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I am involved in an exciting project, funded by Erasmus+; Pathway+.  This is a 3-year project.  In this blog I am sharing the project and also calling for teachers who would like to be involved in testing the technology in the academic year 2018-19.

The project aims to substantially contribute to the uptake and implementation of inclusive education by providing teachers and teacher educators with a toolset to support the assessment of each child as part of a holistic approach towards inclusive education, thereby being provided with guidance on which pedagogical approaches are most suitable for a child. The measurements take place using a mobile tablet device on which the children play a game, of engagement and attention in a non-intrusive manner, and using a game-based fun approach. This offers teachers support in the challenge to teach in inclusive education classrooms and will strengthen the teaching profile of teachers.  The initial developments for testing will be for Android; Apple will follow.

The main task of this project is to provide teachers and teaching assistants across Europe with knowledge about pedagogical strategies for managing challenges in the classroom and school and to inform them about the conditions necessary for the successful implementation of these strategies.  The project will therefore answer key issues concerning inclusive education.  We are working with Partners across Europe; the project will be developed and tested across Europe.

This year we have been developing an understanding of what works within inclusive settings and defining a shared understanding of how inclusive education works in mainstream schools across Europe. We have developed a pedagogical framework and identified a range of pedagogies for teachers to utilise when teaching learners with moderate learning difficulties in primary and secondary schools. We have also been planning the development of the technology which will support this project.  This will consist of 5 simple computer games for learners and an App for the teacher.  The notion at its simplest level is that learners with identified, or unidentified learning difficulties will play the games using mobile technology, data will be collected using various tracking devices inbuilt into mobile devices and the information collected to measure the affect state of the learners via an App, that we are currently developing, and provide the teacher with information on the most appropriate pedagogical approach to support the learner. This is in line with the positive psychology approach supported and embraced by all partners involved, and also aligned with the WHO’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF).

Materials will be produced to support the teacher such as a training handbook for teacher educators and the manual for teachers who will both use Pathway+ outcomes.

As mentioned above, Pathway+ addresses at its very core inclusive education, thus affecting and supporting every teacher in the European countries that ratified the UNCRPD, as well as beyond.

Following project outcomes will be created:

• Descriptive map of effective pedagogical approaches
• 5 mobile games to support effective pedagogical approaches selection
• Mobile pedagogical attention/engagement measurement App
• Handbook for teacher educators on usage descriptive map of effective pedagogical approaches
• Manual for teachers on using the mobile pedagogical attention/engagement measurement App

Call for teachers: if you would like to be involved in the initial testing of the software please email me: helen.boulton@ntu.ac.uk. I look forward to hearing from you.