Hosted by , contributed by ggkikas on 28 November 2022
Multigrade teaching occurs in primary education when a teacher has to teach two or more primary school student grades in the same class. More general description and probably more accurate is that multigrade teaching refers to the teaching of students of different ages, grades and abilities in the same group. In multigrade schools, a relatively small number of teachers try to be effective in their educational work while dealing simultaneously with a number of pupils of different ages, educational levels and needs. In order for children to learn effectively in multigrade environments, teachers need to be well trained, well resourced, and able to meet highly demanding teaching tasks and to hold positive attitudes to multigrade teaching.
The formation of multigrade classrooms in schools is in most cases considered as a necessary action to fulfil the obligation of the official state for providing education for all. As far as this is the main goal of the state, to fulfil an obligation, then much less attention is paid to provide quality education or to support the specialised needs of the teachers working in multigrade schools. Due to geographical, and socioeconomic peculiarities, and lack of adequate school infrastructure and personnel, these schools, often, remain at the education's world cut off. However, multigrade classrooms ought to be taken seriously into account since such schools are considered to play important role on providing access to education for all in remote, isolated and underdeveloped rural areas.
The MUSE project (Multigrade School Education) aimed at developing an in service training programme designed to meet the needs of multigrade schoolteachers in order to improve their educational performance in the multigrade school environment. The general framework of the training programme is composed mainly by three parts:
1) Methodological approaches for multigrade teaching (theory and praxis): The focus in this part was on the essential aspects of multigrade teaching, such as classroom management and discipline, instructional organisation, curriculum, evaluation, instructional delivery and grouping, self-directed learning, planning and peer tutoring. Teachers were trained on managing multigrade classrooms, on specifying the applicability of the certain curricula, on evaluating the importance of lessons’ specific educational aims and on organising study groups effectively. In addition they got to know when and how to use homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping and how to design cooperative group tasks as well as to be proficient on assessing, evaluating, and recording student progress using qualitative methods such as portfolios and anecdotal reports.
2) Introduction to the use of ICT (theory and praxis): This part included the basic introduction to the use of the ICT. A series of examples of good practice for the usage of Internet and multimedia applications in the classroom was presented to teachers. Teachers had been asked to introduce selected samples to their classrooms according to specific lesson plans and evaluate them.
3) Cross-curricula application and projects (praxis): The third part of the training curriculum concerned the training of the teachers to become able to design and implement their own cross curricula applications (based mainly on the use of ICT tools) and projects. Teachers were trained to design and implement open-ended, divergent learning experience projects accessible to students functioning at different levels, utilizing the capabilities of modern ICT techniques.
The major innovation that MUSE project introduced was that it developed a specialized training program for multigrade primary school teachers using ICT and open and distance learning techniques. The use of these technologically advanced software and communication tools allowed both, in-service training and implementation in school to evolve in parallel. In-service training participants influenced the planning of the implementation in school and vice-versa: results from the implementation in school affected the planning of the in-service training. In this way, trainees had the opportunity of an on-field experience and on the other hand, the development of the pedagogical framework for ICT implementation in school practice was the outcome of the collective work of a much wider group. The training programme was developed by educational and academic institutions specialized in teachers' professional training and the same institutions supervised and guided the implementation of the programme in each multigrade school that participated in the project. Under such circumstances, the implementation of a project like MUSE may be considered as a multidimensional case for studying the contribution of open and distance learning in professional training and educational schemes. In this sense, the evaluation of the project's results with respect to the effectiveness of open and distance learning could be used in support of implementing open and distance teachers' training programmes not only in remote places but in urban areas as well.