EU remains among the most popular destinations for migrants, asylum seekers & refugees (EU Commission, 2017) and Teachers’ are not prepared for the new paradigm of a Europe that is becoming increasingly diverse. By one hand, European classrooms are becoming more and more diverse, but by the other, teacher profession remains largely homogenous and teachers lack experience in diverse schooling environments. Teachers have difficulties managing classrooms and this is a fact. These difficulties have not only direct impact on their level of satisfaction (and consequently affects negatively the quality of the education offered) but also impacts on pupils educational achievement (that, at long-term, results in ESL, school-prison pipeline and society alienation). INN2DIVERSITY project focus on 1) preparing teachers for diversity and strengthening healthy relationships by providing to teachers a new non-formal process that stimulate their active engagement in career-long competence development; 2) diminish the application of measures/policies as suspension because suspension rates themselves are predictive of drop-out rates. Concerning the needs of the targeted group - teachers and pupils - INTO2DIVERSITY proposes a new methodology – mentoring – as a system level approach to empower teachers with managing diversity in classroom strategies & tools to better engage students & transforming teaching in a healthy profession. INN2DIVERSITY project has 2 main goals: 1) to reinforce competencies of the teachers to deal with complex classroom realities to better manage diversity and keeping students with disruptive behavior and disruptive academic engagement engaged during classroom time, by empowering them with the necessary competencies (based on the Framework of teacher competences for engaging with diversity promoted by the European Commission in 2017) to improve positive relationships between them and this students 2) to create a mentoring model to support schools to transfer and replicate the good practices managing diversity and complex classrooms, and doing so offering them an additional tool to improve teacher’s levels of satisfaction in the classroom; reduce disparities in learning The project foresees the following objectives: 1)to develop, transfer & implement through transnational cooperation an innovative training curricula on diversity and disruptive classroom behaviors management 2)to identify the suitable profile & personal skills to manage students with disruptive behaviour 3)increase teachers motivation & satisfaction of students’ daily work in school thus contributing to increasing their teaching quality & introducing a virtuous cycle between students’ school achievement & teachers job satisfaction 4)design a mentoring model to empower teachers and schools with the suitable methods, knowledge & skills to deal with daily difficulties at work & to manage students with disruptive behaviours 5) evaluate peer-mentoring effectiveness as an in-service only focused on professional development to promote positive relationships between teachers & disruptive students During 3 years, INN2DIVERSITY partners will build a set of Intellectual Outputs, namely: O1 - Report on programmes and measures to support the development of diversity and disruptive classroom behaviors management competences in teacher’s continuous professional enhancement IO2.Training curricula on diversity and disruptive classroom behaviors management IO3.Mentors’ Coordinators and Mentors profile IO4. Courses Curricula for Mentor’s Coordinators and Mentors IO5. Mentoring programme for effective inclusion INN2DIVERSITY will try to target all interested parties that have personal, professional, civic, or financial interest or concern. It includes town council networks, education ministry decision makers, school administrators, school board members, teachers, students, parents, families, community members, local business leaders, non-profit association and NGO’s, advocacy groups. These stakeholders will be personally involved in activities related with validation workshops, open seminars and multiplier events After the project completion is expected _increased awareness of schools on the needed to put efforts to invest on the qualification of their teachers and to adapt the profession to a continuously changing educational environment; _teachers more motivated and satisfied due the investment on their needs of deal with diversity in the classroom _new and tailor-made tool that will allow teachers to self-evaluate themselves and generate awareness on needs of self-development, flexibility and adaptation to new realities _a mentoring process that can be individually fine-tuning to mentors and mentees _pupils with the sense of being valued by their diversity
By the end of its life cycle of implementation and consolidated within the deployment of its 5 IOs, the Inn2Diversity project aimed to achieve five main objectives: to improve teachers’ ability to deal with diversity and disruptive classroom behaviors management; to identify the suitable profile and personal skills to manage students with disruptive behaviour; to increase teachers’ motivation and satisfaction on classroom daily work, thus contributing to the improvement of their pedagogical and didactic skills and global technical abilities, and by doing so, introducing a virtuous cycle between students’ school achievement and teachers job satisfaction; to empower teachers and schools to deal with daily difficulties at work thus improving the global school environment; to improve professional development to promote positive relationships between teachers and disruptive students.
While European classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse, teachers’ professions remain largely homogenous and lacking experience in diverse schooling environments. And even if several European countries have set direct & explicit policy goals to better prepare teachers for diversity in their legislation, or in policy documents defining objectives for (initial) teacher education, difficulties dealing with diversity & disruptive students still exist. Evidence shows that there’s a lack of preparation to deal with the management of classrooms and this has a deep and direct impact on each teacher's ability to perform at their best (thus affecting the quality of the education offered) but essentially impacting the learners’ educational achievements. Despite European investments on teachers, more is needed to qualify the profession, increase the pedagogical quality and improve the relationships between teachers and learners. This said, Inn2Diversity addressed 2 main needs: 1) the low preparation of teachers for diversity & lack of abilities to build healthy relationships; 2) the high rate of application of measures/policies such as out of school suspension which are predictive of a high drop-out rate & point to a flaw in the system.