Between September 21st and 30th the conference on Professional Development in Special Needs Education in Iraqi and Kurdistan Universities (PROD-I) was held at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. Two academic staff of the University of Zakho namely; Asst. Prof. Mr. Ivan H. Murad, Faculty Member of English Department, Director of Language Center, and Mrs. Kazheen Hussein Kro, Faculty Member of Psychology Department. The conference started with a warm welcome by Prof. Dr. Clemens Hillenbrand, the Head of the Department of Special Needs Education and Rehabilitation in which he presented a short history of the project and the aims and objectives of its continuation.
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The conference lasted for eight days during which a number of workshops, activities, and school visits were conducted. Below is a list of the workshops that were covered during this conference:
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1. The Role of Special Needs Education at the University of Oldenburg.
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2. The Bologna Process - Goals and Experiences in Germany.
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3. Skills of Special Needs Education Teachers.
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4. Introduction Learning Disabilities
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5. Introduction Physical Impairments
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6. School Internships and the Criteria Based Reflection and Analysis of Students Practical Teaching Experiences.
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7. Inside Heterogeneous Classrooms: Successfully Choosing and Combining Methods in Your Lesson or Lecture.
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8. Diagnostics in the curriculum of BA and MA of SNE at the University of Oldenburg. Assessment of motor skills and motor function.
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9. Assessment of Intellectual Functioning — Borderline Intellectual Functioning in distinction from Intellectual Disability.
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10. Structures and Conception of Modules regarding the Bologna Criteria.
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A number of activities were conducted during this workshop period, as follows:
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1. A visit was paid to the library of the University of Oldenburg in which Dr. Oliver Schönbeck gave a detailed presentation on the available resources in the library and the mechanism through which students and the academic staff can make use of the availability of different academic resources.
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2. Different visits were paid to some special and inclusive schools: the following were the schools the participants of the conference visited:
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A. Kardinal-von-Galen Haus, Dinklage
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B. Schule Borchersweg Oldenburg
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C. OBS Alexanderstraße
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Towards the end of the conference each participating University delivered a presentation on a topic related to the theme of the conference. It is worth mentioning that Asst. Prof. Mr. Ivan Murad and Mrs. Kazheen Kro presented a book chapter which Mr. Ivan had jointly written with one of the professors from Vechta University in Germany side by side to a number of other presentations. Finally, the conference was closed by a conclusion and the dissemination of the certificates on the attendees from the participating universities from Iraq and Kurdistan Region.
