Critical thinking is a key competency for young people growing up in the 21st century. Children need to make sense of complex and conflicting information. Social media presents a particular challenge with the increasing presence of extremist views. These issues have been recorded by the four partner countries, and this project builds the capacity of teachers today and tomorrow in response to this challenge. The objective of this project is to support teachers with the training and resources they need to help children to become critical and challenging thinkers. This training will directly reach 400 teachers across the UK, Hungary, Poland and Sweden. These teachers will facilitate ‘difficult conversations’ with over 12,000 pupils. The results of this project will be shared with 150 teacher training institutions and 1050 trainee teachers. The project will be delivered in five phases. Phases 1 and 2 will result in a five day training in dialogic teaching. The main focus of this training will be Philosophy for Children as a technique for supporting teachers to facilitate ‘difficult conversations’. This will be attended by all partners, and will also involve them sharing their teaching experiences and approaches to developing critical thinkers and challenging extremist views. Phases 3 and 4 involve these partners delivering cascade training to 100 teachers in each of countries. This will then allow teachers to work with their pupils on a projects called “Holding Difficult Conversations”. These projects will take either a current or historic event, and look at it through different media perspective, considering the arguments, evidence and ethics. The classroom projects using dialogue techniques, will be collected in a Teacher Toolkit. This will be the subject of the dissemination phase – the project’s fifth and final phase. This phase is crucial as it will share the learning of teachers in schools, with trainees who will become the teachers of tomorrow. Each partner will work closely with providers of Initial Teacher Training to disseminate the Toolkit to over 1050 trainees. This partnership is key to the sustainability of the project, as partners and universities will seek ways of embedding dialogue techniques into teacher training. The activities will result in teachers having increased skills to teach critical thinking, and an understanding of how this can be used to challenge extremist views in the classroom. Pupils will become more critical, caring, creative and co-operative in their learning, as teachers introduce aspects of the Philosophy for Children approach. Trainee teachers will become aware of the need for critical thinking and have access to a relevant Teacher Toolkit resource. Partners will have increased their capacity to train others, and developed networks to share their learning. These chain of activities and results will support children to engage with the wider world around them, in positive and thoughtful ways. It will give them the thought processes and language to challenge media, and engage with extremist views. The project will therefore give confidence to teacher, trainee and pupil to “hold difficult conversations”.
Critical thinking is a key competency for young people growing up in the 21st century. Children need to make sense of complex and conflicting information. Social media presents a particular challenge with the increasing presence of extremist views. These issues have been recorded by the four partner countries, and this project builds the capacity of teachers today and tomorrow in response to this challenge. SUMMARY OF PROJECT AIM ACHIEVED The aim of this project was to support teachers with the training and resources they need to help children to become critical and challenging thinkers. This training directly reached 514 teachers across the UK, Hungary, Poland and Sweden. These teachers will have facilitated ‘difficult conversations’ with 6,245 pupils, and has the potential of reaching a total of 15,420. OUTLINE OF OBJECTIVES ACHIEVED The project had 4 key objectives and these have been successfully achieved. 1:- To know more about the teaching contexts of partner countries (specifically in dealing with diversity, media literacy and critical thinking). This was achieved by the partners participating in project, training and dissemination. From the evaluation of the project, participants went from 0% saying they had “a good understanding of controversial issues in other European contexts” to 100%, by the end of the project. 2. To increase dialogic teaching skills as ways of challenging extremist views. A key activity of the project was the international five day training in dialogic teaching attended by 25 teachers and educators. The main focus of this training was on Community of Enquiry (COE) as a technique for supporting teachers to facilitate ‘difficult conversations’. This was attended by all partners, and involved them sharing their teaching experiences and approaches to developing critical thinkers and challenging extremist views. 3. To understand how dialogic teaching can be delivered in schools. The importance of this training was however for the participants to put the method into practice. The attendees therefore went back to their own countries and delivered cascade training to a total of 514 teachers. This allowed teachers to work with their pupils on holding difficult conversations. These discussions were based on either a current or historic event, and look at it through different media perspective, considering the arguments, evidence and ethics. This then reached 6,245 pupils, with the potential of reaching a total of 15,420. As a result the project collected 42 case studies from across the partner countries. 4. To develop and disseminate online resources to support teachers in the future/ trainee teachers. The classroom projects using dialogue techniques, were collected in the project Intellectual Output – the Teacher Toolkit. This was the subject of the dissemination phase – sharing the learning of teachers in schools, with trainees who will become the teachers of tomorrow. Each partner worked closely with providers of Initial Teacher Training reaching 1143 trainees. This partnership is key to the sustainability of the project, as partners and universities will seek ways of embedding dialogue techniques into teacher training. This wider dissemination was well received with: - 6 national and international events promoting the project - 1980 views/downloads of Toolkit - 7147 visits/likes/views of project website/facebook channels LONGER TERM BENEFITS The activities resulted in teachers having increased skills to teach critical thinking, and an understanding of how this can be used to challenge extremist views in the classroom. Pupils became more critical, caring, creative and co-operative in their learning, as teachers introduce aspects of the Philosophy for Children approach. Trainee teachers become aware of the need for critical thinking and have access to a relevant Teacher Toolkit resource. Partners have increased their capacity to train others, and developed networks to share their learning. These chain of activities and results will support children to engage with the wider world around them, in positive and thoughtful ways. It will give them the thought processes and language to challenge media, and engage with extremist views. The project will therefore give confidence to teacher, trainee and pupil to “hold difficult conversations”.