The 2nd stage of the British-Ukrainian project “Make Education Not War”, which was implemented by GAP UK and the NGO “Institute of Law-making and Information Technologies”, was completed. The project involved employees of the Institute of Pedagogy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, teachers from Kharkiv, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Kostyantynivka and Bilozersk, Donetsk region, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Irpen, Poltava, Kryvyi Rih, Mykolaiv, Vinnytsia, Ternopil, and others. 24 active, caring teachers from all over Ukraine and 328 students of various ages met every week in their free time from work and study. Teachers held weekly online meetings with students studying in schools abroad. The purpose of such meetings is, on the one hand, to provide children with support to facilitate their integration into the new community, and on the other hand, to strengthen ties with their homeland and motivate them to return to Ukraine. Topics of meetings: diversity as a resource, communication, conflicts/stereotypes, basics of sustainable development, basics of critical thinking, life values, ability to express and argue.
An important component of such meetings is social interaction in online learning – this is the interaction between students on an online platform, during which they ask each other questions, discuss or reflect on a topic, listen to the opinions of their peers, and collaborate to complete a given task. It is also important to overcome the child’s loneliness during learning, when he often finds himself alone with the screen.
During the project, teachers learned:
– provide remote psychological support to children who need it;
– use innovative online tools;
– effectively structure meetings with students;
– use different student activities.
As part of the project, 6 trainings were held, 3 international meetings and 1 international conference were prepared and held together with the project team.
Teachers will be able to successfully use the acquired skills in professional practice. At the same time, for scientists, it is an opportunity to conduct research on the issues of teaching this category of students during the war and distance learning methods.