Generating Inclusive and Fair Teaching in Early Development Erasmus Project

Project Title

Generating Inclusive and Fair Teaching in Early Development

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early childhood education and care; Creativity and culture; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

The project contributes to innovative practices in the digital age by developing new educational resources, instruments and pedagogical practices in the field of working with gifted children from an early age using digital techniques (digitally available content) in Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia. It also contributes to the professional development of kindergarten employees, enabling them to recognize the giftedness of children in their work and to adapt their method of work to such children, thereby influencing the application of inclusion and during the earliest, pre-school education. The project directly contributes to improving the quality of pre-school education through support for the professional development of educators, but also in terms of creating and testing new content that encourages a unique approach to each child, and thus their participation.

Although the process of inclusion in pre-school education has been promoted in the last decade in all EU countries and within the framework of support to accession countries like Serbia, full implementation of the concept has not come to fruition. Although the concept of inclusive education is meant to support both children with specific educational needs and gifted children, insufficient attention has been paid to discovering and supporting giftedness at an early age. There is a lack of training for educators to strengthen their knowledge and skills in this segment of work, as well as instruments and materials to support the process of discovering and working with gifted children, as confirmed by many research pedagogical practices. Educators, teachers and associates do not receive sufficient knowledge of this field in their studies, nor are they sufficiently educated in the field during their professional development.

The project therefore affects two target groups – educators (810) and parents (400) of children attending preschools in fairly comparable education systems in selected countries.
The project contributes to innovative practices in the digital age by developing new educational resources, instruments and pedagogical practices in the field of working with gifted children from an early age using digital techniques (digitally available content) in Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia. It also contributes to the professional development of kindergarten employees, enabling them to recognize the giftedness of children in their work and to adapt their method of work to such children, thereby influencing the application of inclusion and during the earliest, pre-school education. The project directly contributes to improving the quality of pre-school education through support for the professional development of educators, but also in terms of creating and testing new content that encourages a unique approach to each child, and thus their participation.

With all of the above in mind, the project seeks to achieve the following objectives:
– Strengthening the competence of educators to work with gifted children
– Improving understanding of the concept of inclusive education in early development
– Improving the quality of provision of education and upbringing services in kindergartens
– Strengthening the cooperation of parents and educators

Dealing with this topic is of great importance for educators, as recognizing the gifted and creative and creating a supportive environment in which they will be able to develop and upgrade their potential is a great responsibility and challenge for educators and the profession in general. The ability to identify children’s potentials and to provide adequate support to each and every one of his or her characteristics depends on the child’s understanding, learning and development and program design accordingly. Areas in which we strengthen practitioner competencies relate to the context of a real-world program and the understanding of the child and his or her own roles through the filter of components that construct talent and creativity.

The project will strive to achieve the following results during implementation and at the end of the project:
1) Created instrument for recognizing gifted children for educators
2) Developed Educator’s Handbook on Educational Practices for Gifted Children and Their Parents
3) Developed didactic games for preschool children that encourage further development of perceived giftedness and awareness of the child and parents about the existence of giftedness and its importance in the further development of the child
4) Developed course/training on recognizing creativity and giftedness in children (for educators and parents) also available through the Moodle platform

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 102638 Eur

Project Coordinator

UDRUZENJE VASPITACA VOJVODINE & Country: RS

Project Partners

• UNIVERZA V MARIBORU
• Udruga Klikeraj
• KINDERBETREUUNGSEINRICHTUNG /KINDERVILLA