Strategies for Inclusion final training, incorporating the 4th Regional Summer School
July 9, 2018 - July 15, 2018
About the 4th Regional Summer School
The fourth Regional Summer School was integrated in this international training seminar. The previous editions of the summer school in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania were instrumental to solidify regional cooperation amongst history teachers associations. The concept of the regional summer school is a combination of innovative in-service training, networking, dialogue and sharing of expertise. The Summer School was closely tied to a general tendency in the Balkan to increase awareness about the educational system. This year the summer school incorporated the final training of a project that EuroClio has been coordinating focusing on making history and citizenship education more inclusive and accessible for all types of learners.
About the project
The project ‘Strategies for Inclusion – Making history and citizenship education more inclusive and accessible’ contributed to making the teaching and learning of history and citizenship more inclusive and accessible for all types of learners. While the project addressed all learners, it payed particular attention for students that are deaf or hard-of-hearing and/or blind or partially sighted. Inclusive education is intended to increase the capacity of education systems and schools to meet the needs of all learners and raise their achievement. The implementation of inclusive education strategies focuses on key competences, learning outcomes, and a more holistic curriculum.
During this summer school the programme incorporated plenary sessions on barriers to learning, the Universal Design for Learning, a plenary workshop on Concept Learning, a teach meet on sharing challenges to inclusive education and many workshops. This was of course combined with an on-site learning programme, this time to Ljubljana. The mix of project team members and other educators which were rather new to the topic of inclusive education caused interesting discussions and provided learning opportunities for everyone. All the participants, at the end of the training, recognized an increased awareness of what determines high quality and inclusive history and citizenship education, gained thanks to the sharing of experiences, practices, and resources throughout the training.
About the theme of inclusive education
Within the context of this project and this training we took inclusive education to mean that all students attend to and are welcomed by their neighbourhood schools in age-appropriate, regular classes and are supported to learn, contribute and participate in all aspects of the life of the school. The term ‘accessible’ refers to the situation of special schools as well as the situation of general schools; it targets at clearing away the barriers to learning that students may experience when trying to reach the learning objectives of quality history and citizenship education. Accessible education is the process of designing and tailoring courses and developing teaching styles to meet the needs of learners taking into account the variety of backgrounds, abilities and learning styles.
