The training procedures for in-service educators are not always accurate regarding their actual needs, or easy to be organized without taking them out of their classrooms. Possible causes for this problem can be attributed to the following:
- Effective training procedures can be applied in small numbers of teachers and small audiences. Thus, training large numbers of educators requires ample time and high costs.
- In most occasions, the contents of training procedures are not addressing the actual needs of each educator, but instead they address general topics decided/chosen by ‘external experts’
- The majority of educators, even in distant trainings, find it difficult to express and share the feeling of personal difficulties and problems about their educational practices.
- Taking early educators out of their classrooms requires substitute teachers something that in turn has increased costs.
- At a personal level several educators avoid to participate or participate rarely in training procedures because of limited personal time, family obligations, etc.
The current project aspires to develop an alternative approach for the professional development of early educators.
The main innovations within the project are:
- The implementation of an innovative method (Discrete Choice Model) in education.
- To highlight the significant role movement and physical activities play in children’s development and learning and to improve the ways educators use physical activities in their daily program.
- The development of a self-assessment instrument (Teacher Self-Assessment Assistant) for a specific domain of ECEC, based on an innovative method (DCM).
- The development of bespoken training resources (SIEP) for ECE educators from 4 partner countries and online support to facilitate access to the resources during and after the project life cycle.
- The provision of the resources for the self-improvement of ECE educators in an easy and ‘low cost’ way.