EduBalt
Finished Project, project period 2017 - 2018
Lead Partners
The project is being carried out by the Baltic University Programme (BUP) and Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD) at Uppsala University, Sweden, with financial support from the Swedish Institute.
Project Partners
- Åbo Akademi University, Finland
- Tallinn University, Estonia
- Statera Research and Practice Center for Sustainability and Regional Development, Estonia
- University of Latvia, Latvia
- Kaunas University of Technology,Lithuania
The EduBalt project is aimed to support teacher education in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with essential competences for addressing and resolving local and regional sustainable development challenges. The project purpose is to illustrate pedagogical principles and processes that need to be integrated in teaching and learning to achieve ESD learning, which should result that teachers at the schools in the region will be able to include sustainable development in their education. The target group is teacher educators, those university teachers who are involved in educating future teachers at schools.
The Change project Approach is used for the EduBalt project. The approach consist of several phases: Preparatory Phase while participants make a pre-course assignment; The First Regional Workshop (Workshop 1) during which the project groups and projects titles are defined; Intermediate Consolidation Phase when participants work on the projects at their respective universities; The Second Regional Workshop (Workshop 2) when the reports on the project progress are to be presented.
Activities
The First Regional Workshop (Workshop 1), 13-15 March 2017, Ratnieki, Latvia
The Workshop 1 was organised in cooperation with University of Latvia on the 13-15 of March 2017 and gathered 50 representatives from the Baltic countries. During the workshop participants defined the project groups and developed a detailed Implementation Plan for their Change Project - a document for a dialogue within their institutions and for initial discussions scheduled during the workshop. A range of practical tools for planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting on the Change Projects has been introduced as well as information on SDGs and EDS examples.
The Second Regional Workshop (Workshop 2), 2- 4 October 2017, Ratnieki, Latvia
The project groups gathered and reported on their projects and plans for implementations.During the workshop the participants had a chance to get support and input from peers and mentors in order to improve project and scale the project. They also worked at reviewing educational context, policy and 21st century teaching competences for being able to integrate relevant content related to the Sustainable Development Goal.
Dissemination and follow-up meeting, 9-11 October 2017, Uppsala, Sweden
The information about the project, methods, structure and its results was disseminated during the meeting in Uppsala, where interested partners and stakeholders from the Baltic See Region were invited. Besides spreading the information about the project, the aim of the meeting was to find interested partners in order to develop a new application for a new project and create a working group.
Results
During almost 9 months around 50 participants from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have worked in 11 groups in order to plan, develop and initiate the Change projects at their respective institution. In this section you can find information about the groups as well as project plans, presentation and reports.
- Towards a Sustainable School: Integration of SD into the school subjects and after-school activities. Participants: Lithuanian Children and Youth Center, Žemyna Progymnaasium.
- ESD elementary school curriculum fundamental values and focus points. Participants: Oja School, Estonia.
- Redesigning a university undergraduate general elective course “Sustainable Human Development”. Participants: Kaunas University of Technology.
- Developing of course “Environmental Education for Sustainable Development for Teacher”. Participants: University of Latvia.
- Marking and developing the cultural aspects of sustainable competences in teacher education. Participants: Riga Teacher Training and Education Management Academy.
- Integration of SD into the Courses of Tallinn University. Participants: Tallinn University.
- Developing “Social Pedagogy” programme curriculum towards ESD issues. Participants: Kaunas University of Technology.
- Including development of sustainability competences in master program of pedagogy by developing new study course. Participants: University of Latvia.
- Regional Hub for SD. Participants: Liepaja University, Daugavpils University and Rezekne Academy of Technologies.
- Evaluating Harmonized Inputs and Outputs of Teacher Education Programmes and at Local and International Level. Participants: University of Latvia.
- Starting of incorporating the ESD in all pre-service and in-service courses of teachers in University of Tartu. Participants: University of Tartu.