MCU experts took part in the international training program for school teachers and educators that was held on November 10–14, 2021, in Verona, Italy, within the framework of the Erasmus+ project “Out of the Net”.

On November 11, a team of MCU experts presented an online workshop “Classroom teacher as students community psychologist” attended by participants from Italy, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Russia.

The MCU’s presentation was based on the logic of the new MCU’s mission, which focuses on a variety of activities aimed at creating and disseminating new social and humanitarian practices for the global city and the world of cities. At the workshop, the speakers shared a portfolio of advanced practices and technologies that have been developed at MCU over the past 2-3 years.

The best practices presented within the workshop included a model of creating a comfortable and motivating learning environment at school, methods of teaching English with regard to the aspects of developmental psychology, practices of cultivating school students’ creativity using modern digital and media technologies, methods of organizing value-based teaching.

The feedback received after the workshop revealed that currently in the European countries participating in the “Out of the Net” project there are no analogues to the package of best practices developed by MCU, which makes MCU’s experience unique and ready for scaling.

The MCU team of experts included Roman Komarov, Associate Professor at the Directorate of Educational Programs, Daria Milyaeva, Head of the International Relations Department, Daria Komarova, Head of the Laboratory for Career Guidance and Success Development Technologies, teacher of English at Moscow’s School No 2009 Rita Bikeyeva, Head of the Clover Club Center for Alternative Education in Krasnodar Elena Aksanova, teacher of fine arts and extra-curricular education at Moscow’s school No 1797 Lola Dzhalalova, who are also enrolled in the MCU’s Master’s program “Development of children’s giftedness”. The interpretation of the workshop into English was carried out by Natalia Ageeva, International Relations Department.

The speakers emphasized the importance of inviting school teachers as experts in international professional development trainings. Rita Bikeyeva, English teacher at Moscow’s School No. 2009, shared her opinion that it is highly valuable to students when their teacher is respected among professionals. “The children were very pleased to know that their teacher presented to the whole world the results of fruitful work pursued together with students”.

Lola Dzhalalova, teacher of fine arts and extra-curricular education at Moscow’s school No. 1797, pointed out that “one of the important results of the training was the understanding that all the experience and developments accumulated at school and university can be useful for preventing the hikikomori syndrome. This experience can be applied both in in-person and distance education”.

The results and proceedings of the workshop “Classroom teacher as students community a psychologist” will be included in the international methodological guidebook for teachers developed by the research team of the “Out of the Net” project.

MCU invites school teachers and educators from other areas to expand the area of ​​their professional knowledge and skills within the master’s programs “Development of children’s giftedness”, “Development of personal potential: personalization and digitalization of education”.