Pre-school education is known as a critical period in which the foundation of personality is built. Not only for personality development, pre-school education plays a key role in developing a series of skills and knowledge such as problem solving skills, social skills, developed language and communication skills, increased readiness for early years of elementary school, lower problem behaviours in future. Inclusive education is defined by UNESCO as a process of addressing and responding to the diverse needs of all learners by increasing participation in learning and reducing exclusion within and from education. Inclusive education starts with pre-school education to prepare children with their typically developing peers for further education in their life. Teachers are accepted as one of the most important component of inclusion, and in order to increase the success of pre-school inclusive practices, they should be prepared to teach in heterogeneous classrooms that include children with and without special needs including children with (IDs). In pre-school teacher education programs in Turkey consists of only one introductory and selective course on special education. Many teachers are graduated without having attended knowledge and skills that would compliment to their competencies to work with children with diverse needs. Studies in Turkey indicated that the school and classroom environments where pre-school inclusive education will take place are not available to meet the needs of children with SNs, especially for the children with IDs. To ease the problems counted in preschools in regard to inclusion, developing a life-long learning perspective in individuals is a critical and a problematic issue in the field of education. In Turkey, common concerns stated by teachers are lack of availability of reliable knowledge based resources, lack of good practices reflecting the real field experience, lack of warm learning environment for the professionals, lack of communication among all professionals who serve in different roles, lack of understanding how to prepare and present the materials to the professionals in a more meaningful way to them.This project has been designed so as to answer to those needs through designing a training program for pre-school teachers who are working in inclusive class-rooms through providing their participation into the design process, in line with their needs and fucusing on children with IDs. The proposed project also aims to develop an open e-learning environment for pre-school teachers to learn from each other. The e-learning environment will be developed including those; necessary knowledge to develop a welcoming environment for the pre-school teachers, good examples coming from real teachers and self-evaluative materials for the teachers to evaluate their own development and their own educational environment. To succeed this, the teachers will be supported by the university professionals in collaboration with the field experts. Moreover, training program and open e-learning design processes will be supported through joint staff trainings to understand and utilize from existent practices at the European level.This project should be implemented transnationally so as to create an environment for pre-school teachers in Turkey to have same vision with the European partners & to share this new initiative, ‘’From teacher to teacher perspective'' at the European level. Our partnership holds the whole range of the competences required to implement this project & to produce high quality outputs.I. OUTPUTS 1. Needs Analysis for Pre-School Teachers in Inclusive Education Settings(O1): To determine the specific needs of pre-school teachers in inclusive settings and to determine existent preshool practices in European Union2. Development of a new tool to evaluate inclusive preschool settings in the perspective of global quality (O2)3. Design of a training program/curriculum for pre-school teachers(O3) A new training program will be designed to improve professional and pedagogical skills of pre-school teachers in terms of inclusion4. Designing an open e-learning portal for preshool teachers(O4)II. MULTIPLIER EVENTS AND DISSEMİNATION ACTIVITIES will be conducted to raise awareness and to disseminate project findings and results. E1: Dissemination and awareness raising meeting on needs analysis E2: Awareness raising meeting on the new training program and E-learning Portal E3: Closing and ValorizationEvent III. LEARNİNG/TEACHİNG /TRAİNİNG ACTİVİTİESC1. Joint staff training in the NetherlandC2. Joint staff training in SpainIV. PROJECT MANAGEMENT-FOLLOW-UP AND COMMUNİCATİON ACTİVİTİES V. TRANSNATİONAL MEETİNGS WİTH ALL PARTNERS TO OVERVİEW THE PROJECT ACTİVİTİESM1. Kick-off meeting M1 (Turkey) M2. Second transnational meeting meeting, M2, ( Germany)M3. Third transnational meeting , M3 ( Netherlands)M4. The fourth meeting, M4, (Spain)
Pre-school education is known as a critical period in which the foundation of personality is built. Not only for personality development, pre-school education plays a key role in developing a series of skills and knowledge such as problem solving skills, social skills, developed language and communication skills, increased readiness for early years of elementary school, lower problem behaviours in future. Inclusive education is defined by UNESCO as a process of addressing and responding to the diverse needs of all learners by increasing participation in learning and reducing exclusion within and from education. Inclusive education starts with pre-school education to prepare children with their typically developing peers for further education in their life. Teachers are accepted as one of the most important component of inclusion, and in order to increase the success of pre-school inclusive practices, they should be prepared to teach in heterogeneous classrooms that include children with and without special needs including children with (IDs). In pre-school teacher education programs in Turkey consists of only one introductory and selective course on special education. Many teachers are graduated without having attended knowledge and skills that would compliment to their competencies to work with children with diverse needs. Studies in Turkey indicated that the school and classroom environments where pre-school inclusive education will take place are not available to meet the needs of children with SNs, especially for the children with IDs. In Turkey, common concerns stated by teachers are lack of availability of reliable knowledge based resources, lack of good practices reflecting the real field experience, lack of warm learning environment for the professionals, lack of communication among all professionals who serve in different roles, lack of understanding how to prepare and present the materials to the professionals in a more meaningful way to them. This project has been designed so as to answer to those needs through designing a training program for pre-school teachers who are working in inclusive class-rooms through providing their participation into the design process, in line with their needs and fucusing on children with IDs. An open e-learning environment for pre-school teachers has also been developed to learn and interact with each other. It can be accessed from the link http://www.ogretmenplatform.org OR http://www.teacherplatform.org. The e-learning environment consists of a training program and a platform including those; necessary knowledge to develop a welcoming environment for the pre-school teachers, good examples coming from real teachers and self-evaluative materials for the teachers to evaluate their own development and their own educational environment. To succeed this, the teachers were supported by the university professionals in collaboration with the field experts. Moreover, training program and open e-learning design processes has been supported through joint staff trainings to understand and utilize from existent practices at the European level.This project was implemented transnationally so as to create an environment for pre-school teachers in Turkey to have same vision with the European partners & to share this new initiative, ‘’ teachers to teachers perspective'' at the European level. Our partnership holds the whole range of the competences required to implement this project & to produce high quality outputs.We are 7 partners from 4 countries. Profile of partners can be accessed from the link http://www.ogretmenplatform.org/en/partners I. OUTPUTS (http://www.ogretmenplatform.org/en/outputs) 1. Needs Analysis for Pre-School Teachers in Inclusive Education Settings(O1): To determine the specific needs of pre-school teachers in inclusive settings and to determine existent preshool practices in European Union 2. Development of a new tool to evaluate inclusive preschool settings in the perspective of global quality (O2) 3. Design of a training program/curriculum for pre-school teachers(O3) A new training program will be designed to improve professional and pedagogical skills of pre-school teachers in terms of inclusion 4. Designing an open e-learning portal for preshool teachers(O4) II. MULTIPLIER EVENTS AND DISSEMİNATION ACTIVITIES was conducted to raise awareness and to disseminate project findings and results. E1: Dissemination and awareness raising meeting on needs analysis E2: Awareness raising meeting on the new training program and E-learning Portal III. LEARNİNG/TEACHİNG /TRAİNİNG ACTİVİTİES (C1) . Joint staff training in the Netherlands (C2). Joint staff training in Spain IV. PROJECT MANAGEMENT-FOLLOW-UP AND COMMUNİCATİON ACTİVİTİES V. TRANSNATİONAL MEETİNGS TO OVERVİEW THE PROJECT ACTİVİTİES M1. Kick-off meeting (Turkey) M2. Transnational meeting in Germany M3. Transnational meeting in the Netherlands M4. Transnational meeting in Spain