ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION AND THE ACTIVITY
Ljudska univerza Rogaška Slatina has a very active University for Third Age with around 150 members. Due to their age, many of them fall under the category of special needs students, either because of their physical or psychological issues, which also include hearing problems. Therefore, sometimes the lectures, courses and other activities have to be adapted according to their needs. This organization is a great opportunity for doing activities in the field of third age, and the learning difficulties due to age (hearing/visual disabilities, etc.). They also work with immigrant students and have specific programs for their integration..
PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTS
Participants from Spain, Romania, Italy, Germany, Macedonia and Czech Republic will take part in this learning/teaching /training activity. As for the general profile, all the participants will be staff members involved in flipped instruction or willing to implement this kind of approach in their classes or training programs. The selection process will take into account the profile of the hosting organization so that the impact and results are guaranteed.
More specific profiles per organization will be:
- Colegiul Iuliu Maniu: Teachers and trainers of foreign languages, IT...
- Verdiblanca: staff (teachers, trainers, administrators...)working with disabled students.
- IES La Puebla: staff working with adult students in Secondary Education and Higher Secondary Education programs for adults (blended learning, face to face, IT...)
- University of Hannover: experts and researchers in the field of Education.
- Polo Europeo della Conoscenza (Europole): (teachers, trainers and administrators) working with Third Age Universities and students with different disabilities.
- Poliproekt: Staff involved in online learning programs, IT...
- Centrum pro komunitni praci Severní Morava: Staff involved in adult education and community development.
ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION, GOALS AND RESULTS
The activity will last for 5 full days, so the participants will travel the day before and will leave after the last day of activity.
The basic program will include, at least, the following aspects:
- Activities conducive to a better understanding and knowledge of cultural and socioeconomic aspects of the environment where the organization is located. These activities are important to be able to put the hosting organization into context, and identify different lifestyles, routines, values, challenges, intercultural aspects, etc.
- Interaction with the administrators and staff members from the organization (headmaster, manager, deans of instruction, counsellors, teachers...). This activity will enable the participants to a better understanding and knowledge of the educational system in Romania and to establish long-lasting bonds and cooperation.
- Interaction with students in the learning environment. This activity will be important to interact face to face with students that are involved in the virtual part of the learning community that will be created on Moodle. This interaction will provide further relevant information to the teachers about the students.
- Observation of flipped classroom activities. The flipped classroom observations are essential to the project objectives since they will allow the participants to observe and exchange good practices and gather additional materials.
- Observation of regular classes. These activities will enable the participants to compare and contrast regular methodologies with flipped instruction. This will lead to a better knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of each program so that the staff can deal with the disadvantages and benefit from the advantages in a more effective way.
- Observation of how the staff at Colegiul Iuliu Maniu help the disadvantaged students to overcome their learning difficulties due to lack or resources. This will help all the staff members from all the participating institutions to identify good practices to help disadvantaged students due to lack of resources.
