Workshop 1.1. Music Education through Movement - Body Awarness through Music (20 participants)
Trainer: Lecturer Teresa Leonhard

Teresa Leonhard (Austria), dr.phil., music and movement-teacher, performance artist and researcher, lector univ. (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu), research associate (University of Applied Sciences of North Western Switzerland), artistic director of Compania Dis. Place, research in the field of Music Education through the Body, Performance Studies, Theology and Arts, Phenomenology of the Body.

Teaching music in primary school should focus on the individual as human being in a holistic way. E. Jaques-Dalcroze's approach of music education, developed in the early 20th century, is based on the Greek idea of musike. Its main focus is the individual experience and creative transformation of music through the body, developing awareness of perception and movement.

This workshop is a practical introduction in how to enhance musical expression and understanding through the body.

Workshop 1.2. Attention span - beyond the theory and into practice (12-20 participants)
Trainer: Iuliana Grigoriță, Psychologist

Iuliana Grigoriță is a psychologist, PhD student in Psychotherapy Research, Sigmund Freud Universitat, Wien. She is TEDx Speaker (Sibiu 2017), she has set up and developed an Educational Hub in Sibiu, and Club10, an entity for educating the disadvantaged children and their parents and she contributed to the success of several organizations by delivering training and coaching for their employees, volunteers and management staff.

Attention is the key element in any training, for both children or adults. Therefore, understanding the attention process and especially attention span is crucial for effective teaching. What attention means, how it works and how we can benefit from this knowledge in teaching-learning contexts is the focus of this workshop.

We will test it on ourselves through specific exercises and we will work through some routines to help us in practice. Also, we will get familiar with a few techniques to help our students enhance their attention and spend less time while learning more.

Workshop 2.1. Writing a research article for publication in academic journals (10-15 participants)
Trainer: Assoc. Professor Daniela Crețu, PhD

Daniela Crețu is a PhD Associate Professor at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, where she teaches educational syciences disciplines within the initial and continuous teachers training programmes.

Her research interests are in the field of methodology of instruction, critical thinking, student motivation and curriculum development.

Writing a scientific paper and submitting it to a journal for publication is a challenging and a time-consuming experience for early career researcher. Why and how to write for academic journals are issues to be addressed in the workshop. The participants will identify reasons for academic writing and will analyze guidelines on preparing and structuring manuscripts in order to get published. The journal selection process, manuscript submission and common mistakes in manuscripts will be discussed.

Workshop 2.2. Mindfulness in day-to-day classes - the key to creating a learning mindset (12-20 participants)
Trainer: Iuliana Grigoriță, Psychologist

Iuliana Grigoriță is a psychologist, PhD student in Psychotherapy Research, Sigmund Freud Universitat, Wien. She is TEDx Speaker (Sibiu 2017), she has set up and developed an Educational Hub in Sibiu, and Club10, an entity for educating the disadvantaged children and their parents and she contributed to the success of several organizations by delivering training and coaching for their employees, volunteers and management staff.

This workshop is set to offer simple but powerful mindfulness techniques applicable in classroom. They can completely change dynamics during the lesson because they help children to become focused and the teacher to remain calm and in better contact with his class.

Participants at this workshop will have the chance to test the effects of some mindfulness exercises directly and so they will decide on their efficacy by themselves.

Workshop 3.1. Metacognitive Strategies for Approaching Learning
Trainer: Prof. Daniel Mara, PhD

Daniel Mara is PhD Professor at the Department of Teacher Education, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences. He teaches Psychology of Education and Pedagogy. He has a Ph.D in Inclusive education in 2004, after a Master degree in the same domain in Italy at the Bologna University.

He is author of more than 100 articles in inclusive education, cognitive and meta-cognitive development. He was trainer in some European projects with courses of psychology, member in Leonardo projects and European research projects with many universities.

Coordinator: Bilateral Agreement Erasmus-Universita degli studi di Bologna-Italy; Universita degli studi di Sassari-Italy; Universita degli studi di Bergamo-Italia; Universidad de Leon-Spain; Universitat de Illes Balears-Spain; Padagogische Hochschule Tirol Innsbruck-Austria; Via University College-Danemarca.

The Metacognitive Strategy Development Workshop proposes to conduct some exercises in order to raise awareness of the existence of these metacognitive skills at the intellectual level of each person, as well as to understand the need of developing and improving them permanently. Focusing on the dimension of how we learn is a current desideratum of any educational action, which ensures the successful realization and the dimension of what we are learning.

Workshop 4.1. About Z Generation and Open Educational Resources (20 participants)
Trainer: Prof. Carmen Sonia Dușe, PhD

Carmen Sonia Dușe is professor at Lucian Blaga University, Head of Teacher Education Department. With more than 30 years experience in the Educational Sciences, teaching in the pre-universitary system, as well as in the university, she is a specialist in Educational Management and Academic Management. Her professional experience was improved for some years when she was acting as a School Inspector.

The current world no longer allows the teaching and learning in some rigid patterns, in a standardized curriculum, valid for all students, regardless of the potential, interests and their needs. To prepare for the future, we need to form students' competencies to help them to work with performance in areas which do not yet exist. The workshop proposes promoting the idea of open education and the orientation of the teachers in the students direction, adapting it to the needs of their learning. Lifelong learning and self-education syntagma takes a new dimension, and the professor is the one who should help the student to take consciously training of its own.

The need for this procedure arising out of the specificity of the generation Z whose personality traits and motivation for learning are different from those of previous generations.

Workshop 4.2. Creative Thinking, Teaching Creativity (18-21 participants)
Trainer: Assoc. Professor Daniela Roxana Andron, PhD

Daniela Roxana Andron is a PhD Associate Professor at the Teacher Education Department of the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu. She has experience in teacher education and teacher training for economical and technical specialists. Her research areas cover these domains and her interest focuses on soft skills, creativity, leadership.

Starting from the idea that creativity can be defined by a bold idea and a lack of supplies, we are going to train our creativity by using tools provided by Edward de Bono's techniques for exercising divergent thinking, which allows us to make connections between seemingly random ideas.

Participants will be invited to discover ways of using such instruments in teaching: icebreakers, quick warm-ups to activate creativity or brain-breaks in the middle of a more analytical task. As humor is an important sign of creativity, participants are also invited to use their sense of humor in order to discover serious solutions.