Inclusive Education and Distance Learning in Digital Era Erasmus Project

Project Title

Inclusive Education and Distance Learning in Digital Era

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

Education have the key role for the future success of todays pupils. The Europe 2020 Strategy calls for efforts to reduce number of school drop outs. According to Eurostat (2011), pupils with disabilities in the European Union were nearly three times as likely to leave education early. In Education 2030 Framework, Goal 4 aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”. The Inclusive education is already part of educational policy in EU. The idea of its philosophy is to orient the education to the individual needs of the student, and not vice versa – the student to adjust to school. Inclusive education allows students of all backgrounds, general and with special needs, to learn and grow side by side, in the same classroom, to the benefit of all. But are we, today’s General Education Teachers, prepared to face Inclusion in the classroom?
Last months, with the outbreak of Coronavirus being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, people worldwide are facing a major challenge. The schools in EU are closed. The education sector is responding to quarantine with a sudden shift to online learning. But are we, both teachers and students, ready for that shift? Just as students are new to distance learning, most teachers are also novices in being distance coaches.
The project aims the increasing of quality and the efficiency of teaching and learning by giving equal opportunities to all type of students, in mixed classes, implementing Inclusive education, eLearning and ICT.
Participants: students 13-18 year old and teachers different subjects from 5 secondary schools in Bulgaria, Estonia, Portugal, Italy and Serbia. One of the project’s added value is reaching pupils from special needs/disadvantaged groups in our schools and in other schools in our countries.
The project objectives are:
1)To give teachers the opportunities to collaborate and share methods to create guidelines and materials for Inclusive Education Framework, to apply it into daily teaching;
2) To give teachers opportunity to collaborate to create guidelines and materials for eLearning at school;
3) To train 5 teams of students to understand how e-platform and e-tools can differentiate learning process. To can identify and share similarities & differences in the practices of our countries in Inclusive education;
4) To develop digital skills for both students and teachers, to create digital related content by using ICT.
The project results are Quantitative: baseline survey in the 5 schools; publicTwinSpace; comic strip”We learn best when we learn together” (students share real stories); teachers guide “How to Transform General Education Materials into Inclusive Education Materials?”; toolkit “e-Pedagogy for Distance Learning and for the Classroom”; A set of 5 video tutorials “Three steps to build a truly inclusive classroom”; 5 local workshops; 4 online trainings; online discussion “Three steps to build a truly inclusive classroom”
Qualitative: developed digital skills; better understanding the benefits of Inclusive education for students with and without disability/special needs; improved schools policies for inclusive education or unexpected vacation issue; developed teaching skills for Inclusive Classroom and Distance Learning.
The methodology to be used in carrying out the project is in relation with real life issues and Intercultural education and includes blended activities for teachers and students like: researches; surveys and workshops; Forum theater; online and onsite trainings; eTwinning collaboration; teaching material creation; e-pedagogy; eAssessment tools creating; interactive methods and such from non-formal education, pear learning etc.
We are planning 1 short-term joint staff training event for teachers and 3 short-term exchange of group of pupils for students. All LTTAs are designed as blended mobility, combined online mobility on TwinSpace (online traing or discussion) and Face2Face mobility at one of the partner schools.
Tsar Simeon Veliki school created evaluation plan to evaluate the quality of project’s activities and expected results. For monitoring and evaluation we will use Quantitative and Qualitative indicators.
The project will have long-term benefits at any level: students, teachers, institution and other stakeholders. Some of the benefits are: Teachers will familiarise with new teaching methods for Inclusive classroom. Successful inclusive education happens primarily through accepting, understanding, and attending to student differences and diversity. They will know how to implement distance learning for period of time and what are the benefits of using eLearning tools to suport teaching and learning in the classroom.
The goal and the objectives of our project are crucial for all schools nowadays. That is why we think that many schools could benefit from our
researches and project outputs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 132745 Eur

Project Coordinator

Tsar Simeon Veliki Secondary school & Country: BG

Project Partners

• Escola Básica e Secundária com P/E da Calheta
• Dimitrije Todorovic Kaplar
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO ” GIOVANNI XXIII-COLONNA”
• Kuressaare Gümnaasium