Integration of Experiential Learning and Virtual Reality on Gifted Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Integration of Experiential Learning and Virtual Reality on Gifted Education

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

CONTEXT
Effective teachers are professionals, who are perfectly equipped to enable students to become more resilient and successful. In order to increase the quality and effectiveness of education and carry innovative approaches into teaching practice, teachers are KEY ACTORS. A stimulating and informed teacher features in student achievement, so it is critical to pay close attention to prospective teachers’ strong preparation for teaching practice. And this practice should include all children by considering their learning styles, paces and specific challenges they face in the learning settings.
While it is important to meet needs of children who fall behind in an all-encompassing manner, it is also extremely important to support children, who excel, in order to reach their full potential and also grow as individuals who have healthy relationships with others. As it is known talented and gifted children are included in special education because of their differentiating features comparing to their typically developing peers.
Ensuring to develop gifted children’s innate potential through innovative strategies is strategically important considering unprecedented rise of STEM education, encouraging interdisciplinary studies, which these children can easily handle starting from early years.

Technological innovations are giving a new impulse to education field every passing day. New generation is strongly engaged in various virtual platforms, games with endless interaction possibilities and the same situation applies for today’s prospective teachers attending universities as well. We should benefit from newly emerged innovations for the sake of accelerating and strengthening perceptual reasoning and active learning. If there is a stronger aspect of innovation in accelerating the learning process, its first place should be a field of educational practice and it should be developed and tested by academicians to obtain maximum benefit.

AIM & OBJECTIVES
Hereby, purpose of this project was determined as capacity building of prospective primary school teachers by handling classroom management and teaching strategies for gifted and talented children in inclusive classrooms by developing VR resources and using them in order to strengthen experiential learning processes during higher education training courses.
For this purpose, we developed;
a- A Training Curriculum “Classroom Management & Teaching Strategies for Gifted & Talented Children in Inclusive Classrooms”
b- Teaching materials
– VR Resources
This provided us to transfer the latest research outputs regarding VR resources back to education practices, put “Experiential Learning Theory into action through VR resources and up-skill prospective teachers related to inclusive education with respect to gifted education.

TARGET GROUP
Target group of the project was 25 Primary School Teaching undergraduates in each partner university and 86 undergraduates participated in total from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, University of Macedonia and Fundacion Universitaria San Antonio. Spoleczna Akademia Nauk couldn’t organize the piloting event because of the COVID-19 pandemic.The participants were involved in the project practice and received training as well.

METHODOLOGY & ACTIVITIES
The methodology we applied includes;
A- Communication and management techniques,
B- Social research methods, including
– Qualitative research (focus group interviews, case studies, literature review)
– Quantitative research (survey-questionnaires, experimental studies-during trainings)
An interdisciplinary research approach integrating primary school education, gifted education, inclusive education, ICT and education technologies was set up at university level.
C- Dissemination Methods

RESULTS
Higher education curriculum aiming to up-skill primary school teaching undergraduates for inclusive education of gifted children and VR resources through which project practice provided involved researches to transfer innovations to education field and test their effectiveness were developed.

IMPACT
1- Project practice directly contributed to primary school teaching undergraduates’ teaching skills, and therefore will improve quality of primary school education.
2- Practical implementation of project outputs contributed to the strengthening of a sustainable European Area of Higher Education in inclusive education field, gifted education in particular.
3- It contributed to the flow of information in and out of Europe by attracting teaching professionals to use developed curriculum and VR resources.
4- Project supported cooperation, mutual interaction, including capacity building and know-how exchange between institutions working on primary school teaching. Furthermore, a standard research sample was developed and implemented during project practice.

Project Website

http://vr4gifted.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 175640 Eur

Project Coordinator

CANAKKALE ONSEKIZ MART UNIVERSITESI & Country: TR

Project Partners

• FUNDACION UNIVERSITARIA SAN ANTONIO
• Nara Egitim Teknolojileri Anonim Sirketi
• UNIVERSITY OF MACEDONIA
• SPOLECZNA AKADEMIA NAUK
• APEC Egitim Danismanlik Ltd.