As of this academic year teacher students at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Nis will develop communication skills using, among others, the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for a Democratic Culture. The new semester module “Skills of Democratic communication in teaching” is officially accredited in the Republic of Serbia after having been developed within the EWC project Preparing Future Teachers in the Western Balkans.
Professors Jelisaveta Todorovic, Marija Jaksic Jovanovic and Dragana Jovanovic are the driving forces and authors of the module.
“Thanks to our participation in Preparing Future Teachers in the Western Balkans, we managed to create a course that enables future pedagogues and primary school teachers to grasp the skills and knowledge of democratic communication in teaching, in conjunction with the theoretical knowledge they get in initial training and competent mentoring in primary and secondary schools”, Marija Jaksic Jovanovic said.
In the school year 2020/2021, the course will be realized as an elective subject at two Master study programs.
“Future teachers and pedagogues will have the opportunity to develop the skills of democratic communication in direct practice with timely feedback from the school mentors, but also to get a real insight into the possible weaknesses by means of critical review of realized activities. The situational context itself, brought about by the immediate practice, is the largest value of participating in the project as direct teaching is what is significantly missing in the traditional concept of high education,” Jaksic Jovanovic said.
The Nis team also stresses that schools are happy to take part in the project as they see potential for strengthening professional teachers’ capacities of the school collective itself, but also as a condition for successful realization of the common goal – the more competent education of future teachers and technical experts.