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Ladies and Gentlemen,
After the festive opening yesterday evening, I now proceed to the more serious opening.
First of all a hearty welcome to all of you: the participants of the workshop and the Polish guests: I am really happy because of your token of sympathy for our activities. If I receive a list with your names and addresses I will send you the report of our workshop later this year.
I am very happy that representatives of 27 European countries participate in our workshop:
Compared to the former two workshops, this number has increased by five. Therefore an extra welcome to the participants from Latvia, Macedonia, Norway, Russia and Ukraine.
I also welcome the approximately 35 participants who were present in the former workshops and the participants who join in for the first time. I hope you will soon feel at home in our midst. I hope that the formal discussions as well as the informal ones during the days to come will strengthen former relations and build new ones.
Allow me to introduce myself briefly for the people who have not met me before: I am Herman Gresnigt, I come from the Netherlands. Until my retirement in July 1994 I was the director of Theofaan, a centre for education and rehabilitation of people with visual impairment of all ages in the South of The Netherlands. I have been the European Chairman of ICEVI since 1992. During the World Conference of ICEVI to be held this summer in the Netherlands, I will hand over this chairmanship.
What are the reasons for organising this workshop?
One of the main aims of ICEVI, the International Council for Education of people with Visual Impairment, is the exchange and dissemination of knowledge and know-how in the field of education of visually impaired children and youth. Teachers, teachers of the visually impaired, play a central and important role in realizing these aims.
Good, up-to-date education of visually impaired children and youth is highly dependent on well trained and expert teachers. Investment in teacher training is investment in education.
It was therefore that ICEVI Europe invited people involved in the training of teachers of the visually impaired for the first workshop, held in March 1997 in Budapest. This workshop was followed by the second one, held in September 1999 in Bratislava.
During the first workshop the emphasis was on getting acquainted with each other and on exchange of experience. The second workshop emphasized the sharing and creating of knowledge, focusing on 5 fields of competences, standards important in the curriculum of the training of teachers of the visually impaired.
During the last workshop the participants worked for two days with colleagues who had chosen the same subject. The term "worked" is used here instead of "discussed" because the participants also used other methods aimed at creating knowledge besides group discussions. I hope that we will do the same during this workshop.
Nowadays more and more visually impaired pupils are educated in mainstream schools, known as integration, inclusion. Now in some countries all visually impaired children are mainstreamed, in other countries most of them, in again other countries this process is starting.
Visually impaired pupils in mainstream schools need special support by expert teachers of the visually impaired. The theme of this workshop is how to prepare these teachers to support visually impaired pupils in mainstream schools, to support integration/inclusion.
The theme is emphatically not: a discussion about the pros and cons of integration.
In other words: given the fact that teachers of the visually impaired had to support mainstream education of visually impaired pupils, what kind of qualifications, competences were expected of these teachers and what were the implications for the curriculum of the teacher training.
More about this by the following speakers.
One more remark: a workshop like this is not only intended to discuss the different aspects of the theme of the workshop and to prepare a report of these discussions, but also to make contacts with colleagues from other countries, especially with those from neighbouring countries, as a basis for future co-operation. I have the impression that this aspect did not ??get off the ground after the two former workshops. I hope you will use this workshop as an opportunity to lay the foundations of lasting relationships. Then real sharing of information, knowledge and know-how will be realized, not only by the staff of the University ,Academy College or otherwise but, if possible, also by students.
The preparation of a workshop requires a great deal of work both with regard to content and organization.
For the elaboration of the theme of this workshop I am very thankful for the contributions of Emmy Csoczan (Hungary/Germany) and Chris Arter (UK), who unfortunately cannot be here because of illness.
For the organizational aspects we are very thankful for all the work done by the staff of the department of Visual Impairment of the Academy of Special Education here in Warsaw under the inspiring leadership of the Prorector of the Academy, Mrs Jadwiga Kwapisz.
I also like to thank the Rector of the Academy, Mr Karol Poznanski, for the fact that he allowed us to use the Academy for our workshop.
Yesterday I already mentioned Mrs Sylwia Sobiepan, representative of the Batory Foundation, for the substantial financial contribution, not only for participation, but also for the travelling expenses of all participants from Central and Eastern Europe.
Furthermore I like to mention The Catholic Foundation for the Blind and Partially Sighted in the Netherlands for their generous financial donation.
Finally, I wish the participants a fruitful and pleasant workshop and to our Polish guests: many thanks for your attendance.
Thanks for your attention.
Dr Herman Gresnigt
I am going to begin my presentation today by telling you about myself. I want to do this because I want you to know about how my ideas about inclusion have developed over the years.
My home town is Liverpool. In 1973 I started work as a teacher in a special school for blind and low vision children in Liverpool called St Vincent's. This school was a pioneer in integration in the UK. In the 1960s children from the secondary department of St Vincent's attended a nearby mainstream secondary school for their lessons and were supported by a teacher from the special school. They came back to St Vincent's after school each day and did their homework with support from the St Vincent's staff.
At about the time I joined St Vincent's Local Education Authorities were beginning to set up their own visiting teacher services to provide pre-school support and support for children with low vision in mainstream schools. These services grew quickly and by the time I left St Vincent's in 1979 there were about sixty visiting teachers in the UK. I moved to the Isle of Wight in 1979 and worked there supporting a range of children with Visual Impairments in mainstream schools and in 1986 I moved to the University of Birmingham where I work as a lecturer in visual impairment in VICTAR (Visual Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research) at the School of Education. Along with three colleagues I train teaches of the visually impaired and carry out research. My research interests include literacy for blind children with multiple disabilities and the organisation of inclusion. We have a large training programme and over 100 teachers of the visually impaired study with us.
Birmingham is a large industrial town in the Middle of England. It is a multicultural city and its people have their origins in countries from around the world: The Caribbean, Ireland, Pakistan, India and countries that are part of the Commonwealth.
As a city Birmingham is very conscious of issues relating to social inclusion. In this sense social inclusion relates to equal opportunities for all of its citizens to participate in society in areas such as employment, housing and education. It is linked with the promotion of tolerance of others beliefs and customs. It is also linked with an acceptance of differences - differences are seen as positive.
Ideas of social inclusion have evolved from the social justice movements of the 1960s and civil rights campaigns such as those of Martin Luther King and the feminist movements.
In Education when we think of inclusion we tend to relate it to disability and in particular to policies concerned with children with disabilities attending mainstream schools. However it does have a wider context - it relates to how schools can make themselves tolerant, effective places that cater for the needs of all the children within its area. In Birmingham this includes providing support for the many children who have English as a second language. An Inclusive school is one that encourages the participation of all students and is committed to overcoming all barriers to learning and participation.
These are fine words and good ideas but in practice what does inclusion mean? I am going to tell you about Malawi in Central Africa. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. How did we get there from Birmingham? Well, as I mentioned earlier, at the School of Education in Birmingham we have a training course for teachers of the visually impaired. It is a large course and in addition to teachers from Britain we have trained teachers from English speaking countries around the world.
When I first joined the University my job was to support these teachers and as a result I got to know many teachers from Malawi, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria. After their training in Birmingham, the teachers returned to their own countries as teacher trainers. Many of these teachers were sent to us by Sightsavers International, a British Charity concerned with the prevention of blindness. In addition to blindness prevention, Sightsavers also supports education programmes for blind children. In 1990, I was very lucky to be asked by Sightsavers to visit their education programmes in Malawi.
Sightsavers (along with CBM, a German charity) began in the 1960s in Malawi by supporting the development of an education programme based around a teacher training centre just outside the city of Blantyre, De Montfort College. This centre now trains teachers from all over Africa.
Services in Malawi began with a small number of special schools. These were relatively expensive build and run and while they could provide a good education for a few blind children the would never cater for all the children who needed education. So as an alternative, Sightsavers and CBM helped to set up and run resource bases around the country for children with VI. These bases were attached to mainstream schools and, through a teacher of the visually impaired, provided equipment and support to children. The children received some of their lessons in the resource base and some in the mainstream classrooms.
This worked well but as a system it had problems. The centres were also able to cater for only a small proportion of the children who needed educating.
The children often came from far away - they had to stay at the school for most of the year and each resource base had to have a hostel where the children slept and were fed. There are different customs in Malawi so some children would be taught in an unfamiliar culture. So Sightsavers explored the only other possible solution. They decided that the local school offered the only opportunity for education all the children with a visual impairment who needed to be educated.
If blind children could go to a local school there was no need to build anything new and the money saved on buildings could be directed to supporting children. An obvious advantage was that the children could go to school with the other children from their village. So Sightsavers set up an itinerant education programme. Although the programme was called an integration programme, I now believe that in many was it helped give children an inclusive experience - so what is inclusion in education? In what ways could the programme in Malawi be considered as an example of inclusion?
The picture on the slide shows one of the first schools I visited. This is a classroom in the countryside in Malawi. The boy standing at the front talking to the director of the integration programme from Montfort College. At first glance you would say that inclusion is impossible. Look at number of children - there are over 150 children in this class - this is not unusual - I saw classes of up to 200 children.
There are no desks, no chairs, no books. Some children could afford to buy paper and pens others couldn't.
Here is another class - I had to lighten this picture - actually the class is very dark. However in many ways this was an inclusive classroom because the method of teaching was predominantly oral. For most lessons the teacher would stand the front of the class and give the children information verbally. The children would chant back to the teacher what she had just said and every child participated in the lesson in the same way.
The children who did best were the children who had good listening skills and a good memory. These were skills that most of the blind children possessed. As a result blind children tended to be among the most successful students. Their achievements were recognised and respected by the other children. They travelled to school with their brothers and sisters or their neighbours, and once in schools the teachers accepted the children because it made no difference - their style of teaching suited all the children.
If anything the blind children were at an advantage over their sighted classmates. They received additional support in the form of equipment for reading and writing. Sightsavers provided a bag of equipment - a simple Braille writing frame, an abacus, Braille paper and for the children in secondary education books in Braille.
The children received additional support form an itinerant teacher of the visually impaired. Each teacher was trained at Montfort College. The teacher was given a district to look after. His or her job was to find all the children in the district who were VI and support them. The teacher had the job of persuading the local head teacher to accept blind children, to support the child and advise the class teacher on how to support the child.
In a strange way it was the poverty that made this an inclusive system. It was the same for every child - the barriers to participation were fewer than they would be in a school in Europe. It was not perfect inclusion. Although it catered for children with a visual impairment it was very difficult to include children with multiple disabilities, these remained in their homes and were visited by the itinerant teacher. Nor was it inclusion that came from within. Although it happened with the consent and support of the government of Malawi, there was no sense that it was a part of national policy of inclusion. Although the system was administered and delivered by local people, it relied heavily on support from a outside agency and without this support, the system would probably not have been sustained.
The key person in the system was the specialist itinerant teacher. The teacher relied on motorbikes to travel around the countryside. A motorbike was a prized possession in Malawi and it conferred great status on its owner.
Initially one of the problems was that the head teachers sometimes felt threatened by the itinerant teacher's freedom. They were used to teachers staying with classes and the idea of a visiting teacher was a strange one. Supervision of Itinerant teachers did prove a difficulty, particularly in rural areas. Who should the itinerant teacher be responsible to? To the head teacher of the school, the director of the programme who might be hundreds of miles away, or to a local senior itinerant teacher responsible for other itinerant teachers.
The system raised many other new questions, for example should the Itinerant teacher work in the classroom with the class teacher or withdraw the child for special lessons in Braille, mobility etc? If the teacher was visiting children to provide support, what would happen in the rainy season? Bridges might be washed away, children might not be able to reach school. In any case, the children would spend a lot more time with the class teacher than the itinerant teacher so the class teacher and the school had to be one of the main targets of support.
As the itinerant teacher identified more and more children, they had to draw up priorities about which children to see most often. The barriers to education in Malawi were easy to identify. The itinerant teacher had to break down ignorance on the part of parents that blind children could be educated. They had to identify children in a society where some children were hidden away because disability was still sometimes regarded as shameful. They had to persuade parents to let their children come to school. They had to persuade local schools that children with a visual impairment could be educated and that the schools could do it.
What struck me as I watched the work of itinerant teachers in Malawi in 1990 was how much common ground there was between their work in Malawi and my work on the Isle of Wight ten years earlier. I was fascinated by the similarities in the role of these itinerant teachers and my own. Although they worked in a completely different context, many of the problems they faced were identical to those I had encountered.
The Isle of Wight has no special schools and no resource bases for children with a visual impairment . Children attended their local school unless they had very severe disabilities. Very few children were sent away because parents were reluctant for their children to leave the Island. Like the teachers in Malawi, my job was to support local children in mainstream schools. I soon found that you could often judge the quality of a school very quickly. The sign of a good school was that they were always the ones which most welcomed children with disabilities. They welcomed support and information and were open to advice and suggestions. The problem was not the best schools, the problem was persuading all schools to become like them. How is this to be achieved?
At first I thought the best way to encourage schools to accept children with a visual impairment was to support the child rather than the school. I felt it was my job to make the necessary adaptations so the child could fit the school. I can remember introducing a blind child to her local secondary school. It was still quite rare in those days for a blind child to go to a local school. The school held a staff meeting to decide whether they should take the child. I said "You don't have to change the way you teach the responsibility is mine." I realise now that what I was really saying was "I have responsibility for this child. I have ownership of the child." I was saying that the school did not have to change. I was not promoting inclusion and not helping the school to change its culture because my support was essentially child based and did not take enough account of teacher support. Although my job did involve advising class teachers, this was not my main concern.
At the time I was working on the Isle of Wight, I felt schools needed to have success with one child who was visually impaired before they could contemplate having others. I felt that schools needed time to learn about how to work with children who have different needs. However in spite of my approach I found that having the child in class did help change the school's attitude. After a while I did notice change taking place. Teachers grew in confidence in their ability to teach the child. They realised that they could do it. I knew I had been successful when the school came to me and said "Do you have any other children like this? We enjoy having this child."
My ideas about educating children with a visual impairment in mainstream schools have been shaped by my experiences on the Isle of Wight and in Malawi. I believe that if the questions facing teachers planning and implementing services in Malawi are the same in nature as those I was facing on the Isle of Wight then there is a good chance that the problems facing teachers and planners trying to achieve inclusion are universal. Perhaps there is a pattern of natural growth towards inclusion. As our host suggested, a rose is a good analogy for inclusion. Inclusion grows out of a system of separation - a few special schools providing a service for a few children. The system grows by gradually reducing separation. Initially the reduction may begin with the development of resource bases in mainstream schools and then the introduction of systems to support the individual child and the teachers in the mainstream school. As the system expands the number of children it caters for will grow.
Perhaps we need to have an array of different kinds of special provision before we can consider introducing an inclusive system. We need special schools and special support services but the purpose of the special schools and services is not to maintain themselves as they are their role in the long term is to help change all schools so that they can become inclusive. What role do laws have in this process? Can laws make inclusion work? I believe that laws are important because they signal intent. Most countries are signed up to the Salamanca agreement supporting inclusion. Does this make their schools inclusive? No I don't think inclusion can be imposed. It grows and it has to be done in a gradual and organised way. All schools must see themselves as inclusive. What makes a school good is the care it takes over all of its pupils whether they have disabilities or not. It takes responsibility for what happens to them. In some schools this needs a huge change of culture in others it is a natural extension of what they believe already.
Growth towards inclusion also needs support from government to change the curriculum and national examination and assessment procedures so that all children can participate. It also needs resources. A key resource is the Specialist teacher, who sees their role as helping the school to change. Class teachers, head teacher and classroom assistants need initial training and in-service training. There needs to be commitment from managers of schools and from the staff to the ideal of an inclusive society.
I believe inclusion will evolve. Some of the longest established services in the UK have closed their resource bases and now devote their support entirely to the local school. Ultimately this is where the change needs to happen. We need a system that caters for every child with a visual impairment and not just a few. We need a public transport system and not a few Rolls Royces.
The problem does not rest in the child it rests in the school. It's not the child that needs to change - it's the system.
Dr Steve McCall,
Visual Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research (VICTAR),
School of Education, University of Birmingham
E-mail: S.McCall@bham.ac.uk
Download original slides by Emmy Csocsan! (zip-ppt)
Description of Slide 1:
ISaR
Inclusion of Students with Visual Impairement at Regular Schools
- Presentation ICEVI TT workshop - 2002-04-04 Warsaw
E. Csocsan, University of Dortmund, Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Colleagues,
On behalf of my colleagues in the Faculty Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Dortmund and on my own behalf I welcome you, dear friends and colleagues at the Academy of special education Maria Grzegorzewska in Warsaw and wish you all the best, good health and success in your job for the next eighty years.
Now I would like to say thank for the opportunity to be here and talk to you about our ISaR Project.
In my presentation I will introduce our Internet-based resource centre at the University Dortmund, talk about the main idea and structure of the project and will show some concrete examples.
ISaR is an abbreviation of the words of integration of students with visual impairment at regular schools. The project started in February 2001 and supported by the Foundation for Education and Promotion for Persons with Disability (Stiftung für Bildung und Behindertenförderung) in Germany. The Project is being conducted by Renate Walthes and Emmy Csocsán in Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences - Rehabilitation and Education by Individuals with Blindness and Low Vision at the University of Dortmund. Ute Hoelscher and Frank Laemers special educators belong to the scientific staff, Astrid Aach and Juliane Leuders are scientific assistants and Richard Piatkowski is our web-master.
The web-site is also available for persons who are blind.
Our approach to the project is based on the following documents:
Description of Slide 2:
New Orientation in the Education of Children and Youth with Special Needs
- International Level: UNESCO Salamanca-Declaration (1994); WHO: International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (2001).
- National Level: State-based Recommendations for Special Needs Education (KMK-Empfehlungen) (1994); Recommendations for Education of APupils with Visual Impairement (Foerderschwerpunkt Sehen) (1998).
All of us know the next quote from the Salamanca Declaration:
"Schools should accommodate all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, emotional, social, linguistic or other conditions".
To turn this declaration into reality we need to work very hard in Europe. We hope our project is one of the useful contributions for the further development in this field.
Now I would like to introduce the initial situation: Through analysing the situation of pupils and youths with visual impairment in Germany we have realised:
but
The next picture shows the number of students with visual impairment in regular schools. The number is much bigger when we talk about children with visual impairment in other special schools i.e. schools for children with mental development needs.
| Area of Special Need | Total | At Regular Schools | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learning | 256.518 | 26.876 | 10,5% |
| Mental Development | 65.587 | 1.862 | 2,8% |
| Speech | 43.280 | 8.702 | 20,1% |
| Emot.&soc. Dev. | 32.766 | 7.526 | 23,0% |
| Motor Dev. | 24.438 | 3.665 | 15,0% |
| Hearing | 12.620 | 2.623 | 20,8% |
| Vision | 5.842 | 1.629 | 27,9% |
Pupils with VI learn in many kinds of institutions:
Description of Slide 4:
Institutions where children with VI learn: Elementary Schools, Schools..., Secondary Schools, Schools for VI, Vocational Schools, Other Special Schools.
The special educational needs services for students and teachers in inclusion are organised quite differently in the various regions in Germany. For example Schleswig-Holstein has a very good structured system in itinerant services but other regions are still in the initial phase of building up the institutions concerning inclusion in schools.
The basic idea of the ISaR project is to support all those involved in the inclusion of pupils and youths with VI through Internet. Through this e-resource centre we offer opportunities and facilities to give and get information, didactic methods and learning materials.
Description of Slide 5:
Idea: The key to further development of education of individuals with visual impairement lies in mutuality and in a network of expertise and resources. What is mutually developed will support and facilitate individual work.
Our main idea is a NETWORK of and for all participants and interested persons.
Description of Slide 6:
Network & Co-operation: Institution involved in inclusion, Colleagues, Parents, Pupils, Resource centres, Publishers & producers of (Learning) Aids, any Interested Person.
The next picture shows the priorities of the project:
Description of Slide 7:
Priorities: Databases of Literature and Materials, "Didactic pool", Further Education, Coordination.
You can see these priorities in the translated web-site in English:
Description of Slide 8:
The Project: Short Description, Who we are, Co-operation.
Databases: Literature, Materials.
Didacticpool: Introduction, Foundations, Offers, Games.
Addresses & Links: Braille Libraries, Electronical Aids, Mailing lists, Adaptation Services, Orientation & Mobility, Activities of Daily Livingm Schools & Peripatetic, Services, Self-Help Organizations, Parents Organizations, Associations.
Contact
Co-ordination, Current Topics, Topics, Interaction: Forum.
The next transparency shows the actual situation concerning databases of literature and materials. The web-site visitor has many possibilities to search for his or her special interest. The database of literature contains titles of relevant references to theme inclusion. You can find also the sources of publications and short descriptions of the items. The database of materials has the same structure. The visitor also gets information about the implication of the given material and its availability. You can find a description about games and can have a look at the photo of the material.
Description of Slide 9:
Databases of Literature and Materials
- Online on the Internet;
- Literature database: about 650 books and articles about inclusion and visual impairement;
- Materials database: 1.111 Items (about 530 adapted books in Braille).
The didactic pool contains ideas collected from teachers in schools and projects and results of work with students at the university. But you can also find games developed by parents in the pool.
Description of Slide 10:
Developing and Establishing a "Didactic Pool" - consisting of drafts, proposals, ideas and teaching units to enable teaching which respects the perception and strategies of students with visual impairment.
The motor of the Project is the network:
Description of Slide 11:
Network and Enlargement of Further Education Programmes
- for teachers in all kinds of schools;
- database concerning of dates of existing programmes.
To turn into the reality the plan of the project we need to co-operate with colleagues, institutions and interested persons in Germany but also on international level.
The intention of the project:
Description of Slide 12:
Co-ordination
- Support of all people who are involved in inclusion,
- Teachers in regular schools,
- Teachers in special schools,
- Parents,
- Pupils.
Our work with the project started one year ago and we collected many experiences and tried to cope with difficulties.
Please, visit our web-site:
Description of Slide 13:
ISaR
http://isar.reha.uni-dortmund.de [new window]
Contact: isar@udo.edu
I hope you will visit ISaR on-line soon. I ask you to tell us about your experiences, opinion and please give us your remarks and suggestion for changes or better solutions concerning the project.
We, the colleagues of ISaR team hope that this project can be a common basis for an international co-operation in the field of inclusion of children with visual impairments in schools in Europe in the future.
Thank you for your attention!
Download original paper with slides by Christine Burger! (zip-doc)
All over the EU inclusion of visually impaired children in mainstreamed schools is expanding more and more. However, appropriate preparation of teachers teaching in mainstreamed classes with included visually impaired children is still missing. Nonetheless, for guaranteeing maximum progress for children with special needs professional guidance and support for mainstreamed teachers is necessary. Currently, various individual professional and/or professional institutions have developed special concepts and methods for teaching the visually impaired. These developments have never been collected systematically nor have they been compared or examined in terms of compatibility. Universities do not offer further educational course programmes for teachers of mainstreamed schools.The FLUSS-Project's aim is developing a handout for special teachers conducting further educational courses for mainstreamed teachers. Its intention is to directly improve the visually impaired pupils progress at school.FLUSS is the abbreviation for for the german title "Fortbildung von Lehrkräften für den gemeinsamen Unterricht mit sehgeschädigten Schülerinnen und Schülern".
The English translation would be "Further educational courses for teachers of mainstreamed schools including visually impaired pupils".
Project partners are Tartu Emajöe Kool (Estonia)School for Visually impaired, Schleswig (Germany) - the former schoolmaster Dr. Peter Appelhans is coordinating the project Visio Onderzuysinstelling Noord Haren (Netherlands)University of Dortmund (Germay)Blindeninstitutsstiftung, Würzburg (Germany) Odilieninstitut, Graz (Austria) Altalanos Iskola es Diakotthon, Budapest (Hungary)
Description of Slide 4:
Time frame:
09.07.-11.07.2001 meeting in Wuerzburg
04.02.-06.02.2002 meeting in Budapest
28.09-03.10.2002 meeting in Graz
31.01.2003 end of the project
Here we have the time frame of the project. So far, we did have two meetings. The first took place last September in Würzburg, Germany, and the second this past February in Budapest, Hungary. In Würzburg we agreed on the contents of modules for handouts, and decided on which project partner's responsibility for each module. In Budapest we worked on the produced drafts, agreed on general structure and layout of the modules. In October of this year, we will be meeting in Graz, Austria. There we will be working through the modules. Feedback will be given to each project partner' s module.The FLUSS-results than have to be translated into all participating partner's languages and turned in to Brussels in all languages plus English by January 31, 2003.
The following modules are agreed to be worked on:
Contents are, for example, the beginning of a further educational course, the question of how to open a topic, as well as how to conclude the end of a course, including evaluation with the participants. Other topics in this module are: meaning of inclusion as well as basic social and legal aspects. Responsible for this module is Schleswig, Germany.
aspects of this module will be: consequences of visual impairment; optical and electronical aides as well as meaning of illumination. Responsible is Groningen, Netherlands.
Topic of this module is: responsibilities inside and outside of the resource centre, teaching principles, and courses for pupils and their parents. Responsible is Graz, Austria.
This module contains: the support of the learning process, and teaching of cultural skills. Responsible is Dortmund, Germany.
Aspects of this module will be: how to provide special equipment, how to modify generally used equipment, how to apply generally used equipment in a special way, and how to plan the environment of the child suitable to its needs. Responsible for this module is Budapest, Hungary.
Topics of this module will be: psychosocial development of visually impaired children, and possibly occurring problems. Our team in Würzburg, Germany will work on this module.
Contents of this module will be: perception and physical development, spatial awareness, physical education, as well as orientation and mobility. Responsible is Schleswig, Germany.
I will try to illustrate the structure of the modules by the example of the module "Social Competence". In doing so, I will simplify the contents of the module a little bit.
Each main point will have introductory remarks up front. They should include theoretical references, definitions etc.
The overview will be given as a table of content with the following structure: sequence, content, method, and media. The keyword "Media" will include references to the final chapter, where these media and/or materials will be explained.A possible introduction to the topic "Social Competence" could be a video demonstration of a problematic behaviour of a child with impairment. We just did so at our centre for further educational courses for teachers in Würzburg, Germany two weeks ago. The problematic behaviour there was the "child doesn't want to use optical aides in the classroom".Thereupon the participants should discuss their ideas, their experiences with similar behaviours, etc. spontaneously. The course conductor should write down these remarks on cards.
The next sequence is "Planning of a Solution". The participants are working in groups on the following questions:What are the reasons for that behaviour? Which consequences will it have for the child, or for the school lessons? What can we as teachers do?The results will be presented in plenum.
The next step is an extension of other problems for visually impaired children, which can possibly occur. Theoretical background is the psychosocial development of visually impaired children. Methods could be a lecture with PowerPoint-presentation. The participants should have the possibility to ask questions, make remarks, etc.
In the sequence of "Conclusion Methods", materials and games of social leaning in the classroom can be presented.So far the illustration of the module's structure by example of "Social Competence".Handouts for the realization of the further educational courses for teachers will be available at the end of the FLUSS-Project (31/01/2003); either as a print medium, or as an Internet offers in all languages of the participating countries. Decisions about other ways of publishing the results still have to be discussed and agreed on during the final meeting in October 2002 (there might be e.g. a European conference, publications in national journals or on educational servers).