Title: LEARNING, TEACHING AND REFLECTING ON SUSTAINABILITY
The 1st Summer School (SS1) that took place in Larnaca, Cyprus, on 26th – 30th June 2023 focused mainly on piloting materials, resources and activities already developed under the Learning and Teaching Packages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (Work Package 2 of the TAP-TS project). It also offered plenty of reflection opportunities regarding resources and activities and aimed at starting a community of educators who promote education for sustainability. Moreover, the Summer School offered participating teachers (pre-service and in-service) ideas regarding approaches and practices that can be used to facilitate learning and teaching sustainability.
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Students mustMark as done
The rationale of the Summer School was based on theoretical assumptions related to effective teachers’ professional learning programs. Therefore, the Summer School focused on the active learning of the teachers, on encouraging teachers’ reflection, on offering opportunities for teachers’ professional identity to be evolved and on strengthening collaboration, networking, and creating of a professional learning community. The content and the schedule of the Summer School was related to:
- the creation of the prerequisites for the summer school aims to be achieved as much as possible.
- implementing elements of effective teacher professional development programs.
- sustainability as regards materials and activities, participation and sharing.
In general, the rationale of the Summer School was to align:
- opportunities for fruitful and constructive learning (indoor and outdoor)
- reflection and exploration of different perspectives (e.g., using the “reflection tree” as a representation tool)
- time for discussions, evaluation, and partners’ meetings
within a full daily program of about eight hours per day, that would also allow time for a swim or other outdoor activity to get to know contemporary Cyprus and for relaxation.
Following the rationale of the Summer School described above, the content and schedule of each day set a different theme in focus, in order to help participants clarify aspects, content and strategies and become familiar with practical strategies for building activities to teach sustainability. Also, emphasis on reflection was included in the daily schedules (at least one reflection session for each day). Reflection sessions were facilitated by the invited members of the Pedagogical Advisory Group (Leon Tikly, Sofia Avgitidou, Jemma Molennaar) and the teacher educators of the CPI (Maria Eracleous, Efi Paparistodemou, Maria Pitzioli, Christina Stavrou).