1. Aims
The project aims to develop, test and disseminate didactical tools
for the development of intercultural competences for teacher trainers,
teacher trainees and teachers. The prerequisite for this task is
the identification of areas and contexts, in which cultural diversity
is of manifest relevance for the teaching and learning processes
in schools and classrooms of the participating countries. We want
to raise the awareness of cultural diversity of professionals,
who do or did not have to deal with that question yet and make
the professional community aware, that cultural diversity is not
threatening, but supporting pathways to European citizenship as
one of the main future issues in a wider European horizon. By doing
this we can build up cultural diversity competences and attitudes
into the general profile of the teaching profession. We shall actively
apply newly developed teaching methodologies from previous EU and
Comenius 2. 1. projects in learning situations, which are characterized
by a severe cultural diversity issue and expand the range of methodology
in this area of teaching and learning by using these synergies.
2. Activities
The main activities of the project in the seven countries will
be to create 42 keystone tools or methodological approaches, which
can be used to enlarge intercultural competences. Each partner
has to develop 6 Keystones. During the 7 project meeting in the
participating countries, these tools will be presented in 6 one-day
training units (from 9: 00 – 12:00 and from 14:00 – 17:00) to teacher
trainers, teacher trainees and teachers of the guest country. One
person of each partner country is responsible for the presentation
of one keystone per meeting; the other members of the national
task groups will attend the training units of colleagues. The keystones
will be immediately evaluated by the attendants and the day after
discussed by a meeting of all national group members with support
of the external consultant. The main question here is, whether
the presented keystones could be implemented as useful tools in
one´s own national or regional initial teacher training. This approach
will create “real life laboratories” based on the methodology of
intercultural competences for teachers. The national task groups
will disseminate in the time between the project meetings the results
to their own professional community and alter the keystones if
necessary. This will create significant and immediate dissemination
and valorisation effects in all participating countries. All keystone
training units will be placed for public download on the TICKLE
webpage directly after the end of each project meeting. At the
end of the project a tool box with 42 training units for the development
of intercultural competences will be ready, which can be used in
other European pedagogical environments as an added value for the
teaching profession. We will reach several hundred practitioners
as active multipliers and feed backers in the participating countries
and exchange best practice models with the help of personal and
professional assessment of the tools by the external consultant
and the external evaluation.
3. The TICKLE Philosophy
TICKLE tries to develop knowledge, understanding and build up of
intercultural competences among the educational staff about the
diversity of European cultures, languages and its values by enhancing
the quality and European dimension of teacher training; this leads
to improvements in pedagogical approaches and intercultural methodology,
which will create necessary competences for teacher trainers and
teacher trainees, to deal with cultural diversity in classrooms
and schools. The methodological and didactical keystones, developed
in partner countries and tested and feedbacked in training units
in another country can contribute to the awareness and need for
intercultural competences of the teaching staff, which supports
the combat against racism and xenophobia in school education and
helps to enlarge a climate in classrooms, which is necessary to
start intercultural dialogues and supports intercultural education.
We try to improve teacher education systems through the transfer
of innovation and good practice; the training units with the presentation
of methodological and didactical keystones for teacher trainers,
teacher trainees and teachers will include project achievements
from our recently finished Comenius 2. 1. project “Appraisal of
Potential for Teaching” with six participating countries as a kind
of promoting and disseminating educational best practices; but
will also include newly developed keystones by the Tickle Partners.
In the end this approach leads to the development of new teacher
training courses or course contents for teacher trainers or teacher
trainees or both in the participating countries as a valorisation
and dissemination result. |
