Abstract
Brand New Inclusion fits the willing of the Commission to create a European Education Area by the 2025, where teachers and trainers are mentioned as one of the six main dimensions to consolidate along with the strengthening of the radical transformation as indicated in the DIgital EDucation Action plan of 2021-2027, reflecting the needs arose with the Covid 19 breakout. The pivotal requirement is developing digital skills, both for students and teachers in order to face educational challenges. The shortcoming of digital skills is strictly intertwined with the lack of STEAM curricula in many european educational systems (Eurydice 2020) and of adequate support to students with Special Educational Needs. In a study of OECD (TALIS 2019) teachers stated that their first 3 training needs are: ICT skills for teaching, skills for managing teaching with special educational needs and skills for teaching in multicultural or multilingual contexts: -Improve teachers and students’ digital skills as indicated in the DigComp 2.1 for citizenship and educators. BNI activities and outputs have been designed following the requirements of the schools belonging to the partnership because: 1) every schools detected within their own Institute: - lack of instructions to implement open practices in teaching activities; - little awareness of digital tools to ensure the assessment of skills acquired through open practices; - deficiency of structuring and practical consistency of STEAM subjects; - educational necessities for students with SEN that are not enough shaped and integrated into the curricula of teachers; - updating the teachers’ skills, both from a life-long learning perspective and for initial teacher training. 2) The two Universities and the coordinator highlighted the academic and educational necessity for field testing methodologies, tools and researches led in their own organizations. These experimentations, conducted through the project activities, will bring the research to an advanced stage and will reinforce the collaboration among European School Institutions.
Brand New Inclusion project - according to the European and local context analysed – pursuits the following objectives:
- involvement of upper secondary school teachers, paying particular attention to those over the early stage of their career into European trainings addressing the uptake of digital and ICT tools for the creation of Open Learning Methodologies.
- define guidelines for the production of digital content intended for inclusive teaching, which takes into account the
different characteristics of the class, through the use of OER;
- map the platforms, web and desktop applications and open and inclusive educational practices used at the partnership level in order to create exchanges and contaminations between partner countries in the choice and knowledge of tools;
- provide European teachers with a kit of learning units that are flexible and adaptable to different educational needs, which stimulate and strengthen students' digital skills, computational thinking and critical thinking;
- develop a training course for secondary education teachers aimed at enabling them in the field of online information and data, communication and collaboration and the production of accessible and inclusive digital content. At the same time, equip teachers with the tools to enhance the learning of students and facilitate the development of key competences.
- involving students with SEN in order to test tools and learning methodologies in accordance with their needs .
- equip teachers with innovative competences and tools addressing the renewal of didactical practices through the inclusion of new technologies at school.