Teacher Training Courses - Who are we?

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Teacher Training Courses

”Teaching tolerance, diversity and active citizenship in the 21st century classroom” Sofia, Bulgaria

WHO ARE WE?

Prosveta-Sofia Foundation is a non-government non-profit organization founded in 2007 as a legal entity with non-profit public benefit. Its mission is to support the modernization of education at national and international level, and work to improve its quality. It supports the implementation of leading European and world standards in school education through various initiatives.

Prosveta Sofia Foundation has extensive experience in conducting training and awareness seminars. For its ten years of existence it has organized more than 350 workshops with teachers on current educational problems concerning the teaching and learning process in pre-school and primary school, as well as the implementation of modern methodological approaches in teaching basic subjects taught from 5th to 12th grades.

Prosveta-Sofia Foundation has been subcontracted by the Ministry of Education of Bulgaria to run a number of projects:

"Analytical and information support of the approbation of inspection model of Education”.

"Creation of test tasks for ongoing review and assessment of learning outcomes of illiterate and poorly literate persons over the age of 16 who are involved in literacy courses and courses to master the learning content for 5, 6 and 7. grades".

"Development of topics including interactive exercises of career guidance to students".

The experts and associates we work with are experienced in providing teacher trainings and designing educational contents for all school education stages, in designing scripts for multimedia objects which are being outsourced to multimedia companies, etc.

Prosveta Sofia Foundation has sustainable interest in civic education projects and trainings. We have organized some 40 seminars for more than 1300 Bulgarian teachers related to the subject area making use of a teaching aid entitled “Being a citizen” http://www.bglog.net/nachobrazovanie/41654.

In 2015 Prosveta-Sofia Foundation has started working on the Otherness project www.othernessproject.eu – a KA2 Erasmus+ project, a cross-sectoral partnership in school education, being the coordinating institution. Together with our partners – 2 non-government organizations form Greece and Italy (AENAO and CSC Danilo Dolci) and an training provider form Portugal (Instituto Politecnico de Santarem) who have excessive expertise and experience in providing training seminars in civic education and using non-formal teaching approaches – we created a book of 48 topics which are meant to support teachers in providing civic education trainings. The book is designed in the format of a Teachers’ Manual providing a step-by-step guide for teachers, and it is accompanied by an exclusively rich set of multimedia resources which support the suggested training activities. The Manual comprises 3 modules which cover 3 most important sections of civic education: Human rights, Diversity and Identity and active citizenship. The 48 topics have been piloted in some 80 classrooms round Europe and subsequent changes have been made based on the feedback teachers and students have provided. The overall opinion of both teachers and students was extremely positive. Trainers and trainees considered activities to be quite interesting for the students, provoking their active participation and resulting in making students more tolerant, valuing diversity and being better citizens. This is why we decided to share our experience and outcomes with other teachers who care about bringing up a generation of open-minded and responsible young people.

OUR QUALITY STANDARDS

We are committed to Quality trainings and comply to the principles set in the European Quality Charter for Mobility:

Information and guidance: Potential candidates for mobility will be offered equal access to reliable sources of information and guidance.
Learning plan: The learning plan, which will be drawn up by the sending organization and us, as course organizers, and the participants, will outline the objectives and expected learning outcomes, as well as how these will be achieved and implemented.
Personalization: the mobility undertaken for education or training purposes will be tailored to fit in with the personal learning pathways, skills and motivation of the participants and will develop or supplement them.
General preparation: Prior preparation of the participants will be recommended. It will include thematic preparation (on human rights, tolerance and citizenship topics) and cultural aspects of the country of the venue. Participants will receive a list of online materials to read prior to the training course.
Linguistic aspects: Participants will be offered some linguistic preparation regarding the topics to be discussed during the course by the course organizers.
Logistical support: Logistical support will be provided to the participants, regarding travel arrangements, insurance, accommodation, etc.
Mentoring: The training organizations will provide schemes such as mentoring to advise participants while delivering trainings to their students making use of the knowledge and skills gained during the training course.
Recognition: Participants will receive appropriate documents demonstrating their participation in a credible way, e.g. certificates of attendance and Europass Mobility certificates.
Reintegration and evaluation: On return to the home country, participants will be given guidance on how to make use of competences and skills acquired during the training course.
Commitments and responsibilities: The responsibilities arising from these quality criteria will be agreed by the sending and hosting organisations and the participants.