The project intends to support the professional development of teachers by strengthening their relational competences through a training programme combining the methodologies of e-learning, micro-learning, and gaming. The training programme will deal with the following themes: 1] education (teacher-pupil relationship); 2] participation (communication with the pupils’ parents; 3] co-operation (relationship between peers and between the diverse organisational levels).During the project an online course for teachers will be designed and produced, along with a simulated practice educational game and guidelines for transferring the project results by implementing sustainable Permanent Laboratories for Soft Skills. Institutional stakeholders will be engaged in a participatory design process for developing a medium-long-term strategy to incorporating soft skills in the curricula of training course for teachers.The project intends to train 300 teachers during the educational experiment, and imoact on the participants in terms of improvement of relational skills, development of reflective practice, improvement of assertive response to stressful situations, improvement of thr quality of the relationship with the pupils and with the pupils’ parents; increase in self-esteem; effective communication in everyday’s professional practice.

"People with intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities represent one of the most disadvantaged social groups in European countries especially regarding their vocational preparation and their training towards employment. The pervasive nature of intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities creates very high levels of need for assistance, often throughout every aspect of the individual's existence and over the whole of the person's life, especially by experts, therapists, educators and caretakers. Traditional patterns of care have been heavily based on institutions, which tend to segregate and isolate people from the mainstream of society and many European countries are now beginning to replace these with more individualised, integrated services which aim to support inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in society (Mansell & Ericsson, 1996). Moreover, importance of health & social services is increasing as unemployment and relocation across Europe increases. This growing demand for services in many Member States is creating unprecedented pressures on special education systems. Despite differences in political approaches and institutional frameworks, special education in all Member States faces similar challenges in adjusting to societal changes, rising expectations and consumerism, changing employment and family patterns, evolving technological opportunities and funding issues. In addition to being an important source of job creation (in excess of 20 million employees), the special education sector has an important economic weight. A recent report by the Social Protection Committee on the social dimension in the EU2020 strategy stated that greater emphasismust be spent on generating an effective and innovative way of developing the human capital of those responsible for improving the quality of life for vulnerable people throughout Europe. Education and training plays a pivotal role in developing those whowork with people with disabilities and, more generally, the special education sector. In many parts of Europe, the sector has a strong emphasis on learning and assessing skills for job roles in real practice environments (""practice learning""). In some qualifications, practice learning can be almost 40% of the total learning time. There are also on-going demands for practice learning with new qualified professionals. There are clear logistical challenges in arranging practice opportunities where trainees are able to learn the core skills of the job and receive high quality support, supervision and assessment of their practice from suitably qualified mentors/practice assessors. Furthermore, finding sufficient numbers of such placements has been a challenge for the last 30 years. However, there are also other challenges; e.g. risks associated with work-based learning and the safety and well-being of service users in giving trainees access to their lives. Last but not least, the financial situation in many European countries has lead many families to cut down the private therapies of family members with intellectual disabilities due to financial benefits reduction. To address these challenges, the Play2Do project will develop an immersive 3D virtual environment, built on gaming architecture and driven by emotional Artificial Intelligence (AI), to provide a safe and readily accessible environment where VET/school students with intellectual disabilities can learn by interacting with NPCs (Non-Player Characters) in a simulation of a real world service. Educators and trainers will be trained to use the framework and trainees will engage with simulations and will be required to navigate their way through choices to arrive at the best resolution. Each simulation can be replayed and evaluated by the trainer/mentor and the trainee can use the same simulation as many times as required. We see this as offering a measurable, controlled environment where learners can gain a command of the basics of the job role they are training for with minimal resource requirements and zero risk to the public, thus providing a sound basis from which to progress to real work practice placement.The project will develop a pedagogy for trainers/mentors around the use of the simulated practice learning environment and develop and deliver a curriculum around simulated practice learning. The project aims to train 200 trainers/mentors to use the environment and carry out a large-scale European pilot with over 300 VET/school students with intellectual disabilities and trainers/mentors/special education teachers using the environment and the new curriculum that will accompany it. The impact of the project will be the introduction of an integrative and motivating VET framework designed for students with intellectual disabilities and their educators/trainers, using a 3D game platform for supporting practice learning using qualities of Emotional Artificial Intelligence and Adaptivity."

ContextThe COVID-19 pandemic took virtually everyone by surprise. In the face of unprecedented disruption to work, life and well-being, one of the key features of the response to COVID-19 disruption was the rapid acceleration of digital technologies into all aspects of human activity – from shopping through education to medical consultations. Many people were left behind as a result of this shift – from families on low income with no means to afford the digital tools needed for home schooling to older people who did not know how to access health services online. In this context, there is a need for education and training systems to become more flexible and resilient so as to deliver high quality and inclusive learning particularly for those affected by ‘dual exclusion’ – the process through which structural inequalities are exacerbated by lack of access to digital technologies and digital skills. This process of re-adjustment needs to start with educators, who need to acquire the digital and pedagogical competences needed to work effectively with people who suffer 'dual exclusion', and who need support to transition into a rapidly evolving digital economy. Objectives•To build on existing EU competence frameworks – in particular 'DigCompEdu' – to develop a flexible digital competence framework for educators working in the VET sector•To incorporate a set of competences that enables educators to use digital tools to work with vulnerable groups, so as to in turn improve their digital competences and knowledge•To embed the framework in ‘situational knowledge-based practice’ so as to support educators to understand how to apply digital competences in real teaching and learning situations•To develop an online learning programme – using micro-learning and game-based learning - to enable educators to acquire these competences and apply them in practice•To pilot the programme with 200 learners in four different VET contexts – school-based vocational training, college and further education training, vocational training for vulnerable young people and continuing vocational training for adult learners•To disseminate the project results to a wide stakeholder constituency including policy-makers, educators, youth organisations and the research community•To develop a Toolkit for scaling the programme up and outParticipants200 VET educators from school through to higher education, particularly those working with vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, who take part in the FLEXI-COMP training programme, with an additional 200 educators trying out the programme through a 'Call for Participation' in the second half of the projectActivitiesReview of state of the art to assess relevant digital competence frameworks and training programmes for disadvantaged learners and digitally excludedLifeworld analysis, working with digitally excluded groups to identify their digital needs and the barriers to participation in the digital economyDevelopment of digital competence framework and pedagogic model Development of learning platform and tools to run the training programmeDevelopment of training programme, including micro-learning, blogging and online gameProgramme piloting with 200 VET educatorsEvaluation of programmeDevelopment of sustainability Plan and Transferability ToolkitFLEXI-COMP combines two overarching methodologies to deliver project objectives and results. Firstly, design thinking' applies a five stage process to solve the ‘presenting problem’ of dual exclusion in 'human-centric' ways, by focusing on what’s most important from the perspective of 'users' and by applying 'out of the box' and 'disruptive' ideas to address the presenting problem. Secondly, ‘Theory of Change’ provides a road map for the project, specifies its key milestones and outputs; what’s needed to achieve these and what changes are expected as a result. Within this overall framework, the project applies a number of methods, including a ‘situational knowledge-based’ model of defining competences; ‘lifeworld analysis’ to capture the needs, lived experience and 'critical incidents' faced by people who are digitally left behind; co-design methods to develop the pedagogy for the training programme and a combination of micro-learning, blogging and an interactive game to deliver it.Expected Results90% of 200 programme participants successfully complete 70% report high satisfaction Educators increase their understanding of how digital tools can be applied in teaching practice, and how they can be used to deliver quality and inclusive learningEducators increase their core and inclusion-specific digital competences Long term benefitsDisadvantaged learners improve their digital skills and life opportunitiesVET institutions improve the quality and inclusiveness of their provision