<< Objectives >>This project will explore and develop professional knowledges and practices enhancing inclusion, participation and democratic engagement developed post Covid-19 in the area of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The project is designed around peer-to-peer exchange where researchers and professionals meet to exchange experiences with post Covid-19 pedagogy in ECEC centres in three participating countries: Ireland, Norway and Denmark. Practice will be documented through video material.<< Implementation >>The project will consist of four main activities, two virtual engagements over a period of time and two mobility meetings in two of the participating countries with substantial preparation work. The main activities consist of professional dialogues on inclusive, democratic ECEC practices during and post-Covid-19. These will be recorded and transcribed. Relevant practices as identified by ECEC professionals will be recorded in ECEC centres and form the basis for the professional dialogues.<< Results >>3 central results of the project are:- Exchanges and systematisations of knowledge about professional practice and knowledges developed during Covid-19 that enhance pedagogical quality and values of equality, inclusion, democratic and civic engagement- Development of educational materials addressing the above mentioned theme- The production of a white paper addressing how to politically support and develop high quality ECEC practice providing equality, inclusion and democracy

EMPOWERING STUDENTS TO DYNAMIC EPORTFOLIO CREATIONContext and aim: In competence-based higher education, the critical points of quality learning are assessment and guidance practices, which should be aligned with desired competences. Empowering Eportfolio Process (EEP) has identified a need to develop competence assessment towards student-centered direction by ensuring empowerment of students in learning process and by developing digital competences of students, teachers and HE institutes. In addition, there is a need to develop and strengthen the use of digital tools in assessment, to enhance participation of world of work in learning processes, thus, creating new kind of collaboration between employers and HE institutes. Eportfolios work as learning spaces and showcases in students’ competence development in education and world of work. EEP aimed to develop student-centered education by enhancing transparency of assessment practices and developing empowering, dynamic approach to ePortfolio process. This increases students’ motivation, and fosters employability, including social participation and digital competence. The aim was to develop students’ continuous engagement in assessment and steer their career management using ePortfolio by focusing on student’s learning process and teacher’s guidance. EEP sought innovative ways on how students can use eportfolios during studies by making informal/nonformal and real-life learning experiences transparent. The aim was to strengthen HE institutes’ operations and culture in recognition of prior learning and competences acquired outside formal education. During the improved ePortfolio process the incongruity between competences of students and needs of employers were decreased. The partners were HE institutes (6) from five countries representing multidisciplinary bachelor/master level education, teacher education and continuing education.Target groups: Direct target groups were students, teachers/study counsellors in HE, and the representatives of the world of work. Indirect target groups were managers in HE, ministries of education, other policy makers, teachers/staff in other school levels e.g. TVET. In total, appr. 1300 target group members took part in the multiplier and training events and pilot activities. In addition, other dissemination (newsletters/online platforms/meetings/seminars/conferences) reached at least double the amount of persons.Activities: - thematic workshops addressing different perspectives on assessment process and utilization of ePortfolios- experimental pilots in each partner HE institute- dissemination activities- multimedia library to share open access materials on ePortfolios- project management and quality assuranceMethodology:EEP utilized co-creation and cross-fertilization, which were organized around five thematic workshops during the project. Qualitative information was collected systematically in every workshop. Joint knowledge-creation processes were used to steer the progress of EEP.Main results: - Baseline study/publication “Collection of best practices in ePortfolio process”- Pilots improved ePortfolio process and increased empowerment of students and teachers for using digital tools in partner HE institutes. The pilots demonstrated examples from different educational contexts that others can benefit from when establishing their own ePortfolio processes.- 40 open access articles from students’, employers’ and teachers’/HE institutes’ perspectives (available at https://unlimited.hamk.fi/articles-in-english/) providing tips, guidelines and experiences on the benefits, creation and utilization of ePortfolios- 15 recommendations for the successful use of ePortfolios in Higher Education- establishment of professional learning network for developing ePortfolio processes internationally (“Empowering ePortfolio process in education” Facebook group) Impact: The main impact is improved assessment process in higher education in which digital tools are utilized in an efficient and inspiring way. Students get enlarged possibilities to use digital tools to reflect skills/competences to be more engaged in their career possibilities from the perspective of lifelong learning. Teachers’ competence in guiding student-centered and collaborative assessment process improved which affected the future education supporting lifelong learning. Employers gained new understanding about education and ePortfolio as a tool to identify future employees by giving insight to students on how to achieve and demonstrate relevant competences. HE institutes developed assessment process and quality learning, and student-centered organizational culture was strengthened creating sustainable foundation for new kinds of assessment practices incl. procedures for recognition of prior learning and adaptive creation of individual learning paths. In addition, long-term impacts are strongly related to human capital development of HE institutes.

The diversity and complexity of students, fast pace of life, constant changes and huge amount of information place increasing demands on the teachers (who represent different generation) to provide effective pedagogy and instruction, validate and incorporate students’ knowledge and experience in the learning process (which differs from but also greatly contributes to the knowledge and experience of teachers) and thus create inclusive, healthy, welcoming, productive, collaborative, ‘making mistakes is ok’ climate in the classroom. To meet these demands teachers have to adopt new professional practices, skills and competences, as well as revisit their mindsets as personalities, professionals and citizens. At the same time learners have to assume more responsibility for their own learning, be more skillful and vocal in presenting their ideas. Both teachers and students have to improve their ability and motivation to collaborate in making the choices in terms of what, when and how to include in the teaching-learning process.Contemporary students are characterized by being autonomous, independent and self-confident, but at the same time they often lack collaboration and self-expression skills. The majority of schools still offer mostly traditional teaching where all students have the same tasks and work individually according to the teacher’s prescriptions. In order to make learning more effective, interesting and appealing to the learner we have to find answers to the questions “How to make students motivated and interested in what is happening in the classroom? How to incorporate students’ knowledge and skills in the learning process? How to promote student engagement and desire to be responsible for their own learning? What is the teachers’ role and what competences and characteristics should they possess in order to promote students’ and their own learning? How to connect learning in the classroom with the outside world – events and processes in local community and globally? How to move towards more meaningful and purposeful learning?”Aim: to explore the experience and best practice of partner countries in supporting active engagement of learners (both students and teachers) in planning, implementation and evaluation of the learning process at school and beyond in order for them to become co-creators of their own learning within collaborative learning process.Key aspects to be explored: self-led learning learning, an engaged classroom, collaboration with shared responsibility for decision making and results, providing open and immediate feedback, education technologies, Learning to learn and Cultural awareness and expression competences, interdisciplinary approach, Teacher as a learner, facilitator, supporter, guide, coach, mentor, nurturer, etc.Objectives:•To identify examples of learner engagement in co-creation of their own learning in partner countries;•To find out what are the obstacles to engaging learners in the creation and implementation of the learning process;•To collect examples of best practices where teachers are using new approaches/pedagogies, the latest technology, space, etc. to steer pupils/learners towards more meaningful and purposeful learning;•To explore what kind of support is required for teachers to be able to ensure student-led learning;•To elaborate a podcast series with instructional support materials for educators on how to implement new pedagogies in their practice. Target audiences:Direct: •Staff from project partner organisations who directly or indirectly work with schools;•Educators hosting learning visits in all partner countries;•Educators benefiting from the project results (i.e. Intellectual output, multiplier events, etc).Indirect:•Learners;•Educational community.Expected impact:•Increased capacity of partner institutions and their staff to provide professional development of educators;•Developed series of podcasts with supporting materials for school leaders and teachers on how to implement new pedagogies in their practice;•Raised educators’ awareness, increased knowledge and deepened understanding of multiple modes of instruction and learning that support active engagement of learners in all stages of the learning process and different contexts;•Presented practical applications of new approaches in teaching and learning;•Expanded partnerships and professional networks of educators and educational organisations in partner countries and across Europe.Nowadays all European countries face similar challenges in education systems and actively look for diverse solutions to react to fast changing situation in all spheres of life. Many school education systems struggle to respond to the profound and complex changes our societies and economies are undergoing. The need for innovative approaches and help for schools in adapting to the changing context, including the digital era and the increasing diversity among learners, is obvious.

EiTTT was a 30-month Erasmus+ project that focused on the development of mainstream schools as inclusive learning environments for all learners. The project partnership featured three Initial Teacher Education institutes and three schools. Each partner hosted a 5-day learning activity in their institute/school with all of the partners attending to witness best practice in the host setting.In total there were six activities:•Co-Teaching in Teacher Education (UCLL – Belgium)•Co-Teaching for Inclusive Classroom Practice (Lukkarin Koulo Primary School – Finland)•Video Interaction Guidance in Teacher Education (KdG – Belgium)•Student-teacher Placement in a Special Education School Context – Developing Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes for Inclusive Practice (MIE – Ireland)•Inclusion Through Education – Students from Refugee/Migrant/Socio-economically Disadvantaged Backgrounds (Anthoupolis Primary School – Cyprus)•Cross-Disciplinary Support for Inclusive Education (Riga Secondary School No. 45 – Latvia)These learning activities formed the basis of the project resources that are available at www.mie.ie/eittt. These resources comprise six overall case studies based on the practices being observed in the above activities, 30 case studies in context (country-specific interpretation of the practices), and six learning activity summaries.

Schools in several European countries frequently fail to provide both excellence and equity in mathematics teaching: more than 20% of European students do not reach a minimum level of basic skills in mathematics; only 2%-3% of them reach the highest level of proficiency; and large variations in achievement exist among students within schools, indicating that schools fail to create equitable learning environments for their students (OECD, 2016). Supporting teachers to combat this challenge requires that teachers be afforded curriculum materials that provide specific support and solid guidelines to teach for excellence and equity, as well as professional development (PD) on how to do so.Responding to this dual need, the main goal of the EDUCATE project was to develop, implement, validate, and refine materials for teachers and teacher educators (TEs) that address issues of cognitive activation (CA) and differentiation (DI) in an integrated manner –which was missing from past work attending to either excellence or equity. More crucially, the project aimed at educating teachers to use these materials by engaging them in guided reflection around their practice and to scaffold TEs to offer solid guidance to teachers in doing so.Working in four EU countries (Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal) to minimize context dependencies and ensure the transferability of the materials produced, the project unfolded in four phases. In the first, EU/(inter)national policy documents on excellence and equity were reviewed, as well as prior studies on teachers’ needs and challenges when having to teach for both goals. This top-down approach was complemented by a bottom-up approach involving 66 lesson observations of a maximum variation sample of 33 prospective and practising primary or secondary teachers and 66 pre- and post-lesson interviews with them to identify their actual and perceived needs and challenges when having to engage all their students in challenging tasks. In the second phase, building on this needs-assessment analysis, we developed five modules for teachers and five associated modules for TEs, which aimed at helping them effectively deal with the most crucial challenges identified. After being content-validated and pilot-tested, these modules were implemented with 76 primary and secondary teachers (20 prospective and 56 practicing) working in different school settings (including underserved areas). During this third phase, recruited teachers worked in video-club settings through iterative cycles of experimentation with the EDUCATE materials and reflection upon their practice, facilitated by 16 TEs. TE logs (N=96) and teacher reflection cards (N=401), providing feedback on the implementation of the EDUCATE packages, were completed at the end of each video-club session and were used formatively to inform and refine the PD approach offered. In the fourth phase, we examined the effectiveness of the EDUCATE materials and PD approach. Specifically, the videotaped lessons were coded using an observation rubric developed in the third phase, which comprised a set of 35 phase-level and 10 lesson-level codes related to CA, DI and their interplay. By using linear growth models, we explored changes in the instructional quality in the 201 teachers’ videotaped lessons. Written memos of the videotaped video-club meetings (N=107) and end-of-project teacher/focus group interviews (N=76) were analysed following a phenomenological approach and constant comparative method to investigate participants’ experiences, (re)conceptualisations of CA and DI, and enduring challenges. The project culminated by revising the EDUCATE materials based on the lessons learned from this examination and by producing an e-learning course for teachers and TEs, which is hosted on the EDUCATE platform.The key EDUCATE results pertained to (a) producing a validated, effective, and transferable series of self-contained modules for teachers and their accompanying modules for TEs that concurrently attend to CA and DI; (b) identifying what is feasible to expect from teachers at different educational levels (primary vs. secondary) and career stages (prospective vs. practising)—as suggested by the statistically significant changes identified in aspects of teachers’ practice; (c) surfacing ways in which the modules produced and the adopted PD approach scaffolded teachers’ thinking and work around CA and DI; and (d) identifying challenges that teachers encounter as they currently work at both fronts.The project also raised awareness among different policy makers, stakeholders and researchers about the importance of attending to both CA and DI. Because the EDUCATE outputs are open-access and disseminated through several venues, such as the EDUCATE platform (educate-platform.com/) and website (www.ucy.ac.cy/educate/en/), the impact of the project on TEs, teachers, and foremost students—the ultimate recipients of high-quality instruction—is expected to be long term.