The Department of Early Childhood and Primary Education held a Lunchtime Seminar for members on Tuesday 25 April 2023 from 13:00 to 16:00. The seminar started with some time for informal exchanges, a light lunch, and a brief update about departmental matters by Dr Josephine Milton. The two guest speakers were Dr Rachel Ravid and Dottoressa Alberta Novello.
Dr Rachel Ravid is a lecturer from Oranim Academic College of Education, Israel. Dr Ravid’s presentation focused on Vygotsky’s concept of ‘perezhivanie’: implications for ECE. During her presentation Dr Ravid emphasized the importance of identifying the ‘’moments of drama’’ – opportunities for understanding new experiences which bring about change in the individual.
During her week-long visit in Malta, Dr Ravid visited state, church and independent schools; met with various colleagues discussing topics of mutual interest with particular reference to special needs,. She also conducted lectures with undergraduate and master students following inclusive education and early childhood education programmes. Lectures focused on the role of parents in learning processes before the transition to formal learning; early childhood educators and their identity as educational researchers; collaborative and cooperative learning approaches in inclusive education and the ethics of caring in early childhood education.
Dr Ravid’s visit was made possible through the Erasmus teacher training mobility programme and is a continuation of the collaboration between the Faculty and Oranim established by Prof. Valerie Sollars since the first visit to Oranim in 2014.
Dottoressa Alberta Novello is a researcher within the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies of the Universita` di Padova. Her presentation was focussed on inclusive language classrooms and gifted learners based on her recent publication: La Classe di Lingue Inclusiva: gli student can altissime abilita` (ISBN: 1220600458). She elaborated on how inclusive teaching is vital in the language classroom and that gifted students may be overlooked. She argued that the needs of gifted students need to be considered and catered for if they are to succeed.
During her visit to the Faculty of Education she has also delivered a lecture, with Dr Rosienne Camilleri, to a group of students following the BA in Inclusive Education where they shared findings from a recent collaborative research study with schools in Malta and Italy called Inclusive Language Learning Project (ILLP) – in this study, primary school teachers were first provided with training in inclusive language strategies suitable for students with advanced language skills and then mentored as they implemented some of these strategies to their first or second language learning classrooms.
She has also delivered a lecture with Prof Sandro Caruana to students currently studying Italian on Creative writing in language teaching. Dottoressa Alberta Novello is also here on an Erasmus teacher training mobility programme.
Dr Josephine Milton
Prof. Valerie Sollars
Dr Rosienne Camilleri