Topic outline

  • General

    • Welcome to the course on “Breaking barriers and building bridges. Strengthening active citizenship competences and civic engagement skills among young adults with intellectual disabilities (B4)”.

      In this activity, we will ask you to write a short, private note to share with all the participants about your goals, questions, or motivations. Help them understand who you are, and what this course means to you.

      This initial activity will help us to start building a supportive learning community (Kindly read the guidelines for Building a Supportive Leaning Community).

  • Pre-Course Survey

  • Instructions: “Why I’m Here” Letter

    • We’re interested to learn about who you are and why you are taking this course. Reflective writing is also a great chance to set your intention for this course and for your work. Write a letter in the forum that addresses some of the following points:


      • Your introduction: What is your name? Where are you from? Are you a teacher (which level and type of school)? Are you a student (which year and degree)?
      • Your motivation: What were your goals in signing up for this course? What are you hoping you’ll be able to do at the end that is a challenge right now? 
      • Your strengths: What attitudes, talents, or aptitudes can you bring to this work that you think will help you succeed? 
      • Your concerns: Becoming a more inclusive educator is hard, sensitive work! What questions, concerns, or worries do you have about engaging in this work or taking this course? 

      Now that you’ve established your intentions and concerns, reflect on how you might start to address them:

      • Your community: With whom can you share your work with? With whom can you share your excitement, challenges and new ideas? Think about your network and find someone who seems to have similar goals, context, or concerns as you. We encourage you to reach out to them throughout taking this course with your reflections and questions.
      • Weekly goals: When do you plan to do the work in this course (what days in the week)? How many hours? Do you plan to write in a journal? How can you hold yourself accountable? (Electronic reminders? Accountability buddy? Updates to your learning community?)

  • Building a Supportive Learning Community

    • We hope you enjoyed the presentation exercise!

      As a learner in “Breaking barriers and building bridges. Strengthening active citizenship competences and civic engagement skills among young adults with intellectual disabilities (B4)”, we wanted to share some tips for building a supportive learning community in our course:

      • Be respectful. It’s essential to respect your fellow peers. 
      • Be open to new ideas and perspectives. Curiosity, open-mindedness, and humility will serve you well on the journey of becoming a more inclusive educator, as will a tolerance for uncertainty, non-closure, and discomfort.
      • Reject perfection and be prepared to make mistakes. We all have room to grow when it comes to strengthening active citizenship competences and civic engagement skills — even experts in this topic! Give yourself space to be an imperfect learner. This means you may make mistakes. If that happens, try to receive any feedback from your peers graciously. Reflect on what happened, and if there’s any harm that needs to be repaired (because things said with good intentions can still cause harm). Be mindful of the emotions that come up for you. Then, allow yourself to “fail forward” by learning from the experience and trying a different approach next time.   

  • Useful tutorials

  • Contacts

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