Abstract:

Current research demonstrates that the actual context of the COVID-19 pandemic creates insecurity and uncertainty for students, as well as a massive challenge for school teachers to keep up with the teaching and learning process. Some of the main challenges reported in several European countries are distress, difficulty in engaging with students, lack of motivation, uncertainty for the future and, of course, isolation and loneliness.

The Erasmus+ project "D-MANeD", Dance-Music-Arts- NLP- E-Learning for Educators, aims to address the above-mentioned challenges of primary and secondary education teachers, who work with minorities and students with fewer opportunities in creating innovative approaches that are more inclusive, through the use of digital environments, and dealing with emotional understanding. More analytically, the project aims to develop more flexible methods for involving students in actively learning the curricula during the class hours. In addition, it aims to share innovative techniques for teaching and measuring impact of teaching to boost the ability of students to learn and participate in the process, supported by e-learning, that are applied and tested by the teachers in classrooms and online. By the end of the project those techniques would be filtered and adapted to the realities of the participating countries: Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Germany and the Netherlands.

Part of the project is the design and development of two online training courses in "e-learning fundamentals for teachers" and "NLP and Mindfulness". The aim of this paper is to describe the goals, the pedagogical approach and the contents of these two training courses, which were offered between May and July 2021.

This paper starts with a literature review on the current challenging context for school educators and the identification of their learning needs. It continues with the presentation of the two training courses (goals, contents and pedagogical approach) and a reflection of how these training programs address such needs. The paper ends qualitative feedback from the 84 participants, which can be used for the improvement of these two courses and the design of similar training initiatives.

The consortium of the project consists of four schools ("Vasiliadis School" from Greece, "Grammar School" from Cyprus, "Liceul Tehnologic Anghel Saligny" from Romania and "Friedenauer Gemeinschaftsschule" from Germany), one training and research organization (SkillsUp Training & Research Services from the Netherlands), one Social Cooperative Enterprise ("Roes" from Greece), one research institute ("Center for Social Innovation" from Cyprus) and one NGO ("Asociatia Copiii in Sanul Familiei" from Romania). The project is coordinated by SkillsUp Training and Research Services and has been funded with support from the European Commission and has been approved by the Dutch National Agency.

Keywords:

Teachers' training, COVID-19, school education, NLP, mindfulness, e-learning, online learning, Erasmus+, learning needs.