PLEIADE aims at strengthening the role of teachers
as designers of inclusive collaborative learning activities and
tackling the ever increasing cultural and socio-economic diversity in today’s school populations.
Update on teachers’ training activities
The teacher’s training (Blended Training Activities or BTAs) started on 20 May 2021 and are now beyond their mid-point.
At this stage of the BTAs, the teachers are forming groups to design collaborative inclusive activities that they will enact with their students.
The groups will conceptualise the activities using the 4Ts model and the I4Ts game. The progress of the designs will be supported by the tutors until finalisation in April 2022. Their implementation will be monitored till the end of the enactment phase of the project, in June 2023.
Three Short term Joint Staff Training Events (SJSTE) are offered
as intensive collaborative learning experiences for the PLEIADE teachers, as part of the Blended Training Activities. The first SJSTE took place in June 2021, the second in October, the third is yet to come.
Second SJSTE – 18-27 October 2021
ONLINE
At the SJSTE, participants can easily share what they had achieved during previous asynchronous periods of the BTAs.
The aims of the Second SJSTE were:
- to facilitate teachers’ knowledge building and co-design, based on sharing ideas, experiences and practice
- to foster collaboration at national and international level
- to support the teachers in the conceptualisation of inclusive collaborative activities for their students by using the I4Ts game, digital or paper version
Teachers from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and Italy have gathered online to attend the main sessions and worked in group at their own school, with the help of a tutor. During these activities, they played with the I4T game at each school involved in the project, to design inclusive collaborative learning activities for their students.
Second SJSTE – Lesson learned and Perspectives
The teachers were presented the principles of practice sharing and self-regulated learning and were challenged to reflect on the potential barriers to these practices in their professional development.
The 4C dashboard (Create, Contribute, Consume, Connect) is implemented in the PLEIADE gamified platform with the aim of enhancing self-reflection on practice sharing. Teachers can follow and reflect on their own activity by checking the dashboard.
The E-twinning platform was also introduced as a possible environment for transnational activities involving the pupils.
The SJSTE was meant to be held in face-to-face mode. However, due to the pandemic, it was held online. Thus, the teachers missed the social component and the added value of the mobility, that allows them to visit schools in other countries.
Second SJSTE – Take home messages
Inclusion is …
fundamentally about issues of human rights, equity, social justice and it is at the heart of polices and practices for building a non-discriminatory society.
Diversity is …
a strength rather than an issue, being inherent to the human being, hence adaptive teaching will benefit all
Designing inclusive teaching activities …
entails seeing learning as an active and adaptive process, involving all children and supporting each of them in the realisation of their potential by recognising and responding to their diverse needs
Collaborative learning is …
at the heart of inclusive education, because collaborative learning techniques allow to involve all students, see their diversity as an asset and leverage their different contributions to the joint enterprise, in order to achieve positive interdependence and build a sense of community
Marcello Passarelli and Andrea Ceregini, tutors from Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, reflect on the value of gamification, which they constantly bring into their lectures:
Making a learning environment more playful is highly important, especially when participants interact at a distance. When the other participants are not physically present, you lack nonverbal communication. Having some time and space to break the tension and interact in a lighthearted way really helps people ease up and get to know each other. Playing connects people, mentally and emotionally, even when they are far away and have different cultural backgrounds.
The participants thank the tutors from Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski.
What comes next?
A series of public ‘satellite’ events between December 2021 and March 2022
Teachers will deepen their knowledge in inclusive education according to their specific interests and the needs of their schools through a multilingual series of public events, called ‘satellite’ events (calendar here).
The Third and last SJSTE is planned to occur in Trani, Italy, in 2022. The date has not been defined yet, because the partners intend to wait until the pandemic allows the teachers to meet face-to-face.
The activities that are being designed in the BTAs will be enacted in the teachers’ classrooms to foster social inclusion of disadvantaged children from February 2022 to March 2023. A selection of these activities will be published Open Access.
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