NEWS
On 10-11 September 2009 an transnational meeting of project partners took place in Berlin. During the meeting the partners summed up the results of what had happened in the project so far and discussed the details of the next steps planned in the project.
The date and the place of the meeting were not chosen randomly. At the same time in Berlin Urania Hall a conference "The Decade of the Mind" was held. That gave
the interested
meeting participants a great opportunity (unfortunately paid from the
personal pocket) to listen to lectures and discussions of such outstanding experts in neuroscience as Manfred Spitzer
from Germany, Michael I Posner (Advances
in the Science of Mind) from USA or Glenn E Schellenberg (Does Music Make us
Smart?) from Canada. Those speeches
turned out to be a valuable supplement to the gained in the project knowledge
about using the neuroscientific insights
in education.
On 24th July, 2009 the
training of Master Educators was finished according to the project plan. The Master
Educators are the people who will work on the Polish version of the transferred
in the project training programme. Ten members of the Master Educators' group
received the LearnCoaching certificates from
Ms Zrinka Sosic-Vasic,Ph.D, the co-worker of professor Manfred Spitzer,
whose works underlie the transferred LearnCoaching
programme. Learn Coaching is an approach to teaching as creating optimal
conditions for successful learning. Almost half-a-year training included,
amongst the others, physiological and psychological basis of learning,
questions of formative evaluation and the development of a new learning
culture. The participants acquired both knowledge and skills how to apply it in
the practice of planning and carrying out training/teaching process. The next phase of the project, which
is starting now, will focus on working out and testing the Polish version of
the LearnCoaching guide.
Conference „New approach to learning"
On
the 12th of February 2009 the seat of the Polish Crafts Association
in Warsaw, at
Miodowa 14 held a conference inaugurating the project „No Barriers Education
".
The conference brought together over 100 people, representing key institutions involved in vocational and continuing education and training and teacher training. Representatives of various ministries were present, including the Ministry of National Education (MEN), the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSZW) and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy (MPiPS), also the National Centre for Supporting Vocational and Continuing Education, the Institute for Educational Research, boards of education, and other institutions of education and training (e.g. centres for continuing education, practical training centres etc.). Representatives of employers' and workers' organizations, as well as representatives from the world of science (Warsaw University, University of A.Mickiewicz, University of Warmia and Mazury) were also present.
After the official welcoming speech, participants listened to Professor. Stefan M. Kwiatkowski Ph.D. (from the Polish Academy of Sciences) lecture about the situation of low qualified people on the labour market in Poland. Then appeared successively: Ms Zrinka Sosic and Mr Andreas Mueller (Das Transferzentrum fuer Neurowissenschaften und Lernen, Ulm) presenting links between neuroscience and the practice and theory of teaching. Mr. Leszek Nowaczyk (REFA Wielkopolska Association) "Education without Barriers" project manager presented the project's general assumptions.
A lively discussion started as soon as the speakers finished their presentations, showing that the themes and objectives of the project not only met with keen interest among participants, but responded to the needs of the environment.
It was stressed that the results of psychological and neuroscientifical research carried out in various countries are rarely reflected in pedagogical practice and that the creation of a training programme combining these two will be a useful innovation. Gathered specialists also approved the idea of referring a training programme to educators working with people with low qualifications for a number of reasons. Firstly, since the beginning of transformation in 1989, people with low qualifications are in the most difficult situation on the labour market, which is a very serious economic problem. Secondly, training these people is extremely difficult and is an educational problem, as it is a group having generally negative experience of earlier stages of education, and thus less motivated to continue it, often with learning problems and without awareness of the need for continuous upgrading of skills. Thirdly, as professor Kwiatkowski pointed out, is that the educators working with the low qualified are usually standard teachers from schools for children and youths, not necessarily having right andragogical preparation, which may raise the risk of infantilization of the education.