2nd PEK of Athens

Απολογισμός πρώτου έτους

First year report

AN IMPORTANT INITIATIVE

 

 The participation of the teachers of primary and secondary education in new forms of training to intercultural education, in terms of a European project, has special significance to a country as Greece in which the 8% of the student population is constituted by foreigners or repatriates.

PARTICIPANTS   

The announcement of the programme was greeted with a lively interest from the teachers, as there have been 184 applications, 173 from the primary education and 11 from the secondary education. After drawing lots, 30 people were selected to participate in the programme (25 primary education teachers and 5 secondary education teachers), from 17 schools (16 primary education and 1 secondary education), from 10 different regions of Attika. The 2nd PEK has notified officially the general directors of the area and the school advisors of the 30 teachers’ participation.

School advisors, general directors and advisors from the Pedagogic Institute have attended the works.

FIRST YEAR ACTION PLANFIRST YEAR ACTION PLAN   The teaching material and the suitable bibliography were included in

a 95 pages handbook that was given to the participants. The handbook included:

• 1.  An introductory note that presented the programme “Learning by Sharing” and its aims.

• 2.  A series of texts/articles in Greek and English regarding:• (a)    the cooperative teaching and learning and its implementation in

a school class• (b)    the intercultural education and the introduction of the students

with different cultural background in the learning class environment.• 3.  A toolkit that a teacher can use to impellent cooperative methods

in an intercultural class.• 4.  A list of websites, relevant to the cooperative learning and the

intercultural education, and a selection of relevant bibliography.

• The first year programme has been determined as follows:

FIRST PART: SEMINARSSaturday 15 February 2003

• Salutatory to the participants from the assistant director of the 2nd PEK of Athens Vassilis Dimitropoulos, analysis of the aim and the target of the programme. A few words from Vasso Yannakopoulou and Alexandra Vasiliou. Introduction of the educators from the University of Athens (UoA), Amalia Chatzinikolaou and Yannis Roussakis, to the teachers.

• 9 :15 -11:30 • Intercultural Education: A necessity of our School Reality. • An introduction to the intercultural approach of teaching and

learning as this is dictated by the contemporary social conditions and the composition of the school population.

• 11:30-12:00 Break •  12:00-14:15 • Elevating all students to protagonists of the learning process by

means of cooperative learning.• Presentation in the form of a lecture, along with the use of

audiovisual means, of the concept of the condition, of the basic theoretical and scientific principals and the contemporary social landscape that necessitate the use of the cooperative learning. 

Saturday 22 February 2003 9 :15 -11:30 • Diversity: Enriching schooling and learning.• A presentation of the potentiality of students

with different cultural background to be incorporated in a cooperative environment.

11:30-12:00 Break 12:00-14:15 • Learning by sharing with peers in the class.• Setting the trainees in workgroups and

experience work through intercultural orientation for the dynamics of the cooperative method.

SECOND PART: WORKSHOPS

February-March

• Planning of implementation strategies of the project in the participants’ classrooms.

• Meetings of the educators with the trainees in groups for the supply of assistance concerning the planning and trailblazing.

THIRD PART: ILLATION

Saturday 29 March

• 9:15-12:15

• Plenary session, Second Year Action Plan Discussion, concerning acquired experience, Project evaluation.

SECOND YEAR PLANNING

• All primary and secondary education teachers who participated in the 1st year of the project and submitted their plan to be implemented during the next school year have committed themselves to carry out all actions required by the project coordinators, ensuring the success of the project.

• The PEK and UoA steering teams have worked out a work plan to monitor, assist and complement the actions of the trainees.

A draft outline of this work plan goes as follows:

     Plenary meeting of all parties involved in the project, early September, to reinforce and discuss second –year planning.

     Separate group meetings of the thematic and cooperative groups, with the participation of the PEK and UoA teams, to discuss last minute details or any other development concerning the implementation of the pre-determined projects.

     Frequent feedback meetings, both with each cooperative workgroup and in plenary sessions, to review the implementation of the projects and share experiences.

     Extraordinary meeting for guidance and counseling in every occasion that something not anticipated comes up, or the trainees feel they need such a meeting.

     Close monitoring of the development and use of instructional materials, which will add to the quality of the instructional process, and will help disseminating innovative and fruitful ideas.

• The Greek teams are ready to implement any other suggestion which will be made during the Poland meeting.

NEXT YEAR PLAN ACTION

• Through work, exchange of views that took place in workshops and the co-operation of the participants with the educators was formed the following action programme for the next year with vivid interdisciplinary tone. Some of the subjects caused the collaboration of more than one participants and a number in parenthesis indicates this.

• Analytically, per thematic unity:

INTERCULTURAL - ANTIRACIST (INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH)

• Racism: A first approach- sensitization

• Babel: The body language as a common language of communication (2)

• The king and the nightingale: A plan of interdisciplinary approach through a fairy tale (5)

• Group communication (4)

LANGUAGE SENSITIZATION• Language rousement through fairy tales-myths-

texts• Intercultural Education: Reading skills.• Language Teaching in a reception class: a

cooperative approach.

HEALTH EDUCATION• Health education: dental care and nutritional diet• Mediterranean diet• Healthy diet customs

ENVIRONMENTAL – ECOLOGICAL• Environmental work• Plants and animals of Greece• Ecologic fairy tales•  

HISTORICAL - CULTURAL• Folk songs• Rigas’ vision• Acquainting Greece• Time: a cooperative - interdisciplinary

approach.

EVALUATION

• The first year works have finished with the evaluation of the transactions and the formulation of proposals for the improvement in the entire procedure.

• Below is the evaluation of the programme with the presentation of the participant’s answers in percentage.

• OTHER ASPECTS ABOUT THE EVALUATION (The numbers show the number of people that expressed the

specific proposal)            ADD BELOW ANY OTHER FURTHER ASPECTS ABOUT THE

COURSE WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN CONSIDERED PREVIOUSLY OR THAT YOU WISH TO EXTEND.

• High-level project, efficient guidance from the trainers.• Additional supportive materials.• Reclaiming participants’ experience on issues of intercultural

education.• Cooperative learning should occupy more time in the project

(3).• Possibility of participation in C.2.1 activities of the whole school

unit personnel.

• WHICH ASPECTS WOULD YOU LIKE STUDYING IN DEPTH?

• Would you be interested in continuing the course with a Seminar or a Working Team about the subject?

•  Theoretical aspects in workgroups (2).

• Workgroups (4) Plenary Discussions (3).

• Hands-on implementation in an actual school classroom with the support of the trainers.

• IMPROVEMENT SUGGESTIONS (contents, timing, duration...)• Saturday as the day of the group meetings.• Discussions in a foreign language.• Discussions on educational issues with educators from other countries. • Exemplary teaching by educators who have implemented cooperative

learning methods in their classes in all education levels.• More Time. More group work• Active participation of Educators who must implement specific projects.• Making relevant literature available to participants.• Informing about the results of research relevant to implementing

programme of intercultural education.• In-depth investigation of issues of intercultural education.• Issues more relevant to secondary education.• Concern of the language problems and evaluation problems of foreign

students. • More specific content.• Less time for the project.• Students with learning difficulties.• Visits to project participant countries. • Feedback meeting to check that everything is o.k.