The village Kishnareka is a medium sized village, around 10 kilometres from town of Drenas, and about 40 kilometres from Prishtina, the capital. The school in Kishnareka is a primary and lower secondary school type, which includes also the preschool level, and which accommodates at present around 375 children in the learning process.
The school was included in the 21st Century Schools training program in spring 2019, and four teachers from this school were trained. The school shortly after the training initiated the creation of the coding club, with participation of 7-8 students of lower secondary school classes. With this project, the school competed in the national coding competition and were ranked in the second place as most interesting project. The school was chosen also because there are children with special needs (three children) and a child affected by low socioeconomic situation.
The school director, who is also a certified 21st Century Schools trainer, declared that the CTPS activities were smoothly introduced in the school and the activities run well at the beginning. The teachers who were trained mainly implemented the activities in their subjects, but also worked together in the school project.
The interviewed teachers mentioned that they could implement several of CTPS teaching techniques in their subjects. Problem tree, effective questioning, as well as the six hats technique in groups were the techniques that were mentioned the most. Teachers used also the facts and opinions and debating exercise to stimulate students’ critical thinking and arguing. In the last technique children were more stimulating to compete with each other in terms of supporting their opinions with arguing facts in the learning process.
Teachers mentioned that the student coming from family with low socioeconomic status, who was in the 7th grade at that time, was considerably engaged in the school project.
''She was highly motivated and became interested in coding activities, as she continued several times working at home.''
- a teacher
She was challenged on this because of the lack of computer, however she sometimes was allowed to take school’s laptop at home to work on coding. She was one of the main student creating group energy for the project ideas and development. The group was able to compile an orientation instrument, a compass, which added voicing element, that could be used for guidance for blind people.
The coding club participants, as well as the other children of the school, were highly enthusiastic with this achievement. It definitely brought good motivation and energy in the learning process, as well as higher teacher commitment and motivation to use the CTPS techniques and coding.
