Supporting Opportunity in Schools: Promoting Educational Equity (S.O.S.)

Framework and Methodological Guide	Digital tools	Training course	School equity portal

FRAMEWORK

This Intellectual Output is formed by the following elements: IO2.1: Definition of Equity in Education. IO2.2: Methodological Guide IO2.3: Rubric to assess equity IO2.4: Equity indicators

IO2.1: Definition of Equity in Education. It is a mindmap with the definition of equity created among the project participants. The definition is deployed into 6 dimensions and several sub-dimensions. The mindmap is available in English, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Dutch and Romanian.
IO2.2: Methodological Guide. This guide intends to help schools in assessing equity. It includes the steps to build understanding of equity, recommended actions for school leaders and examples. The guide has 6 sections: background information, definition of school equity (with dimensions and sub-dimensions), success factors and protocols (with experiences and practices to improve school equity), methods and tools to measure and assess equity, bibliographic references and different annexes (among which a glossary with a list of 19 definitions of terms related to equity).
IO2.3: Rubric to assess equity. The dimensions and sub-dimensions of equity are the basis of a rubric to assess equity in schools. The rubric is formed by 25 sub-dimensions, each of them is described with 4 levels of attainment. The rubric is a self-assessment tool to be used by schools to know their level of equity. The rubric fosters reflection and becomes a roadmap for schools to develop school practices to improve equity. The rubric is a pdf document. It is available in English, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Dutch and Romanian.
IO2.4: Equity indicators. This is a “Dashboard of Indicators to Assess School Equity”. It is a pdf document with 32 indicators. They are classified in context, resources, outputs, outcomes and complex indicators. For each indicator, there is a description grid to make it more comprehensible. The grid includes different fields such as the definition, formula, information collection...

DIGITAL TOOLS

INTERACTIVE RUBRIC : This digital rubric contains the dimensions established in the general framework to assess school equity and the different levels for each dimension and sub-dimension. The rubric has 60 descriptors graded in 4 levels of attainment. When all the information is completed, the school gets a radar graph for each dimension and a final summary of all the descriptors. The interactive rubric allows the school to reflect on their level of equity for each dimension. Besides, the programme asks the school to complete how they could improve each dimension. With all this information, a report for the school is generated. The interactive rubric has been built using a web application from a MySQL database using PhP and Javascript programming language. To access the interactive rubric, schools have to log in, this way the information is saved in the database for further use.		INDICATORS SOFTWARE PACKAGE : In the first intellectual output, we set the framework to evaluate school equity. Part of this framework is a dashboard of indicators. This dashboard is made up of 32 indicators. A software package (web application) has been developed to gather the indicators’ data and calculate several statistical parameters. The software asks the school to upload the needed data to calculate the indicators. This information can be saved for different school years; doing so, the school can see how equity indicators evolve along a period of time. For each indicator, there is a description grid, which explains the formula and data needed. The indicators are grouped in context, resources, outputs and outcomes. For each group, the software generates an annual graph and an evolution graph (if the school has introduced data from different school years). The software also asks the school, in the comments section, to explain the results and reflect on some improvement proposals. In the complex indicators category, 5 indicators are analysed. The data are disaggregated and different graphs are offered. The last section of the software allow the user to generate a report with all the information.

TRAINING COURSE

This training course is addressed to school heads and other school stakeholders. The focus of the course is on empowering school heads to implement and assess practices on school equity through different professional development activities to be done in 30 hours. The course is divided into different modules. It begins with an animation to introduce the course. The "home" section welcomes the learners and asks them to write a short introduction of themselves. Afterwards, the user can start with the learning activities. First, there is the "course interview" section with the learning goals, the suggested timing, the terms of use and the certification. The second section is "setting the scene" with an introductory article to be read, the course guidelines and the first activity. The third section is the "conceptual framework" which deals with the definition of equity (it includes a glossary and a padlet. After that, there are six sections related to different equity dimension, for each section, there is an explanation, a reading, videos of good practices and a task (school development plan). Then, there is a "tools and guidelines" section with a methodological guide, list of bibliography, access to digital tools and to an equity portal (intellectial output no.5). There is a final task to finish the course, in which the user has to develop a long-term school plan on equity.

The course has been created and hosted in OPENLEARNING platform. It has been chosen because it is a free-user social online learning platform, supported by different univesities and institutions. It allows to create, design and deliver content as a holistic education solution because it includes social constructivism, experiential learning, virtual communities, learner-centred design and cognitive load theory. The course has been piloted in the last semester of the project with 40 school heads. After that, it has been offered to local authorities in order to be included in the catalogue of professional development activities for school heads. The course is hosted in the Openlearning platform, which has free access to interested users, which guarantees the sustainability of this intellectual output. We want to inform that the course has been reviewed and approved to be in the Openlearning Course Marketplace. This means that the course has matched all the Course Quality Criteria of this platform and it meets all the standards concerning outcomes, modules, contents, resources, activities and interface.

EQUITY PORTAL

This intellectual output is a specialised portal on school equity. It is structured in three different sections.

The first section, called "Bibliography" is a bibliographical overview on equity in education. It includes a selection of 78 academic references and reports with access to each document and its abstract. This section provides exhaustive previous knowledge on equity in education. The selection criteria have been validated by researchers from the Univesity Lucian Blaga in Romania and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
The second section, called "Articles", includes 5 academic papers written by members of the project and published in academic journals. The papers are the following:
1. Equity in Education. A new definition from a European perspective. Published in ACTA. Universitatis Lucian Blaga. Nr.1/2018
2. The evaluation of equity in education: proposal of instruments based on European collaboration. Published in Avances en Supervisión Educativa. No.30/2018
3. International perspectives on Equity. Published in The 14th Annual Conference of the British Education Studies Association (BESA), 27–29 June 2018
4. Supporting Opportunity in Schools: Promoting Educational Equity – A Report on the Second and Final Year of Project Outcomes. Published in The 15th Annual Conference of the British Education Studies Association (BESA), 27–28 June 2019
5. The inclusive dimension of equity in education. Published in The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences. EDU WORLD 2018 The 8th International Conference.
The third section is a collection of "35 good practices on school equity". This section is a repository of practices already implemented in schools that may be used as examples by schools and educational stakeholders in the area of influence of the participating institutions. The selected practices include a description and a video testimonial. The good practice description is a pdf document with information on the context, the methodology, the resources and the outcomes. The video testimonial is a short recording where students or teachers explain the benefits of the practice. The good practices are classified in six sections according to the six dimensions of equity established by the project.