Large-scale energy renovations of school buildings have a high perceived investment risk, while the many actors involved deem the endeavour an even more complex procedure. The importance of energy renovation of buildings has been addressed by National (NEEAP, NECP) and EU (EPBD, Green Deal) policies. PEDIA was conceived for removing legal, administrative, technical, and market barriers, eliminating the existing fragmentation through the achievement of the following objectives: 1.Upgrade of 25 schools to the Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) level and improvement of the thermal comfort levels for the users 2.Activation of an Innovative Financing Solution for schools’ energy efficiency upgrading 3.Establishment of a long-term energy renovation strategy for school buildings 4.Increase of energy savings, Renewable Energy Sources penetration, and reduction of CO2 emissions 5.Monitoring and continuous improvement of energy efficiency through Energy Management Systems - EMS (ISO 50001) Thus, PEDIA introduces a procedural framework for schools’ energy upgrade to meet NZEB level, by integrating to the existing renovation practices a selection ranking system, energy audits, Green Public Procurement (GPP), and an Innovative Financing Solution. The ranking system will assist the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth in Cyprus to the selection of school buildings for energy upgrade, based on environmental, energy, socioeconomic criteria. Upon finalization, the conduction of the energy audit will indicate the cost optimal energy interventions, which in turn will provide the technical specifications for the GPP. As a final step, the establishment of an EMS to the school buildings will ensure future energy savings and continuous improvement of energy performance. Ultimately, the PEDIA project will directly trigger 7.5 M€ investments in energy upgrades of school buildings and will build solid long-term capacity to further renovate the whole school building stock in Cyprus.

The DiDeSu project aimed to empower teachers develop focused interventions in terms of instructional methodology in order to help all students to improve and experience happiness and success. In particular, the project aimed to promote teachers professional development that would lead teachers in acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively apply differentiated instruction, thus being able to respond to the needs of all students in mixed ability classrooms. Furthermore, the project promoted and supported the establishment of an ethos of collaboration within every individual participating teacher enabling them to rely on their own knowledge and expertise, to apply peer coaching practices, to jointly design lessons, to develop instructional material, to observe lessons of their colleagues,to evaluate, to reflect and to improve their practices. The DiDeSu moodle learning platform also provided opportunities for collaboration between teachers from other schools and different areas and from all participating countries the. The outcomes of the project will be accessible not only to the participating institutions, but to anyone interested in the topic via the utilization of contemporary ICT tools, like web-pages, discussion forums and e-classes.Based on the above, the specific objectives of the project were:1) To provide training and support to teachers (primary school) in order to apply differentiated instruction.2) To develop school based training schemes, based on peer coaching approaches. 3) To create on-line tools that enhances collaboration, communication and exchange of good practices. The main outcomes of the project included the design and delivery of two teacher training courses on the topics of differentiation of instruction and lesson observation/evaluation/feedback (2 series of seminars each consisting of 15 instructional hours to be offered twice in each participating country). These seminars were delivered in all the participating countries in the mother tongue of the participants. Teacher trainers who delivered these seminars were trained in advance by distinguished scholars/researchers (2 seminars, one on differentiation and one on lesson observation/evaluation/feedback,each having a 5 day duration). Teachers were constantly supported by the experienced trainers throughout the duration of the project: teacher trainers visited teachers at schools to help them design lessons, to observe their instructional practices and provide constructive feedback and even organize co-teaching sessions. All the material prepared by the teachers and their trainers were uploaded on a web platform, an e-class accessible to all the participants and also were opened to anyone else interested in the topics at hand. The e-class supported material in the language of the participating countries, as well as material in English (some key aspects of the work was translated into English in addition to some key readings about differentiation and lesson observation). Further to the e-class, a book was prepared in English to disseminate the good practices that emerged in the course of the project. The potential long term benefits of the project were that the project helped in the development of practices of teacher training that continues to be implemented after the completion of the project.

Nous avons décidé de créer ce projet car, malgré la présence de diversité culturelle et de ses effets, nous avons constaté dans l’ensemble des 5 pays – à des degrés divers cependant : un manque de programmes dans l’éducation des jeunes enfants qui les prépare à prendre part à une société multiculturelle, à forger des identités de genre et des conceptions non rigides non non basées sur le refus de l’autre ; un manque de pédagogie interculturelle dans la formation initiale des enseignants, et un manque d’outils pour traiter ces questions d’un point de vue interculturel. Aussi un échec de l’implication des parents.Ce projet a pour objectif de:- Contribuer au développement de politiques et pratiques d’enseignement s’agissant d’éducation interculturelle, incluant le genre ainsi que l’intégration d’enfants et parents issus d’environnements culturels minoritaires – par notre analyse des pratiques existantes et en évaluant la méthode que nous avons conçue.- Contribuer au développement des compétences des professeurs par de nouvelles méthodes de formation professorale et de - Contribuer à enrichir les ressources des écoles pour traiter de diversité culturelle, pour garantir que les enfants de différents contextes culturels, ainsi que leurs parents, ne soient pas exclus et donner aux enfants les armes leur permettant de prendre part à une société interculturelle, tolérante envers la diversité de genre ; proposer des outils et des stratégies permettant de traiter les questions sensibles, telle celle de la réligion.Les partenaires du projet sont présentés ci-dessous avec la production intellectuelle qu’ils ont coordonnés : Cesie est notre partenaire italien œuvre en faveur de la promotion du développement culturel, éducatif, scientifique et économique au niveau local et international par le biais d’approches innovatrices et participatives. En charge du Recueil de pratiques scolaires traitant de diversité culturelle’ Ce manuel est destiné à fournir une source de comparaison entre pays pour les enseignants qui souhaitent tester leurs propres approches avec les élèves, tout en apprenant et en s’inspirant par les différentes pratiques européennes. Il donne un aperçu de la façon dont les différents pays et les différents systèmes éducatifs font face à la diversité culturelle.Elan Interculturel, coordinateur du projet a pour objectif de faciliter le dialogue interculturel et de former les professionnels et le public pour mieux vivre la diversité culturelle. Chargé de créer le ‘Recueil de diversité culturelle’, ce manuel est un outil d’apprentissage pratique pour les enseignants qui travaillent avec des enfants de 3 à 8 ans. Il est basé sur la méthodologie d’analyse de cas développé par M. Cohen-Emerique et il a pour but d’aider les enseignants à analyser concrètement les Incidents Critiques qui apparaissent dans le cadre de leur travail, soit avec les enfants ou bien les familles qui portent des codes culturels divers. Cette méthodologie permet d’identifier de solutions concrètes aux problèmes. La mission de l’Institut Pédagogique Chypriote (C.P.I.) est de répondre aux besoins continus de formation des enseignants à tous les niveaux tels que l’accompagnement de leurs développements professionnels et personnels. Ils ont mené cette troisième production dont l’objectif etait de collecter des études de cas et des bonnes pratiques pour créer la boîte à outils qui servira à aborder des zones sensibles telles que le genre, le corps et la santé entre les parents et le corps enseignant. La Xixa Teatre, est une organisation dont l’objectif est de rechercher et développer des outils d’éducation théâtraux qui ont du sens en termes de transformation sociale. En soutenant que l’éducation est au centre du changement social. Ce partenaire espagnol a dirigé le manuel d’exercices pratiques dont l’objectif est d’équiper les enseignants avec des activités pratiques et interactives à faire avec les enfants pour explorer d’une manière ludique et informative les questions abordées en tenant compte de la diversité culturelle caractéristique de nos sociétés.Le partenaire autrichien Kindervilla est un établissement privé et indépendant d’éducation pour les enfants âgés de 1 à 6 ans. qui a mené ce dernier IO, un outil en ligne pour pouvoir suivre le cours complet que nous avons spécialement développé. Le partenariat est fier d’avoir pu développer pendant la durée du projet des outils concrets qui viennent répondre aux besoin sondés sur le terrain que nous avons partagé lors d'évenement multiplicateurs et de coloques internationaux. Ces manuels sont proches de la réalité et faciles à utiliser par les différents acteurs, cette approche global permettra d’aborder la question de l’interculturalité et l’éducation de la petite enfance de façon intégrale. Le cours enligneassurera la continué du projet. Les productions intellectuelles continueront à être diffusées par les partenaires dans leurs réseaux avec l'ambition d'avoir un impact plus grand.

<< Background >>The development of a safe and supportive school climate within the classrooms can provide new opportunities for enhancing children’s academic, social, and relational outcomes. In order to facilitate the success of inclusion as an approach and philosophy, it is important that all class members as well as their teachers develop the skills to understand each other, and to communicate and work together effectively. This need is even greater nowadays since we face the layered impact of schools’ closures (e.g., loss of school-based relationships, routines, and learning) due to the Covid-19 pandemic along with its associated impact on the stress and trauma caused to students. The gradual return to schools is emotionally intensive for students and teachers, making more evident the need to enhance our social and emotional competencies and create equitable learning environments.EduCardia is offering an assessment methodology, focusing on assessing and improving socio-emotional competencies of students in primary and secondary educational level. EduCardia tackles both the development of the appropriate social and emotional learning (SEL) material and the development of an online tool (software) that will enable teachers to efficiently apply assessment processes within their classrooms and track the development of socioemotional competencies of students. The main distinguishing point in EduCardia compared to various SEL-oriented activities is that it focuses on the assessment part and the provision of methodologies and tools to facilitate teachers to apply this part within classrooms. Although there is a lot of SEL material available, few methodologies and tools are provided for the assessment part. In EduCardia, assessment processes are going to be assisted by the development of an Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tool (Figure 1 in Annex). Through the methodology and the tool provided by EduCardia, teachers will be able to identify at-risk and neglected students in the classroom, potential victims of bullying as well as the existence of cliques. By having access to assessment results of the socio-emotional status of the students, group-based educational activities can be planned to improve the inclusion of the students and promote educational equity. Such activities may be realised in-person or online. In this way, EduCardia is going to facilitate the creation of a safe and supportive school climate (e.g., through SEL activities) that can help prevent bullying and all forms of discrimination and violence and promote learning activities. Moreover, EduCardia will organize and offer training seminars to the teachers, based on the preparation of the appropriate training material and the realisation of a set of training sessions. To tackle the aforementioned challenges, EduCardia consortium has been formulated based on a set of partners coming from interdisciplinary scientific domains. The consortium consists of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) with expertise on the development of ICT solutions to tackle challenges in social sciences, the Faculty of Education at the University of Barcelona (UB) that aims to contribute to solutions to current educational problems, as well as to delve into the scientific foundations of education from an interdisciplinary perspective, the Faculty of Sciences of Education of the Stefan cel Mare University (USV) with expertise in developing SEL-oriented teacher training programs, the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute (CPI) with expertise in contributing to the development and validation of assessment methodologies for teachers’ training and the International Network of Emotional Education and Wellbeing (RIEEB) that works on doing evaluative research over aspects related to emotional education.<< Objectives >>EduCardia aims to develop an assessment methodology focusing on assessing and improving socioemotional competencies of students in primary and secondary educational level. EduCardia tackles both the development of the appropriate SEL material and the development of an online tool (software) that will enable teachers to efficiently apply assessment processes within their classrooms and track the evolution of socioemotional competencies of students. EduCardia is going to be based on an existing open-access Emotional Intelligence (EI) model, known as EmoSocio. This model will be revised to be applied to students in primary and secondary schools. The main outcomes of Educardia include the developed methodology, the revised EI model, the online assessment psychometric tool, the SEL material and the results of the application of the methodology in a number of schools in Greece, Spain, Romania and Cyprus. The main objectives of EduCardia are:Objective #1) To develop and validate an assessment methodology for training teachers on SEL teaching strategies and on techniques to assess the socio-emotional competencies of students.Objective #2) To make clear and self-explainable the interpretation of Emotional Intelligence (EI) constructs and models by teachers. This will be achieved through (i) the release of a revised version of the open-access EmoSocio EI model, detailing a set of items and constructs that are applicable for students in primary and secondary schools and (ii) the preparation of the associated SEL training material for teachers.Objective #3) To facilitate teachers to apply the proposed pedagogical methodology in a wide scale and with low entry barriers, based on the development and the release of an open-source psychometric toolkit for assessing and tracking the evolution of socioemotional competencies of students and the development of a set of in-person and online SEL activities.Objective #4) To evaluate the performance of the application of the proposed methodology towards the improvement of individual and group socio-emotional characteristics and to provide documentation with the main lessons learnt, through a set of application scenarios in primary and secondary schools in Cyprus, Spain, Romania and Greece.Objective #5) To disseminate and communicate the results of EduCardia in the Erasmus+ platforms, as well as in the wide network of the EduCardia partners, enabling their adoption by interested parties.<< Implementation >>EduCardia has been formulated based on the identification of challenges in the area of assessment of socio-emotional skills of students. To address these challenges, the following activities are planned.Objective 1 (EduCardia Assessment Methodology). Activities: The EduCardia assessment methodology (Figure 2 in Annex) is going to be defined. The methodology consists of the procedures that are going to be followed by teachers to assess and improve the socio-emotional skills of the students. Based on the methodology, the necessary theoretical background will be provided to teachers to get accustomed with the aspects of emotional intelligence and its positive effects. Furthermore, the methodology aims to facilitate teachers to adopt the material and the tools developed within EduCardia within the pedagogical approach that they follow in their schools.Objective 2 (release of an open-access EI model and SEL training material).Activities: An open-access Emotional Intelligence (EI) model targeted to children (ages from 8-12 and 13-17) is going to be provided, building upon the existing specification of the EmoSocio EI model by NTUA. EmoSocio is selected as a basis since it regards an EI model, enriched with sociometric indexes at an individual and group level. In this way, both the emotional and the social interaction characteristics of the students can be represented in a unified way. To improve explainability and adoption of the model, it will be also made available in a semantically-enriched representation in the form of an Ontology. Furthermore, SEL training material will be produced, considering material that is openly available based on the work of relevant projects or initiatives. This material will be targeted to teachers to acquire more knowledge on the area of emotional intelligence, as well as to get accustomed to the processes for assessing socio-emotional competencies of students within the classrooms.Objective 3 (release of open-source psychometric tool and open-access SEL activities).Activities: EduCardia is going to provide an online open-source psychometric toolkit for assessing the socio-emotional competencies of students. This tool is going to be based on an existing version of the software, called EmoSociograms, that is under development by NTUA. A primary release of the software is already available. Within EduCardia, this software will be customized to support the revised version of the EmoSocio EI model, as well as to be fully applicable in primary and secondary education environments. A pool of SEL activities that can be applied in in-person or online classrooms will be provided through a digital repository. Suggestions for the most suitable activities to be applied per classroom setup will be given to teachers through the psychometric tool.Objective 4 (evaluation and lessons learnt).Activities: In EduCardia, assessment activities are going to take place in in-person and online classrooms in a set of schools in Spain, Romania, Cyprus and Greece. All of the consortium partners have access to networks of schools based on their role and/or a set of existing collaborations in relevant projects. Among others, EduCardia is going to consider schools with high levels of immigrant students, students from roma communities, as well as schools with students with disabilities. Online training workshops for teachers will take place, where the methodology and the usage of the psychometric software tool will be explained in detail. Success stories and lessons learnt will be documented and made openly available.Objective 5 (dissemination and communication).Activities: The produced material and software in EduCardia will be made available as open-access or open-source. This material will be available at the Erasmus+ project results platform, the eTwinning platform and the School Education Gateway. Dissemination workshops are planned for promotion of the results to the educational community and the wide public.<< Results >>EduCardia aims to provide a holistic set of results for tackling assessment of socio-emotional competencies of students, including the toolkit, the training material for teachers, the set of SEL activities, the revised EI model and a set of guidelines. Specifically, the following main outcomes are expected to be produced during the lifetime of EduCardia. Each outcome is associated with a specific project result and the defined objectives (Figure 6 in Annex).Outcome #1: Formulation and description of the assessment methodology to be adopted by teachers for applying SEL teaching strategies and assessing the socio-emotional competencies of students. The methodology is going to include a set of procedures that a teacher can follow to motivate and engage students to actively participate in activities for assessment of socio-emotional competencies, the steps to be followed for the processing and interpretation of the assessment results, as well as the process for the selection and application of targeted SEL activities to students to improve the EI competencies at individual and group level.Result R1: Specification of the EduCardia assessment methodology.Outcome #2: Specification of the revised version of the EmoSocio Emotional Intelligence (EI) model to be applied in students in primary and secondary education. This includes the description of the main EI constructs in personal and group level, the specification of a set of measurement scales and items (questions) to be used for the assessment process, as well as the release of the model in the form of an ontology, supporting better explainability of the adopted terms and semantic alignment with relevant models. Two versions of the EI model are going to be made available, targeted to ages of 8-12 and 13-17 years old.Result R2: Release of the EmoSocio EI Model, including its specification (report), the set of items (questions) and the specification of the ontology (software).Outcome #3: The development of training material for teachers with a two-fold objective: (i) to acquire more knowledge on the area of emotional intelligence (core socio-emotional competencies, importance of EI, collective EI) and (ii) to get accustomed to the processes for assessing socio-emotional competencies of students within the classrooms. Result R3: Development of SEL training material for teachers.Outcome #4: Development of a pool of SEL activities for students. These activities may be in-person, online or hybrid activities. An existing set of activities from related work on the field is going to be used as a basis. The set of activities will be made available through a digital repository.Result R4: In-person and online activities development and provision through a digital repository.Outcome #5: Development and release of an online open-source psychometric toolkit for assessing the socio-emotional competencies of students. The tool is going to support the visualization of social graphs enriched with emotional intelligence traits at individual and group level, the recommendation of personalized SEL activities per group and the production of custom reports at individual and group level.Result R5: Release of the open-source psychometric toolkit (EmoSociograms) and the relevant documentation.Outcome #6: Production of a set of evaluation results and lessons learnt, based on the assessment studies in the schools in primary and secondary education.Result R6: Documentation of evaluation results, lessons learnt and success stories.In addition to the above, a numerous set of activity reports have been pinpointed to the partners as necessary internal documents to share key findings and support that the produced key results are in line with the project roadmap and objectives. Furthermore, a set of dissemination and communication activities are planned to promote the project results in the educational community.

The project aims to investigate the impact of the model of Lesson Study on teacher learning and, consequently, on student learning outcomes. Lesson Study (LS) is a teacher professional development model that originated in Japan in the 1870s, but has recently been adapted worldwide. The basic model involves teams of teachers within a school investigating collaboratively the effectiveness of teaching practices for their students. The core model involves: a) plan lessons during planning meetings, b) teach/observe those lessons; c) reflect on lessons during reflection meetings. Variations of the model include the presence of a LS facilitator during teachers’ planning and reflection meetings, guiding teachers as they construct new knowlegde. Despite the promising nature of LS, more evidence is needed in order to establish how teacher learning occurs during LS meetings. Even less evidence exists on the impact of this learning on teaching practices and, as a result, on students’ achievement. We examine this impact in the context of secondary mathematics and specifically mathematical reasoning; a central mathematical competence in curricula worldwide involving exploring, conjecturing and justifying. The results of the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) suggest that the average student performance in mathematics in the EU countries has remained stable over 2009-2018 (European Commission, 2019). The four participating countries in the project employ different approaches for teacher professional development. The centralised education systems in Cyprus and Greece offer optional seminars to teachers. In Belgium and the Netherlands, schools have the autonomy to make decisions about the professional development of their teachers. The stability of student performance in mathematics, however, suggests that none of the two approaches to professional development contributes to the improvement of student performance. The objectives of the project, therefore, are the following: 1.To examine the effects of teachers’ participation in Lesson Study on their own learning and on students’ mathematical reasoning;2.To examine the potential impact of the role of an LS Advisor and LS Facilitators on dialogues and teacher learning; and 3.To examine the relationship between teacher intentions and teaching practices.To examine the above, an experimental design will be employed in the four participating countries. Forty-five mathematics teachers who teach in the first three years of secondary education will be recruited in each country. These teachers will be randomly allocated to one of three groups: 1) LS+Advisor group, 2) LS+Facilitator group, and 3) Control group. Teachers in the experimental groups (i.e. groups 1 and 2) will form LS teams and conduct three-cycles LSs (i.e. total of 9 lessons during the school year). Teachers in group 1 will be supported by an LS Advisor, who will provide consultation in noticing and enhancing mathematical reasoning. Teachers in group 2 will be supported by an LS Facilitator, who will support teachers’ dialogues and help them through the LS process. Teachers of the control group will not conduct LS this school year.Data on the achievement in mathematical reasoning of the students of all 45 teachers will be collected at the beginning and end of the school year, using a battery of tests developed as part of the project. In addition, LS planning and reflection meetings will be video/audio-recorded. From a selection of four case study teachers per country, lessons planned during the LS process will be video/audio-recorded. Finally, teacher qualitative interviews will be conducted after the end of the intervention for teachers’ reflections and the evaluation of the intervention. The data will be analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Multilevel techniques will be used in order to examine the effect of teachers’ participation in LS on the improvement of students’ mathematical reasoning. LS dialogues will be examined qualitatively for evidence of teacher learning and emerging factors from this analysis will be entered into the quantitative analysis. The relationship between teachers’ reported teaching intentions and teaching practices will be examined qualitatively. Findings from this project will contribute important evidence in relation to the effects of LS. In addition, findings will shed light on the role, value and cost-effectiveness of the roles of an LS Advisor and LS Facilitator. Based on these findings, policy recommendations will be made regarding the implementation of LS as a teacher professional development model and the promotion of mathematical reasoning in teaching practices. References:European Commission (2019). “PISA 2019 and the EU: Striving for social fairness through education” https://ec.europa.eu/education/sites/education/files/document-library-docs/pisa-2018-eu_1.pdf