The Project "Supporting skills acquisition and competences for students with intellectual disabilities" will be carried out by two special schools: Special Schools Group in Słupia near Kępno (Poland) and Bishopswood School in London (United Kingdom) for a period of 22 months. These institutions are attended only by students with intellectual disabilities (mild, moderate or severe), who very often suffer from multiple disabilities (e.g. limb paralysis, hearing impairment, vision impairment, and many others). Our students face numerous educational challenges. The most recurrent problems are: - an impaired ability to perform mathematical operations, e.g. instead of adding comes subtraction, and instead of multiplication - division; - an inability to apply appropriate mathematical operations to real life situations; - a lack of understanding of the relationships needed to perform mental calculations; - a lack of understanding of relationships between numbers - an inability to apply one's knowledge, e.g. mathematical operations which have been learned are not used in new situations; - problems with the mastery of reading and writing. The participants of the project will be students with various types of intellectual and physical disability and their teachers. Through the project, on the one hand we will develop students' cognitive-social skills in difficult areas as described above, on the other hand we will - through the exchange of good practices - develop educators' skills and tools, so that they are more effective in helping our students with learning difficulties; in order for our students to effectively gain the skills and competencies they need for their present and future lives. We aim to achieve these goals through activities implemented during the project: the participation of 16 employees and 44 students with their 30 carers during a week-long visit to the partner organization (activities related to learning / teaching / training). In addition to the above activities, we will prepare an extensive project documentation, including curriculum and skills training based on learning by experience. The program will be open to use by educators from other special education institutions in the future. It will be made accessible by placing the materials in open educational resources, including the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform and in professional magazines / websites.
Project "Supporting skills acquisition and competences for students with intellectual disabilities" was implemented by two special schools: Special School Complex in Słupia near Kępno (Poland) and Bishopswood School in Sonning Common (United Kingdom). These facilities are attended by students with intellectual disabilities (mild, moderate or severe) and / or autism who also very often have coupled disabilities (e.g. paralysis of the limbs, hearing loss, amblyopia and many others). Our students face many educational challenges. The most common recurring difficulties are: - impaired ability to perform mathematical operations, e.g. subtraction instead of addition and division instead of multiplication; - inability to match relevant mathematical operations to real situations; - lack of understanding of the relationships necessary to perform memory calculations; - failure to notice numerical relationships; - lack of ability to apply their knowledge, e.g. learned mathematical operations, in new situations; - problems reading and writing. 16 teachers (8 from PL and 8 from UK) took part in the project and developed 22 primary competences (10 from UK, 12 from PL) in the scope described above. These educators also developed their methodological workshop to more effectively help students overcome educational difficulties and acquire the skills and competences they need for current and future functioning. To this end, they exchanged good practices, developed new solutions, created innovative methods and tools, and also participated in training, including in the use of Photon robots in teaching mathematics. Thanks to the project activities, the following products have been created, available on page http://zssslupia.pl/index.php/wspolpraca-szkol-ka2-polska-wielka-brytania/rezultaty-i-dobre-praktyki : 1. EBOOK Description of methods supporting the development of mathematical skills in teaching people with mental disabilities 2. Event agenda - Maths Day 3. Description of methods supporting the development of mathematical skills in teaching people with intelectual disabilities 4. The use of Photon Robots in shaping mathematical skills and competences in students with intellectual disabilities 5. Mathematical skills and competences and social competencies and use of them in real situations 6. ICT and other tools in teaching basic mathematical competences in students with mental disabilities 7. Situational scenes facilitating the teaching of mathematics to moderately and severely intellectually disabled students 8. Fingertip Multiplication Table - Instructions on an innovative method 9. World Multiplication Table Day – scenario 10. Mathematics with a tablet – guide 11. Schedule of actions to support the development of skills and key competences for students with mental disabilities 12. Worksheets with mathematical tasks for students with intellectual disabilities 13. Pedagogical innovation - coding mathematical operations in colorful cups 14. Have fun and learn! Mathematic contest developing key skills and competence of students with intelectual disability 15.Catalog of Maths lesson plans for students with intellectual disabilities developed during the project 16. Cultural preparation of beneficiries Great Britain 17. Glossary of mathematical terms in English and Polish 18. Desk calendar 19. Leeflet Get the power of Erasmus+ 20. Examples of math tasks for students with autism using the Picture Exchange Communication System method 21. MOVIE Multiplication table by finger method 22. Fun and games - AGENDA of mathematical obstacle course 23. Workshops - MATHEMATICS WITHOUT REST, SCOTTIE GO - modern didactic tools supporting teacher's work in education of students with intellectual disability 24. Catalog of Maths lesson plans for students with intellectual disabilities developed during the project by teachers from a British school 25. Legotherapy and LEGO blocks in mathematics The set of these documents is a basic skills development program based on learning through experience. The project also undertook numerous activities disseminating the results, in which the estimated number of recipients at the end of the project is 5600 people. The plans of organizations participating in the project include further exploitation of results, including in projects implemented on the eTwinning Platform.