Teacher Academies Project

“We came as project partners and left as friends”, was a comment echoed by numerous participants of the first face to face meeting of the Erasmus+ Teacher Academy Project Teaching Sustainability (TAP-TS), which took place in Dresden from the 57th to 7th of October. The ‘partnership and planning’ meeting brought together representatives from 11 partner institutions, across 7 European countries, along with other invited local and international experts.

The meeting aimed to strengthen the TAP-TS partnership and move forward key organisational, conceptual and administrative aspects of the project. In sessions led by representatives of each of the 5 Work Packages, work conducted since the project launch in June 2022 was reviewed, and plans were made for the year ahead. 

A central focus of the meeting was the Online Workshops, Active Learning Events, and Summer Schools, set to start in spring 2023. These three teacher mobility formats, will engage student teachers, teacher educators and serving teachers from across Europe, in a network of sustainability educators with novel and innovative, high-quality sustainability teaching & learning resources and supporting pedagogies ‘learning teaching packages’ (LTPs) and their adaption to diverse contexts of practice. Learning outcomes and structure for the LTPS, which will be piloted, refined and disseminated through teacher engagement events, were also established. In addition, partners developed the TAP-TS vision for sustainability, education for sustainability and teacher professional learning and provided feedback on the communications and dissemination and quality assurance and evaluation plans.

“Critical friends” to the project, Prof. Leon Tikly (University of Bristol), Prof. Sofia Avgitidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Prof. Joanna Madalinska-Michalak (University of Warsaw) and Lara Leik (University of Salzburg), along with other local experts, provided important impulses from their individual and professional perspectives to strengthen the quality and impact of the project.

The following concrete details were agreed:

• Online Workshop 1, March 16-23, for secondary level educators has climate crisis resilience using serious games as a focus (LTP 2.4). 
• Active Learning Event 1, with online workshops from 11-28 April, and face to face in Santarem, Portugal May 4-6, is for primary level educators, and focuses on environmental education (LTP 2.3). 
• Active Learning Event 2, runs online from 9-26 May, with face to face in Santarem June 1st to 3rd. ALE 2 is for secondary level educators and focuses on Sustainability and Europe (LTP 2.1), and Sustainability and digitality (LTP 2.2). 
• Online Workshop 2, from 8-14th June, is for secondary educators, with a focus on sustainable entrepreneurship education (LTP 2.7). Finally, the Summer School, in Cyprus from 26-30 June, will include a broad range of LTPs, and the addition of LTP 2.6 ‘Green citizenship through a whole school approach’, and ‘dealing with climate disinformation through media literacy’ (LTP 2.5).

Detailed course information and registration will be open through the TAP-TS website from mid-January 2023.

See you soon!