1. First day: Inclusive Approaches for Promoting Intercultural Education, Tolerance and Diversity.

 

The day was start with the welcome in the school, made by our Headmistress Antonescu Liliana. After this we have a short welcome in town and visit our city hall and our town.  Four students are presenting to the partners Romanian, Hungarian, Slovaks and Rroma objectives form our town and explain how we are leave together and why we are an multicultural town. After lunch in the school we had workshop about tolerance and diversity. The coordinator of the project from Romanian Team present a ppt about stereotypes and prejudice and explain to the teachers that students needs to understand this concepts to became more tolerant and more inclusive. After the presentation which include example of stereotypes and prejudice the teachers became students, and play a game which help us to understand how to promote tolerance and diversity, named “travel with train”. In the second part of the day we have an intercultural activities made by our students which include tradition from our town: traditional costumes, traditional dance, traditional foods.

2. Second day: Stereotypes, Prejudice and Discrimination, Approach to Parents for Migrant Children,

For the second day we took part in a workshop prepared by the PhD Univ. Assistant Mészáros Edina Lilla from International relation department from the University from Oradea, which told us about statistics of immigrants in Romania, and how our country view the problems of immigrants. Second part of activity was developed at the County Library “Gheroghe Sincai” where the director of the library prof. Schiop Ancuta,  invite 10 youth which arrived in Romania from Siria, Pakistan, Irak and Ukraine and this youth share with us their travel to Roamania: why they are coming here, which was the problems with which they are face it, how they was integrated and which is their situation now. Also they share with us testimonies about their daily life in Romania. At the workshop also took part the representant of  Asociația Filantropia Oradea, Forumul Bihorean ONG and from Regional Center for Integration of Migrants in Oradea. They present us their actions for help immigrants and also refugees. We also have coordinator meeting: discuss about next mobility in Rome, the task for each partner until then, and about the activity which need to be develop instead the Spain are left the project.

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3. Third day Effective Integration into the New Environment, Active Participation of Students,

In 3rd day we prepare activities in school with refugees from Ukrain (because in our school isn’t immigrants). Asociation Dincolo de noi, and two Ukrainian families explain their trauma and their life in Aleşd. They share with us how to arrived in Romania, in Aleşd, how is their problems now, and hoe the ONG was helped them.  We have testimonies from Tania and she’s family. Also from Natasha and from girls Ana and Victoria. After this Major present the strategy of our town for integration refugees and also immigrants if we will have. After lunch in the school we have an activity with 3 students from our school which was born in Romania and go abroad with parents, stay some times (few years) in other country and then return back in the school. Ana, Luiza and Maia, was in Italy and Germany and the most important problems for them was when they are come back and forgot the Romanian languages. But their colleagues help them and they say that they are not felt anytime that they are not tolerated and not integrated. Also in the foreign countries where they was also they was understood by the teachers and colleagues and was integrated in the community where they lived. To understand better our culture we have a little trip around and visit the Vadu Crişului Cave and fall, and the Pottery Workshop Vadu Crişului.

Interview with children and families

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4. Fourth Day, Evaluation in Mixed Skill Classes

One of greatest challenges facing teachers of mixed-ability classes is assessment, especially in contexts where uniformly administered tests and giving grades are part of the requirements of the educational system. These forms of assessment, however, tend to lead to unfair results. They are like holding a running event where participants set off from a different spot on the track. Naturally, in each case the distance covered and the rate of progress will depend on individual abilities. It is easy to imagine that there may be several students who cover the same distance within the given period of time, putting in the same amount of effort, but will be awarded with different grades for their performance. This can be extremely disheartening to them and may easily result in lack of motivation to learn. Also, students tend to interpret their grades competitively, comparing their own performance to the others in the group, which, again, leads to anxiety and low self-esteem, becoming an obstacle to further improvement. The gap between learners, therefore, is very likely to increase, making learning and teaching ever more difficult.

We, teachers, are therefore challenged to find different forms of assessment within this framework, where all students achieve the best they can without feeling penalized, but continue to remain motivated and invested in their learning.

Self-assessment and continuous assessment are crucial in the mixed-ability classroom as they

• give learners the opportunity to reflect on their individual results,

• give learners information on what they need to improve in in smaller and manageable chunks

• help learners draw up action plans that suit their language level and learning preferences

• inform the teacher about their teaching and about their individual students.

Let’s look at a few practical examples.

My own test
Students write one test question for themselves at the end of every lesson based on what they have studied. You may need to give students a few examples of such questions initially. At the end of the term students are invited to sit down with the teacher to look back at all these questions and use them as the basis for checking and discussing their progress. Alternatively, depending on the age and the type of students in your class, they can be paired up to do the same thing. With this technique it is interesting that learning takes place when the question is written, not when it is answered.

A practical way of providing students with the opportunity to go through the same test at their own pace and have time to reflect and re-learn is the Test-box technique.

Test-box
Make several copies of the end-of-unit tests and cut them up, so that each exercise is on a separate piece of paper. Place them in the test box (make sure it is a nice-looking one to make it more appealing!) and keep it in the classroom. Allocate “test-box times” regularly, say, every second week for half an hour, when students have the chance to do the tasks they choose from the box. It is important to inform students of the minimum amount of exercises they have to complete by a given date.

How to use the Test-box
1. Students choose one exercise from the box.
2. They write their answers in their notebook, not on the paper.
3. As soon as they finish, they go up to the teacher, who marks their answers.
4. If all the answers are correct, they are given full credit for it and it is noted down by the teacher. In this case they choose a second exercise.
5. If there are mistakes, the student goes back, trying to self-correct using their notes or books, or they can decide to choose a different exercise from the test box.

The great thing about this technique is that although I tell students the minimum requirement for a top grade, they become less grade oriented and start to compete in learning rather than for grades.

Of course, there are many more advantages to it, which we are going to discuss in our webinar as well as look at further practical ways of assessment and how to best combine them in the mixed-ability classroom.

And for understand better how we can evaluate in a multicultural classes, we planed a trip in the Maramures, one of the most place in Romania, and the partners was our students for one day with the same lesson- learning History and Geography from this part of Romania. And at the end the assessment was made it through the menti app.

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For the final day we have a short visit in the Center for Integration of Immigrants in Oradea, where the people which are working there show us many methods that they are used to work with youth which come to their center to can understand better each other, know better and live together.

They show us a game from Greece and from Italy:

HOOPS (Greece)

It is helpful to have at least 5 people on each team in this game. There are two teams, and each team selects one person to be the Roller. The Roller will stand at the starting line with a hula hoop. The rest of the players will be on the side with small balls or bean bags. The Roller rolls the hula hoop past the people on their team, and they try to get as many balls through the hoop as possible without the balls touching the hoop. The team who is able to get the most balls through the hoop is the winner.

PALM BALL (Italy)

Similar to Dodge Ball in the US, you only need a ball and a piece of chalk to play this game. Mark off a big rectangle on the ground with the chalk, and draw a line through the center of the rectangle. Each player stands in their side of the box. One player starts by serving the ball into the other person’s box, and that player must send the ball back by hitting it. You can’t hold the ball – you can only hit it back into the other person’s box. The ball can only bounce in your box twice before making it to the other side.

We end the week with a cultural diner at Bonavilla restaurant with Traditional folkdance with team from Palatul Copiilor and  awarded the certificate.