While participating in the course „ Mindfulness and meditation“ we planned to learn ways of positive attitude forming, stress management, creativity boosting, active listening, creating a positive microclimate in the lessons and in all school society and find out more about quiet and silent learning. Thus the well-being of school staff and all the society would positively effect on inclusion and educational results. During the course „Facing Diversity: Inclusive education strategies for students with fewer opportunities“ we wanted to gain more skills in non-traditional ways of teaching, motivating and encouraging students, find more inclusion strategies for students with special needs to learn in their preferable ways, also, to learn creative problem solving ways and mediation and how to recognize teacher‘s competences and use them the best. Thus, growing students‘ self-motivation would increase their inclusion into education and it‘s planning. While „Digital Class“course, we planned to find out and practice new IT usage methods, platforms and tools for teaching, learning and evaluation. This would motivate „screenagers“, allow to make teaching process more attractive and individualized and develop the idea of sustainability.
Balys Buracas gymnasium is located in a suburb and educates students from different backgrounds, with different needs and capacities, also reemigrants and many students with special needs. As the amount of students with special needs is increasing and going to increase more from the year 2024, our teachers need to change the way of teaching into more individual, inclusive, positive-minded, motivating and attractive. Working with „screenagers“, who find difficulties in concentrating, have lack of motivation, short attention spam and, often, special needs, teachers face class management and students‘ motivating challenges every day. Thus, seeking to create a positive class microclimate and achieve good academic results, the teaching methods and approaches must be changed. What is more, positive teacher‘s attitude, self-awareness and mindfullness plays a crucial role in this process. Therefore, our teachers were invited to gain some new skills in the three topic related courses of this project.