Maruša Bogataj, Katja Knific, Eva Traven, Branka Vodopivec, Osnovna šola Predoslje Kranj

In this school year our eight class students plan their work, value their knowledge and progress in an innovative learning environment  Mahara.  We are gathered together with 13 teams from 7 European countries in a collaborative research and implementation process, an international project EU-folio.

The main intention of using the innovative learning environment is initiating modern approaches into learning and teaching process, assessment and evaluation of students, emphasizing the 21^st century skills. The main skill developing through the project EU–folio is self–regulation, an active process, where a student takes control of his own learning aims, planning, monitoring, evaluates his own learning, behavior and progress. There is a special stress on the skill of a critical thinking and giving an argument.

Our conference contribution is going to show the planning of students’ learnings in their own personal environment, how do they set up their knowledge and add some more information and new topics, how do they create their own learning aims and strategies to achieve them. They are monitoring their learning progress through the whole learning process and developing. There is a stress on a cross-curricular approach to learning. Students are recording their progress in their personal learning environmnet. The most important is the process of learning and not only the result or the product of learning. We can already see the progress in students’ thinking and awarness of their own responsibility for learning and their knowledge after a few months of working in this innovative learning environment. Mahara stimulates the collaboration between the teenagers and it stimulates critical friendships. Now it is not only the feedback of a teacher important to make a progress.