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6th Erfurt Symposium on Development and Learning online for the first time

Under the title "Spinning a Net for Children: Recognising and using risks and opportunities for development", the 6th Erfurt Symposium for Development and Learning now took place at the University of Erfurt - for the first time in a digital format due to Corona. The central question was how development risks can be recognised and professionally dealt with. At the same time, resources and their promotion in child development were to be worked out and clarified.

young man with children in a classroom

"With around 650 participants - mainly teachers, educators, but also parents and students - our expectations were even exceeded," says Felix Piegsda, research assistant at the Competence and Development Centre for Inclusion, a sub-project of QUALITEACH, which organised the event.

In ten different offers during the symposium, individual aspects of working with children could be examined in addition to institutional support systems at the transition from daycare to school, dealing with the experience of stress in everyday pedagogical life or digitisation projects. These included support for physical as well as emotional-social development. A special focus was on the dangers of abuse and discrimination. Contributions on observation in everyday pedagogical work and systemic counselling complemented the offer.

"With the digital format, we were able to reach more participants than we would have been able to in the Corona times in presence," says Felix Piegsda. "No one had to travel long distances and the asynchronous provision of the contributions meant that everyone could organise their visit to the symposium individually and flexibly. This showed us that such an event format is also possible online". However, Piegsda admits, "the personal exchange between the participants is of course not the same as in a face-to-face format.

Due to the many positive responses, there are now plans to design the 7th Erfurt Symposium in January 2022 as an online event again, or at least to offer part of it in digital form. There are also plans to publish an anthology with contributions from the previous symposia in January 2022.

Those who missed the event still have the opportunity to watch the videos and contributions of the speakers online for a short time. The contributions will be available until March, 15 at: www.erfurter-symposium.de.

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