject.
They got interested in Japan anddecided to investigate some
aspects of the Japanese culture in
the projects they had to do in ITlessons.
They were excited to dance
together with their project partners
during the video meeting to themusic of Japanese students’favourite music group BTS.

Geography

EnglishIT•

The CHANGE project helped thestudents to maintain the feeling ofactive
participationintheinternational project and, duringreflection
activities,
theyacknowledged that they got tounderstand much better theimportance and the true meaning of
the words Reduce, Reuse &Recycle.
They kept asking when the Mural
would arrive.

Geography

English••

CREATE
Mural painting

Jan.
Feb.

Mar.May

•

•

•

•

APPRECIATE
Reflection/Appreciation

Received the Mural fromJapan and appreciatedthe great work ourpartners had done.
Painted our part of the
Mural & exhibited it atschool for the schoolcommunity to admire.

•Posted the finished
Mural to our partners inJapan.
Wrote an article about
the progress & resultsof the ARTMILE projectin the school newsletter.

••

Students were excited to open theparcel box and find a surprise giftfrom their partners – their letter anda beautiful handmade decoration
made from paper cranes.
The moment of unfolding the Muralwas something special. Seeing thepeace of art their Japanese
partners had created, students
started applauding.
The students were happy to painttheir part of the Mural. The ones
who could not take part in theprocess since they were at home
due to Covid were sad not to beable to contribute more to thepainting, but they appreciated theirclassmates’ efforts to finish theMural according to the sketches
they had sent from home.
Students were happy to post the
Mural together with some otherpictures they wanted to send totheir partners to wish them a nicespring.
In May, before the end of school
year we are planning to reflect &celebrate our project once again.

ArtArtEnglishGeography# Effect and evaluation gained through the collaborative learning
Evaluation: Rank 5 to 1 (5: very effective / 4: effective / 3: so- so / 2: not so effective / 1: not effective at all)

Expected effectCross-cultural
understandingCritical thinking(objective, logical views)

Active learningand action

Evaluation

Scenes and reasons that teachers felt the effects

5Students have gained much knowledge about Japanese students’school life and about their partners’ country and demonstrated theirwish to learn more. Some students chose to do IT projects about Japan.
Many others got interested in relations between Japan & Lithuania. For
example, now everybody knows the story of Chiune Sugihara. Students
want to visit the Japanese Garden when they have the opportunity.

45

Students now know much about the 17 SDGs, especially Goals No.14 &15. They can analyse the problems and explain to others their reasons
and ways to so solve them. However, speaking about all the 17 SDGs,
there is still a long way to go.
Students were actively involved in all the project activities in one way
or another. Their responsible involvement in the CHANGE project which
our students carried out while the Mural was being painted by ourJapanese partners is a good example that the ARTMILE project helped
them to understand that each of them has to start from themselves inorder to really contribute to the changes the 17 SDGs aim at.

Collaborating withdifferent people

5Expressing in words,
in shape

4

Both students and teachers feel that the project brought us moreclosely together. We were lucky to have such reliable and responsible
project partners. We managed to collaborate. despite the differences intime zones, different school systems and timetables and the pandemicrestrictions.
In spite of different language levels of individual students, nobody feltexcluded. The variety of well-coordinated project activities made it
possible for everyone to contribute while preparing group presentations
about the history of Japanese Olympics in the English lessons ,gathering information for individual and group presentations about
Lithuania to be presented during video meetings, making videos to besent to our partners and doing other project activities. However, inJanuary & February, when our part of the Mural was being painted, many
students were ill with Covid at home and could not contribute toexpressing their ideas and feelings in shape and colour as much as theywished. But everybody did their best and everybody is grateful for theopportunity to be part of this meaningful and unforgettable project.