Teacher Training Courses - Who are we?
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INSTITUTO POLITÉCNICO DE SANTARÉM
Teacher Training Courses
Teaching tolerance, diversity and active citizenship in the 21st century classroom
WHO ARE WE?
The training course in Portugal is organized by the consortium Prosveta-Sofia Foundation - Bulgaria and Instituto Politecnico de Santarem – Portugal (Prosveta – IPS Consortium)
The training sessions will be hosted by Instituto Politecnico de Santarem (OID E10165803) through its Higher School of Education.
THE HIGHER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION is one of the five faculties in INSTITUTO POLITECNICO DE SANTAREM. The Higher School of Education of Santarém (ESES) is an institution of tertiary level providing academic training for degrees of First Cycle of Basic Education, Childhood Education, Social Education, Cultural Animation and Community Education, Education and Communication Multimedia and Visual Arts and Multimedia. ESES also delivers training courses in order to meet the professional, civic and cultural needs of teachers and society. ESES promotes innovative practices for teachers of all educational levels in different areas with civic education and multimedia communications being among them. ESES has broad experience in international and national projects related to continuing professional development of teachers. The consortium between Prosveta-Sofia Foundation and Instituto Politecnico de Santarem has been organizing teacher training courses since 2018.
PROSVETA-SOFIA FOUNDATION is a non-government non-profit organization founded in 2007 as a legal entity with non-profit public benefit. Its mission is to support the modernization of education at national and international level, and work to improve its quality. It supports the implementation of leading European and world standards in Bulgarian school education through various initiatives.
Prosveta Sofia Foundation has extensive experience in conducting training and awareness seminars. For its 14 years of existence it has organized some 700 workshops with teachers on current educational problems concerning the teaching and learning process in pre-school and primary school, as well as the implementation of modern methodological approaches in teaching basic subjects taught from 5th to 12th grades.
Prosveta-Sofia Foundation has been subcontracted by the Ministry of Education of Bulgaria to run a number of projects.
The experts and associates we work with are experienced in providing teacher trainings and designing educational contents for all school education stages, in designing scripts for multimedia objects which are being outsourced to multimedia companies, etc.
Prosveta Sofia Foundation has sustainable interest in civic education projects and trainings. We have organized some 40 seminars for more than 1300 Bulgarian teachers related to the subject area making use of a teaching aid entitled “Being a citizen” http://www.bglog.net/nachobrazovanie/41654.
In 2015 Prosveta-Sofia Foundation launched the Otherness project www.othernessproject.eu – a KA2 Erasmus+ project, a cross-sectoral partnership in school education, being the coordinating institution. In the project we created a manual with 48 topics which are meant to support teachers in providing civic education trainings. In 2018 we launched coordinating the My Europe – Your Europe – Your Say project http://me-you-us.eu/en/home/ which created a Handbook for teachers with 66 training resources on human rights, diversity and active citizenship education. In 2019 we launched the YESI project http://yesii.eu/en/home/ which designed a practical guide for primary school teachers to support them in creating inclusive classrooms meeting students’ needs and empowering them with skills and knowledge to be responsible citizens.
OUR QUALITY STANDARDS
We are committed to Erasmus Quality Standards and comply to the Basic principles of the Erasmus Quality Standards. Participating organizations are also expected to comply to the Basic Principles when planning project activities.
- Inclusion and diversity:
Prosveta – IPS Consortium - This is the major focus of the contents of the structured course “The primary school classroom – effective teaching approaches for an inclusive classroom through NFE tools and resources”.
Participants’ schools are advised to ensure fair and equal conditions for all potential applicants who will be selected to participate in the course involving teachers with different backgrounds and planning a massive implementation of newly acquired skills in the school through in-service seminars for the rest of the teachers and whole-year students’ training activities with the training resources presented during the training course.
- Environmental sustainability and responsibility:
Prosveta – IPS Consortium - topics of environmentally sustainable and responsible behaviour are being addressed in the training course as separate training sessions in module Active citizenship (AC) and social involvement, namely training resource 3: AC and the protection of environment, and training resource 6: AC in respecting and protecting animals.
Participants’ schools are advised to make maximum use of the funding provided by the Programme to support sustainable means of travel, i.e. travel by train whenever possible. Participants will be advised to travel by train from Lisbon to Santarem, and all planned cultural trips will be organized by train.
- Digital education:
Prosveta – IPS Consortium – the designed Teachers’ Toolkit, which is to be presented to the participants is available online. The lesson plans are accompanied by numerous digital resources designed with cutting edge technologies. After participating in the training course, the participants will be provided with mentors who will support them through virtual cooperation in the process of delivering trainings for their students.
Participants’ schools will benefit from virtual cooperation after the training course, which is part of the training agreement between the school and the training provider consortium.
- Active participation in the network of Erasmus organisations:
Prosveta – IPS Consortium is an active member of the Erasmus network by providing training activities for participants from different European countries and by providing opportunities for exchanges of good practices between course participants and local Portuguese teachers through the planned visits to schools.
Through their participation in the training course, Participants’ schools will gain experience and skills related to internationalization of their schools, skills how to work in international teams and project management skills. They will have practical opportunities to pair up for future projects with the visited Portuguese schools and the other participants’ schools.
We are committed to Quality trainings and comply to the principles set in the European Quality Charter for Mobility:
- Information and guidance: Potential candidates for mobility will be offered equal access to reliable sources of information and guidance.
- Learning plan: The learning plan, which will be drawn up by the sending organization and us, as course organizers, and the participants, will outline the objectives and expected learning outcomes, as well as how these will be achieved and implemented.
- Personalization: the mobility undertaken for education or training purposes will be tailored to fit in with the personal learning pathways, skills and motivation of the participants and will develop or supplement them.
- General preparation: Prior preparation of the participants will be recommended. It will include thematic preparation (on human rights, tolerance and citizenship topics) and cultural aspects of the country of the venue. Participants will receive a list of online materials to read prior to the training course.
- Linguistic aspects: Participants will be offered some linguistic preparation regarding the topics to be discussed during the course by the course organizers.
- Logistical support: Logistical support will be provided to the participants, regarding travel arrangements, insurance, accommodation, etc.
- Mentoring: The training organizations will provide schemes such as mentoring to advise participants while delivering trainings to their students making use of the knowledge and skills gained during the training course.
- Recognition: Participants will receive appropriate documents demonstrating their participation in a credible way, e.g. certificates of attendance and Europass Mobility certificates.
- Reintegration and evaluation: On return to the home country, participants will be given guidance on how to make use of competences and skills acquired during the training course.
- Commitments and responsibilities: The responsibilities arising from these quality criteria will be agreed by the sending and hosting organisations and the participants.
