PUMO Teacher Training Course Available

ESSEN, Germany - Jan. 9, 2014 - PRLog -- The PUMO Project has released the first public version of their open educational materials course, designed for teachers of pupils living away from their home countries. The course is available in English, as well as Estonian, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, and Portuguese, and will be practically evaluated in these countries in 2014.

The PUMO course contains four modules to assist teachers in their teaching skills, enabling them to support students develop the culture and language of their ‘home’ countries alongside the education they are receiving in their country of residence. Each module has an estimated duration of ten hours and includes technology-enhanced aspects to take advantage of recent innovations in education.

The first course module informs participants about the latest concepts in multicultural education and intercultural pedagogy, detailing the role of the teacher in mobile students’ learning process. This provides an overarching theoretical basis for the remainder of the course.

After establishing this theoretical basis, the second module reinforces teachers’ practical skills for teaching and designing learning materials which integrate first language learning and ‘homeland-specific’ subjects. An example of the latter would be the respective history of the student’s country of origin.

The third PUMO module leverages recent innovations in distance and technology-enhanced learning to improve the learning quality for the target students. The provision of these tools reflects the mobile needs of PUMO students and the sometimes necessary geographical flexibility in educating them.

Finally, the fourth PUMO module addresses organisational and networking skills among teachers. This module has a special focus on the challenges and necessities of distance learning, such as how to inspire motivation in the learners, as well as communication with parents.

Potential users of PUMO interested in participating in the course or disseminating it through their own institutions can contact the project consortium through their website at www.pumo.info.