About

Project Overview

The DD@S project believes in the strength of dialogue to tackle intolerance and discrimination at school to stimulate inclusive education all over Europe. Therefore, this project contributes in the professional development of teachers to acquire effective dialogue skills to cope with ethnic, religious and multicultural conflict situations at school. 

A gamification based online training in democratic dialogue, a toolkit with tools and good practices including content managed system and guide to help teacher teams in developing their own specific training cases, teacher modules and a guide for implementation and policy recommendations will be organized and implemented to tackle this challenge.

Aims & Objectives

The DD@S project aims to assist secondary school teachers in acquiring effective dialogue skills to handle difficult situations that originate in the context of sociocultural diversity at school.

  • Build awareness concerning controversial topics within the school context and the effects this might have for the school climate.
  • Provide teachers with professional development training in dialogue skills through the DD@S gamification based online training. 
  • Provide teachers with a toolkit of teacher modules with theoretical information, applied in good practices, a guide for implementation and policy recommendations about the preconditions for implementing Democratic Dialogue at school. 
  • Support school teachers in reflective thinking, communication skills and dialoguing on controversial themes, such as religious or ethnic intolerance. 
  • Teachers will feel confident in dealing with controversy and intolerance at school, more specifically, intolerance towards pupils, colleagues, parents or themselves.

Outputs

WP1: Toolkit DD@S including good practices 
The first working package is a toolkit that offers all instruments for schools who feel the need to empower teachers and pedagogical professionals in democratic dialogue, to promote an inclusive climate at school, helping the school teams built their own training strategy and policy to implement at school.

WP2: Teacher modules for using DD@S 
This working package consist of teacher modules that aim to provide a structured guide for teachers on dealing with controversial and diversity related conflicts at school by using the DD@S method. This practical learners guide combines theory and practice by providing full written scenarios, extensive background information about the nature of each training case study and possible conflict resolution strategies. 

WP3: Gamification based e-learning platform of DD@S
The scope of the third working package is to engage teachers in an interactive online training: the DD@S training, which is a gamification based online training platform where they can practice and train democratic dialogue skills in different training scenarios.

WP4: e-publication with policy recommendations
The last working package is an e-publication with policy recommendations to contribute to the implementation of DD@S, based on the experiences acquired during the project implementation, and the information and suggestions collected.

Methodology

Toolkit DD@S including good practices 

  • At first, a survey will be developed for training scenarios and an interview guide to collect information in focus groups. 
  • The theoretical framework on democratic dialogue will be developed right after selecting and drafting the relevant training scenarios for the dialogue simulation.
  • All eight partners will contribute in workshops of pilot trials to evaluate the toolkit and analyze the feedback from the pilot trials.
  • The final version of the toolkit will be formed, translated, and undergo the final evaluation.

Teacher modules for using DD@S

  • For guiding the teacher modules development, a strict interview guide for focus groups will be developed to detect the needs of the participating teachers. All partners will contribute to the data collection process. 
  • Then, the leading partners in this package will draft the teacher modules.
  • All eight partners will contribute in workshops of pilot trials to screen the teacher modules and evaluate the toolkit. 
  • After considering the feedback received, a revised and final version of the teacher modules will be developed, translated, and undergo a final evaluation.

Gamification based e-learning platform of DD@S

  • The content for the online training will be developed, and all partners will provide their feedback.
  • A first (alpha) version of the platform, including gamification-based learning interactivities, will be developed. 
  • Then, a series of workshops will run to implement and assess the alpha version and the usability and direct impact on learners.
  • The online training content will be revised and translated, and the final platform will be developed and launched.
  • The final platform will undergo a technological and pedagogical content evaluation.

e-publication with policy recommendations

  • All eight partners will provide their abstracts and manuscripts for the e-publication within the provided timeline. 
  • After collecting and reviewing all abstracts and manuscripts, the leading partner of this result will discuss revisions with all other partners. 
  • Then, the leading partner will engage the publisher and format and lay-outing the e-publication, and a supportive partner will perform a peer review. 
  • Finally, the e-publication will be translated into all partners’ languages and disseminated via the project website.

The European Commission’s support for the production of this website does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Project Number: 2021-1-BE02-KA220-SCH-000032794