Flexio: flexible professionalisation around flexible education and diversity

Little knowledge circulation on diversity in education 

Diversity is a broad concept. Students differ in many ways. School teams and teacher education programs do their utmost to adjust their approach accordingly. Often they have already developed a good care vision and care policy.  

Yet teachers, teacher educators and student teachers often feel inadequately prepared for diversity. It turns out to be difficult to properly circulate the available knowledge about diversity in school teams, teacher educators and guidance services. Freeing up time for professionalization is a thorny issue. 

How can knowledge about diversity better circulate among all education professionals?

In this pilot project, Arteveldehogeschool, UCLL and the University of Antwerp together with schools, students and guidance services investigated how to flexibly professionalize. Concrete learning questions in various classroom and school contexts formed the starting point. Learning in group and as a group was central. Together they designed a learning environment with digital and physical learning opportunities. They explored the possibilities for a flexible school organization and formulated a number of preconditions and policy recommendations. 

By thinking together about their own learning questions and sharing good practices, schools, teacher education and guidance services learn a lot from each other. Both these partners themselves and the client, the Flemish Department of Education and Training, can contribute to a better anchoring of flexible professionalization, among other things by structurally supporting the organization of professional learning communities and learning networks.