The 3rd Soulbus kick-off meeting was held in Croatia, on the 19. and 20. of November. The meeting was organized by the partner from the University of Zagreb and hosted at the Faculty for Education and Rehabilitation.
A detail, the abbreviation of the Faculty name ERF in the Slavic alphabet from the 9th century
This is a scheduled meeting so representatives from their respective packages come together and update in person each other on how the work is progressing. A major event on the meeting was unveiling of Part A part of the e-Coach platform which is delivering the Multicultural course by our partners from the Netherlands who have been working on it since the multicultural case repository was introduced in Tartu! The WP3 partners presented the content as well as tell the story behind the development to what we have today. Our USA partners joined in to provide insight and their expertise on the topic.
The new e-Coaching looks wonderful! It is a product of creative minds that found interesting and entertaining ways to deal with the challenges that teachers and mentors working in multicultural environments face today. The content is filled with texts, stories, pictures and movie clips. And to give you a hint, here is a little preview!
Here is a clip on how Culture is perceived by different people. Enjoy learning!
After the presentation of the eCoaching programme and the Communication and Dissemination as well as the Exploitation plans, the HEIs and WLPs turned to their group meetings where the discussion reflected on what was heard during the two day meeting as well as how to proceed in further developing our project.
eCoach! Soon to be on a LogIn screen near you!
Starting Wednesday, the 19th of November, begins the 3rd Kick off meeting of the Soulbus consortium. The meeting takes place halfway through the project at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences located in Zagreb, Croatia.
Over the course of two days, the completed leg of this project will be summarized and the WP leaders will give the rest of the team an overview of the activities that have been done. To recap, Soulbus consortium is a collection of 13 higher education institutions and working life partners working together to provide a multicultural coaching programme and course for teachers and mentors. Each partner pair is based in their own country and has access to a virtual sharing platform and meetings via Skype allows for sharing of information. These face-to-face meetings offer the chance to present details and other interesting findings in the project. These meetings were held at Saxion University in Enschede (the Netherlands) and another at the Tartu Health Care College (Estonia).
The agenda for this meeting is concerned with taking a closer look at A part of Multicultural coaching programme the WP3 team has prepared based on the results of the Multicultural case repository. The programme itself is divided into parts A and B; part A focuses on the general multicultural contents and competencies while part B is more country and HEI’s professional field specific. The head of WP3 will present and explain the development process of the six indicators and how these are operationalized into charts of specific knowledge and skills to be used as evaluation criteria to tell if one has become competent. Finally, everyone will give their impressions and suggestions on how the content might be improved.
The meeting will close with the steering group and peer group meetings where partners reflect and share their experiences, feelings and thoughts on the project.
Faculty for Education and Rehabilitation Sciences is a member of the University of Zagreb and 9th member of the Soulbus consortium. It trains and educates future professionals who will be contributing their knowledge and skills in working with persons with disabilities, persons with speech impediments and persons who have challenging behaviour. These professionals contribute to raising the quality of life for them. The faculty is involved in student exchanges through the Erasmus programme, bilateral agreements, CEEPUS and Erasmus Mundus. The number of exchange students is low when compared to senior partners as FERS is fully participating in Erasmus programme since 2011. However, incoming students enjoy the benefit of teacher’s full attention as lectures for foreign students are held on a one-to-one basis with assignments, literature reviews and other tasks. Since FERS is a junior partner in Erasmus, no practical placements were made as yet; however, it is expected this project will assist in establishing quality practical placement for international exchange students. FERS has been delegated to serve as the dissemination and communication’s representative for the project.
Read in more detail in their institution description by clicking the following link: P9_FERS_Institution info
Soulbus is funded by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme and coordinated by JAMK University of Applied Sciences.