Brand New Inclusion

Brand New Inclusion was designed to support the realization of the European Education Area, in which teachers are identified as one of the six main dimensions to embrace the radical transformation...

Brand New Inclusion was aimed at: involving upper secondary school teachers, also at the early stage of career, into training addressing the uptake of digital and ICT tools for the creation of Open Learning Methodologies; defining guidelines for the production of digital content through the use of OER; mapping the platforms, open and inclusive digital tools, and educational practices in order to create exchanges and contaminations between partner countries in the choice and knowledge of tools; providing 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; developing 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, equipping 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.

Before the Kick Off Meeting (May 2022), the BNI partnership under the coordination of Archilabò managed the withdrawal of UEF, replacing the organization with the University College of Leuven. Plus, output coordinators started to outline first information and indications to provide to partners during the first TPM. After the Kick Off, the University of Bologna led the administration of a questionnaire among educational staff belonging to upper secondary schools and their European students, including students with SEN. Through the questionnaire, it has been possible to identify and to map open solutions adopted before and after the pandemic, including digital practices to involve students with SEN. In the meantime,UC Leuven started organizing the Toolkit containing the Learning Unit (LU) based on STEAM subjects and methodology. The LUs foresee the adoption of Open Solutions. Archilabò has developed the structure of the MOOC and drafted the toolkit to be used during the pre-training (October 2022) which will allow teachers the access to the operational and methodological resources, with the addition of a motivational involvement (DigCompEdu - area 1). All these competences, tools and methodologies has been illustrated and shared with teachers of partner schools during a joint training staff event (LTTA - December 2022). The staff’ training aimed at developing the necessary competences and tools for teachers of partner schools, in order to successfully implement the didactic experimentation related to the creation of the Toolkit (IO 2) and the creation of the MOOC (IO3). More than 40 teachers belonging to the partner schools have attended the training course. At the end of the training, the didactic experimentation of the LUs for students with SEN has started and it covered the second half school year 2022-23; by this, the Learning Units have been defined and finalized. Learning outcomes have been collected using formative assessment and a monitoring tool created during the project, with the aim of measuring abilities and skills acquired by students in the experimentation areas. Alongside all the teachers of the schools have been involved in the creation of the materials that constitute the MOOC: How to evaluate the quality and reliability of digital content; How to guide teachers in using Google Drive effectively; How to create an escape room for educational purpose; OER tools for assessment; Interact, Discover, learn with PhET; What is and how you can achieve DGB Learning; How to design accessible audits with Kahoot; How to design a lesson based on UDL; How to include students with SEN; How to engage students in inclusive labs; How to use best practice and available platforms to establish cooperation among teachers and schools; How to properly assess teachers’ skills according to European Framework; How to plan a lesson where digital resources/tools are used; How to use the STEAM kit. All these activities, including the scientific research developed through questionnaires, have brought to the finalization of the three intellectual outputs coordinated with the addition of further transversal activities: 3 Transnational Project Meetings and 5 online progress meetings; evaluation and monitoring activities (13 questionnaires and a guideline), management and reporting activities. In order to successfully spread and transfer the project innovations to the widest target group and to stakeholders, seven Multiplier Events have been set up and, alongside, different and customized tools has been used to communicate activities and project outputs.

The implementation of the activities has to the realisation of the following project results: 1: a SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, led by the University of Bologna, on Open Solutions and participatory culture applied to the field of secondary education before and during the lockdown period, involving 204 European teachers and 462 students, including students with SEN. The research has focused on three aspects related to open solutions in the educational field and the importance of making visible digital competences: the digital content used; the tools (software and applications) with which distance learning has been implemented; the practices and methodologies followed which involved the use of OER and other open solutions, as well as an adaptation of the design according to a student-centered approach. At the end, the construction of guidelines for the production of open and inclusive digital content has been completed with the name of “Converted Education, Upgraded Knowledge”. 2: a DIDACTIC EXPERIMENTATION of learning units (LU) related to STEAM disciplines, but also STEAM as a methodology, that involve the use of Open solutions. The activities contained in the LU aim to develop digital skills, problem solving skills, computational thinking and critical thinking in students. The LUs have been tested, under the supervision of the University of Eastern Finland during the second half of the school year 2022/2023 in partner schools: 23 teachers, 253 students, including students with SEN. At the end of the experimentation, the results were collected through 3 monitoring tools (2 for teachers and 1 for students) that allowed them to measure the skills and competences acquired by students in the areas subject to experimentation. 3: a MOOC “Open Solutions 4 Lifelong Learning”, coordinated by Archilabò. The training course aims to define standards for the use of open solutions in face-to-face teaching and remote teaching. MOOC is composed of the following modules: - Module 1 Open Content: how to create open accessible digital contents in line with the guideline (PR1); - Module 2 Open Tools: how to select and transfer web applications and softwares for teaching and learning activities in the classroom; - Module 3 Open Practices: how to adopt an open learning methodology involving students in the planning, implementation and evaluation process along with the establishment of schools and teachers’ networks; - Module 4 STEAM-KIT: how to use the STEAM-KIT (PR2) and how to implement learning units using Open Solutions (resources and tools). The MOOC is available asynchronously, guaranteeing a diffusion of the contents that exceeds the organizations making up the partnership. All project results have been developed in English and translated in Italian, Greek, Bulgarian, Dutch. Partnership decided to develop an additional output titled 'Students' handouts' to make available to students tools and applications useful to support their learning process in doing homework.