Products
Report of Evaluation and quality assurance process
Project
The project addresses the need for teacher training in Democratic Pedagogies and the development of democratic ethos using the Council of Europe’s Competence Framework for Democratic Culture (RFCDC).
The RFCDC offers a comprehensive conceptual model of the 20 competences (CDC) that individuals need to function as democratically and interculturally competent citizens as well as 138 indicators that describe behaviors that demonstrate in practice the adequacy of the 20 CDC. So these are the competences that educators should target in order to empower students to act as competent and effective democratic citizens. They also help to inform teaching practice, educational planning and the evaluation of Curricula.
The main priority of STEP UP-DC is the implementation of the RFCDC, with the Intellectual Outputs of the project, which you will find freely accessible here, in the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) and especially the Practicum during the Practical Education Programs (PEP) . Thus, we develop the professional knowledge and skills of teachers, shape their professional perspectives and document the social role of education in practice.
Aims and Objectives
STEP UP-DC completed the project by achieving: the development of an innovative Training Program (TP) for the teaching and development of CDCs in education, the process of Certification of CDC teaching competence, Open Educational Resources (OER) for teaching and self-education and the transnational cooperation between partners with different national educational backgrounds and possibilities of contribution according to their experiences.
Our aim is for this TP to be integrated into pre-school, primary and secondary teacher education programs apart from the partners that have already integrated it and to also be available as a Continuous Professional Training (CPT) program, which is already available from the Life Long Learning Centre of NKUA.
The overarching objectives of this project are to:
- guide and support the development of teaching skills to promote democratic culture in formal education
- provide a clear and practical framework for student teachers’ practicum, part of a wider teacher training program on the implementation of CDC
- meet the growing demand of teachers for formal certification of their knowledge and skills by developing a certification process for the teaching of CDC
- provide Open Educational Resources (OER) for distance and online education, consisting of practical resources and guidelines, accessible by specialized teachers and trainees/students, as well as by Teacher Training Institutes, Universities, etc.
- offer a series of quality indicators for the implementation through educational programs of CDC.
It is an educational initiative that aims to promote intercultural dialogue with the participation of teachers and students from an early age and basically emphasizes the social and educational value of democracy.
Results of the Project
STEP UP-DC responded to an urgent need for educators to be prepared to implement CDC so that schools become hubs of democracy and inclusion.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the project produced online based distance teaching materials and methods even for the experiential workshops and the Practicum of the student teachers in the schools.
Students trained in STEP UP-DC have proven to be able to effectively integrate CDC into their teaching. This implementation in everyday school practice has been found to have a transformative potential, as students receive training from teachers, who through their training implement, to a lesser or greater extent, the democratic culture in the school.
Students:
- showed development of self-awareness, empathy, problem-solving and conflict resolution skills through the CDC
- developed practical professional skills, related to intercultural and inclusive education.
The STEP UP-DC
- sparks further understanding and application of democratic culture in a difficult era.
- contributes to the development of new knowledge about the challenges and opportunities in University partnerships and the exchange of experiences between experts, especially in the context of partnerships concerning the promotion of the emotional and cognitive aspect of European values.
- develops knowledge and practice transfer bridges from Universities to schools by transferring the knowledge and experience of students to their mentors.
- offers a model of education delivery using innovative and evidence-based socio-pedagogical methods that are cost-effective and lead to a sustainable outcome even after the completion of funding
- offers a series of quality indicators for internal evaluation of educational and pedagogic projects that implement the RFCDC.
- contributes, with the products, the models it has developed, its research, evaluation and dissemination, to the creation of a Network of experts in teacher education and especially in education for a democratic culture, the inter-university collaboration for the development of certified knowledge and teaching skills, in the development of a new scientific field of CDC, which has various applications in education and beyond. For this reason, the evolution of the project is a transnational collaboration for a relevant Master’s Programme that is state of the art at this time and in the context of the studies of the development of democratic culture.
Target Group
STEP UP-DC is aimed at:
Students
Teachers/educators
School communities
Universities
University lecturers and staff responsible for Initial Teacher Education.
At least 200 students and 100 teachers/educators participated or were trained during its implementation.
More students and educators (> 60,000), teachers/educators (> 200,000), schools and their wider communities (> 300,000 people) are already benefiting from the results of the STEP UP-DC program.