I’m not speechless and invisible, Don’t leave me behind: Supporting students with learning disabilities Erasmus Project

Project Title

I’m not speechless and invisible, Don’t leave me behind: Supporting students with learning disabilities

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

CONTEX/BACKGROUND:
Inclusive education and class management techniques have beeen used in order that students with learning difficulty were successful. Children with difficulty in one or more disciplinary areas sometimes need one-to-one education so special education
services provided support for these students. Different approaches have been used in teaching students with learning disabilities. Teaching has been organised acccording to the student’s level and interest, educational programmes sometimes were individualized and we focused attention on teaching skills. It should be considered that individuals with learning disabilities might be in expectation of failure and we tried to change this idea. Success in realization of these applications depends on the special instructor and/or the teacher’s knowing different teaching approaches, techniques and using them.
OBJECTIVES:
1)we have promoted equity, social cohesion and inclusive education through school education by discovering and exchanging good practices of partner schools;
2)a deep aproach to our students in all aspects, increasing success by taking precautions to eliminate the causes of learning inadequacy in the extent of our opportunities, providing the student with a maximum learning and development level;
3) starting from the important teaching principle of “according to the child”, teaching students with learning disabilities has been done by associating method to their level;
4)we prevented the feeling of being outsider by making them feel that they’re taken care of specially;
5) we made them believe that they can be successful by seeing the improvement in themselves;
6) we have tried to the solution of their psychological problems corresponding with their educational success;
7) we took the support of parents and raising awareness because of this project;
8) we have made this kind of students healthy and honorable individuals of the society by making them “adequate for themselves”
NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS
• 4 European secondary schools from 4 countries in Spain, Croatia, Italy and Turkey, all having curricular and/or extra-curricular programmes for citizenship education;
• 15 teachers in the given schools committed to citizenship education;
• 20-25 secondary school students in each school, mostly above the age of 15
DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES
As Ankara (turkey) and Umea(Sweden) left the Project in September 2017, we had to do some arrangements.
1. Preparation
A/ Setting up project management, selecting students, logo contest, creating website;
B/ Preparing project meetings and student exchanges;
C/ Reasigment of tasks due to exit of Ankara (Turkey) and Umea (Sweden) teams.
D/ Reorganization of number of participants in mobilities (National agency aproved these changes)
2. Implementation
A/ After-school workshops for students were organised;
B/ Transnational project meetings were held at each school for studying good practices;
C/ Short-term student exchanges for experiencing extra-curricular activities in inclusive education took place in Croatia and Italy, taking 2 more students in each as there was no meeting in Sweden;
D/ Creating a list of possible activities for SEN students and flashmob video uploaded to the project website.
METHODOLOGY
In LTT exchanges: ’learning by doing’ – transnational group work/pair work, interactive transnational workshops, presentations, lectures, discussions, board games, films, sports, music, dances, arts and crafts, monitoring and evaluating progress, making
surveys, etc.. We were opened to suggestions from students and teachers, adopting ideas from other teams or countries
EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION:
Educational evaluation is the process of determining the level of student’s functioning, shedding light on educational decisions and serving the purpose of education directly.
With this project, we aimed to make the educational evaluation of the students with learning disabilities (SEN) based on the curriculum and determining the level of student’s skills in connection with the class curriculum. In these evaluations informal and criterion referenced test and questionnaires and interviews with families have been used.
RESULTS AND IMPACT:
Through the project activities, the participants were able to develop social skills and pupils with learning disabilities did not feel left out in the learning environment anymore.
Students, Educators, Administrative Staff, Families and Direct as well as indirect participants of the project gained consciousness about types of learning disabilities and how to deal with them.
Project activities provided linguistic and interpersonal intelligence skills to project students. The flashmob has been a highlight at every school partner.
They received the necessity of tolerance and inclusion of different cultures and each other and was aware of the fact that we come from the same family in this cosmos, even though we are the different members of it and we demand to protect our values since each culture is unique.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 79380 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES BEZMILIANA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Nordens Teknikerinstitut AB
• Os Vladimira Becica Osijek
• YENIMAHALLE ATATURK ORTAOKULU
• Mehmetçik Anadolu Lisesi
• LICEO STATALE MONTANARI