Discussion Paper on the implemention of cross-cutting issues in teacher education

Towards a European Syllabus in Teacher Education Facing future challenges together Discussion Paper on the implemention of cross-cutting issues in teacher education Published by the TESTEd Consortium Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the EACEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. 2 1. First things first – the whys and what of TESTEd Europe faces global, cross-cutting demographic, climatic, economic, technological, and political challenges for which its education systems must prepare future generations. Teachers, therefore, have a growing need and responsibility to address these challenges in order to ensure high-quality education for all young people, so that pupils from diverse backgrounds become politically mature European citizens who are able to adapt to future societal changes. As “teachers, trainers and educational staff are at the heart of education […] they play the most important role in making education a fruitful experience for all learners” (European Commission 2020, p. 9). Thus, it is vital to include cross-cutting issues, i.e., sustainability, democratic education and active citizenship, gender sensitivity, multilingualism, and diversity as well as the digitalization of learning spaces, in teacher education to prepare pre-service teachers for their future profession and support in-service teachers, already confronted with these issues in their classroom, through further professional development offers. The TESTEd project aims to further the integration of socially relevant cross-cutting issues in teacher education across Europe. However, systematic challenges and limitations in teacher education and education systems complicate this process. This discussion paper will, therefore, point towards these challenges and showcase, how the TESTEd project tries to solve them. First, it will present the ideas behind the TESTEd project and the development of a European Syllabus in Teacher Education that focusses on cross-cutting issues. The discussion paper will then go into the current state of work on the Syllabus, its structure, target audience and how the consortium integrates the Syllabus in (initial) teacher education. Following this, it will discuss the first implementation of the Syllabus in initial teacher education, based on a multi-perspective approach, considering a formative evaluation carried out with pre-service teachers as well as experiences and lessons learnt from lecturers and consortium partners. Finally, the discussion paper will give an outlook on the next steps in the TESTEd project, namely the integration of the Syllabus in Continuous Professional Development courses (CPD courses), the revision of the Syllabus, and its extension to good practice examples from teacher education in Europe. 1.1 Cross-cutting challenges in teacher education Even though the European Commission strives to include cross-cutting issues in all European education systems by 2025, providing students with inclusive and equal opportunities in education and paving the way for the digital and green transition, teachers and teacher educators still report a high need for training and support in these fields. In 2020, the European Commission published its “Communication on achieving the European Education Area by 2025“ with the aim to (a) set out a vision for European education in the up-coming years and (b) present concrete steps and strategies to deliver this vision (European Commission 2020, p. 4). In this publication, the European Commission points out, that across European education systems individual pupils’ experiences still “follow social patterns” (ibid., p. 6), with children from disadvantaged or with migrant backgrounds faring worse in schools (ibid., p. 7). Furthermore, even though women have higher educational attainment levels than men, there is still a gender gap, often in scientific fields of study leading to higher-paid vocations (European Commission 2020, p. 7). It is, therefore, one of the EU’s priorities to address and reduce the inequalities in education and foster inclusivity and gender equality. However, as these are immense challenges for schools, teachers and teacher educators – as multipliers in the field – need support and continuous professional development to be able to meet these requirements in their classrooms. As an example, according to the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS 2018), 33% of teachers on average express that they do not feel able to cope with the challenge of multicultural classrooms and report a high need for training in teaching multicultural or multilingual settings. Education also plays an important role in the green and digital transition of the European Union (European Commission 2020, p. 8). These transitions are also called “twin” transitions and are a cornerstone of European policy. The green transition aims to achieve sustainability, and combat climate change and environmental degradation. At the same time, the growing significance of digital technologies is transforming societies and economies. In the digital transition, the European Union aims to harness digital technologies for sustainability and prosperity, and to empower citizens and business. (European Commission et al. 2022, p. iv) To be able to achieve environmental sustainability, education systems need to work as catalysts to (a) make the complexities involved in a green transition understandable to pupils, (b) foster their skills so that they can work towards a climate-neutral, circular economy and (c) bridge the knowledge-action gap to guide fundamental changes in people’s behaviour. 3 Furthermore, as digital literacy is key to practically all vocations in all sectors, schools need to prepare their students, so that they can compete on the labour market. Additionally, as we spend more time in digital spaces, our worldviews and actions are increasingly shaped by exchanges, information, or opinions online. Pupils need to acquire critical media literacy to be able to navigate and discriminate the information they consume and understand data and privacy concerns linked to using social media platforms in order to become active and mature citizens in democratic societies. The profound importance of these two key cross-cutting issues to the future prosperity of Europe is often showcased in national curricula and guidelines for teaching, that posit digital literacy and Education for a Sustainable Development (ESD)1 as cross-curricular topics that should be integrated into all subjects as interdisciplinary teaching principles. However, while EU and national guidelines set out competencies for pupils, there are no competency frameworks for teachers in ESD, making it more difficult for teacher educators to implement sustainability in initial teacher education or continuous professional development offers. For example: In Germany, ESD is often still anchored to some subjects, namely the sciences or geography. This also holds true for initial teacher education and CPD actions, where – even though ESD is understood as a cross-sectional task for all subject areas – most education activities are being conducted by subjects with an “ESD-affinity”, i.e., physics, biology, chemistry, and geography. Furthermore, a 2021 report by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research observed a low degree of integration of ESD in module descriptions of teacher training (BMBF 2021, p. 15). In Spain, the integration of ESD as a cross-cutting theme is still in its initial stages. While ESD is briefly incorporated into subjects such as biology or geography, similar to what is observed in Germany, it holds particular significance in the context of physical education, where it is linked to the promotion of a healthy lifestyle and environmental awareness. Despite the recent release of guidelines by the Ministry of Education, which are based on the GreenComp framework, they have yet to be fully implemented in the classroom (Ministerio de Educación, Formación Profesional y Deportes 2023). Similarly, in Finland, the importance of ESD is highlighted at different key policy documents – for example, in the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education, the Finnish National Forum for Skills Anticipation, and several national reports on how to carry out Agenda 2030. And yet, ecological sustainability appears only in 3% of all objectives of instruction in the National Core Curriculum (Myrkä 2023). The global goals of ESD fail to translate into concrete actions by the time they reach everyday life in Finnish schools due to “insufficiently clear instructions in the area of sustainability” (ibid., p. 1). Here, we can observe a decided difference between ESD and digital competencies. The theoretical underpinning for the development of digitisation-related competencies are the EU‘s DigComp 2.2 (Vuorikari, Kluzer and Punie, 2022) and DigCompEdu (Punie et al. 2017), which were translated into national competence frameworks for pupils and teachers2. These frameworks create the basis for the integration of competency-oriented teacher education in digital literacy. Nevertheless, TALIS 2018 showed that a significant number of teachers express the need to develop their competencies regarding the use of digital technologies and only 43% of teachers felt they were well prepared to teach digital competencies in class. These figures show that teachers continue to need professional development opportunities to foster their competencies and self-efficacy in teaching digital literacy. In addition, as technological developments rapidly move forward, teacher education will need to keep pace with the changing digital landscape. 1 In the context of this Syllabus, we follow the definition of sustainability proposed by “GreenComp: The European sustainability competence framework” that states: “Sustainability means prioritising the needs of all life forms and of the planet by ensuring that human activity does not exceed planetary boundaries” (Bianchi et al. 2022, p. 12). 2 Again as an example: In Germany, there are national guidelines like the“Kompetenzen in der digitalen Welt“ (translated by the author: competences in the digital world) published by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder (available online: https://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2021/2021_12_09-Lehren-und-Lernen-Digi.pdf) and guidelines by the Länder, e.g., the “Orientierungsrahmen für Lehrkräfte in einer digitalisierten Welt“ (translated by the author: Orientation Framework for Teachers in a Digitalised World) that is specific to Northrhine-Westphalia (available online: https:// www.medienberatung.schulministerium.nrw.de/_Medienberatung-NRW/Publikationen/Lehrkraefte_Digitalisierte_Welt_2020.pdf). 4 1.2 What is TESTEd? A brief introduction to the project TESTEd addresses the need for European teachers and teacher educators to work together and broaden their perspectives to find common solutions for challenges in implementing cross-cutting issues into classroom practices. The project “TESTEd – Towards a European Syllabus in Teacher Education. Facing future challenges together” was conceived with the idea in mind that education systems and especially teachers across Europe all face the same current, global challenges – often on a daily basis. Therefore, these challenges require international responses in teacher education to find and establish widely accepted European solutions. As education is still organized on a national or even federal level with little systematic international influences on school systems, there is a huge need for (pre-service) teachers to become familiar with other European education systems, classroom habits, organizations, and subject-related practices as only they can transport a truly European perspective on education. The project, therefore, wants to explore how different European countries deal with and maybe even solve some of the challenges, to offer teacher educators – and by extension pre-service and in-service teachers – insights into the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to teach cross-cutting issues in class and provide good-practice examples from European classrooms and universities. To this end, we formed a consortium in June 2022 with five universities and a CPD provider as well as 11 schools, and critical friends (education administrators, government representatives, teachers’ unions, and other stakeholders) as associated partners from central, north, and southwest Europe (see figure 1). Figure 1: Overview of the TESTEd consortium In this consortium, we set ourselves the following main goals: · To bring a European perspective to teacher education and school development via a European Syllabus in Teacher Education and the establishment of international communities of practice between pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, teacher educators and other stakeholders in education. · To further pre-service teachers’ and in-service teachers’ knowledge and skills concerning the cross-cutting issues by providing virtual exchange seminars and CPD courses with a multiplier training during our project. 5 Figure 2: Overview of the work packages in TESTEd In the following sections, we will discuss both the development of the European Syllabus and its first implementation in a virtual exchange lecture series in initial teacher education in depth. We will also present the first results from a formative evaluation of the lecture series and discuss lessons learned for its second implementation. Finally, we will outline the next steps for the project– including the development of a CPD course based on the European Syllabus. 2. The development of the European Syllabus in Teacher Education Frameworks for teaching cross-cutting issues on a national and European level are often targeted towards student competencies and classroom content. To enable teacher educators to provide high-quality competence-based (continuous) professional development, it also requires a Syllabus showcasing which competencies teachers must acquire to teach crosscutting issues effectively. The delivery of the European Syllabus in Teacher Education is the main objective of the TESTEd project. The Syllabus itself is conceptualized as a systematic framework for the inclusion of societal challenges in initial and in-service teacher education. It focuses on the following five cross-cutting issues: · To increase the quality and attractiveness of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) through high-quality, international teaching and learning offers in initial teacher education by implementing the European Syllabus. · To establish and strengthen emerging research networks between the participating universities through joint publications and to support early career researchers through student research exchanges. · To enable knowledge transfer to a wider audience in the field of teacher education and schools as well as to ensure a sustainable documentation and future scalability of the project results. These goals were translated into seven work packages (see figure 2). 6 · ESD · Democratic education and active citizenship · Gender diversity and equality · Multilingual classrooms · Digitalization of learning spaces The Syllabus introduces these cross-cutting issues – defining main concepts and relating them to the work of teachers – before presenting key emerging topics for each of the issues (see table 3, section 2.1). It then presents competencies, (pre-service) teachers should acquire to be able to teach these topics in classrooms, concentrating on the required knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Furthermore, the Syllabus will give concrete good-practice examples from the partner countries to showcase approaches to teaching cross-cutting issues in classrooms. The Syllabus is, thus, targeted at teacher educators, but should also provide practical guidance to teachers themselves, who might not have the resources to participate in extensive teacher training. 2.1 The work process – arriving at a first draft Subject-based teacher education and school curricula pose a major problem to meaningful implementation of the crosscutting issues, as only interdisciplinary collaboration could address their complexity and far-reaching impacts fully. The conceptualization and creation of the Syllabus is coordinated by the University of Oulu, Finland. Nevertheless, all partners provide input, deliver texts, and give feedback to the Syllabus to make it a truly European endeavour. We started working on the Syllabus in the summer of 2022. First, all five partner universities prepared comprehensive overviews of current national guidelines and curricula concerning the cross-cutting issues, also giving an extensive list of official policies with short English summaries. As these national guidelines were often related to pupils’ competencies and classroom content, the next step was to extrapolate what competencies teachers would have to acquire to be able to effectively support competency development in their pupils. We, therefore, had to take a step back to develop a first Syllabus structure for teacher educators.3 The first structure was developed by the University of Oulu. Carrying out a document analysis looking at EU directives, like DigiComp 2.2 (Vuorikari, Kluzer and Punie 2022) and GreenComp (Bianchi, Pisiotis and Cabrera Giraldez 2022), Oulu examined whether the national documents were aligned with EU directions and which key topics and competencies were detailed for pupils and – if available – teachers. In total, Oulu reviewed 25 documents on the European level – published mainly by the European Commission and the Council of the European Union (see table 1). Furthermore, they carried out research to include international research papers on the cross-cutting issues. Table 1: Number of documents reviewed (2022) Cross-cutting issue European Commission The Council of the European Union Other Total no. Education for sustainable development 3 0 2 4 5 Active citizenship and democratic education 0 6 0 6 Gender diversity and equality 1 0 1 52 Multilingual classrooms 2 2 0 4 Digitalization of learning spaces 6 1 0 7 Total no. 11 9 4 25 3 There are some notable exemptions like the European Commission’s DigCompEdu (Punie et al. 2017) and the European Council’s publication “How all teachers can support citizenship and human rights education: a framework for the development of competences” (2009, available online: https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommon- SearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016802f726a, last checked 5 October 2023) which we included in the Syllabus. Furthermore, we included scientific publications if possible, e. g.: Nguyen, L. A. T., & Habók, A. (2023). Tools for assessing teacher digital literacy: a review. In: Journal of Computers in Education, 1-42. 4 Wiek, Withycombe and Redman (2011) and Brundiers et al. (2021). 5 European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE, Online: https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/policy-areas/education, last checked 22 September 2023). 7 As we did not only want to rely on already existing European frameworks but also wanted to include novel and forward-looking topics that might just emerge on the educational landscape, we followed up the document analysis with an expert survey.6 We contacted known experts for the five cross-cutting issues from all five partner countries to participate in an anonymous online survey – 53 experts responded. These experts included university lecturers in teacher education, researchers in the educational sciences and subject didactics as well as long-time practicing teacher educators. The experts were distributed across the five cross-cutting issues with the highest number of participants in the field of multilingualism and the fewest in gender diversity (see table 2). All of them were asked the following open-ended question: In the field of [selected field of expertise responding to the cross-cutting issues], what are emerging or current key issues7 in the context of teacher education in your country or beyond? Please specify. To complete the survey, all experts were given the option to respond in English or their mother tongue to not pre-emptively exclude responses due to language barriers. Table 2: Participant distribution across the cross-cutting issues n Percent 1. Education for sustainable development (ESD) 19 35.8 % 2. Democratic education and active citizenship 14 21.4 % 3. Gender diversity and equality 13 24.5 % 4. Multilingual classrooms 21 39.6 % 5. Digitalization of learning spaces 19 35.8 % The expert responses were analysed using a summary content analysis and linked to the already existing emerging topics from EU and national guidelines. Based on these two data sets, we then structured the emerging topics included in the European Syllabus (see table 3), focussing on the topics that (a) were mentioned the most frequently and aligned with current discussions on the crosscutting issues, (b) were aligned with EU policy and (c) were realistic for implementation in schools. Table 3: Overview of the emerging topics for each of the cross-cutting issues (topics in italics were later additions to the Syllabus based on expert and practioners’ feedback) Cross-cutting issue Emerging topics ESD Complexity as part of sustainability Bridging the knowledgeaction-gap Envisioning possible sustainable futures Democratic education and active citizenship Democracy under threat Human rights and peace education Active citizenship in communities Gender diversity and equality Diversity of gender identity and sexual orientation Promoting equality among genders Multilingual classrooms Teaching linguistically responsive content-curricula Heritage language support at school Trauma informed teaching Digitalization of learning spaces Re-thinking education with AI Data literacy Digital wellbeing In an iterative writing process, the task force from Oulu University then started to write the Syllabus, receiving input, feedback, and comments from the other university partners. A first Syllabus structure was presented to and discussed with Civil Society Organizations (for example CSOs in ESD and LGBTQIA+ rights) as well as European teachers from our partner schools in January 2023 and our critical friends in an advisory board meeting in March 2023, to ensure quality and a good fit to teachers’ needs from the beginning. 6 Another reason for the inclusion of the expert survey was that the topic “gender diversity and equality” was not as prominently represented in EU directives and national guidelines. We, therefore, wanted to include additional expertise on this subject. 7 In the context of this survey, we defined key issues to our experts as “topics or phenomena of pressing importance that should be included in a forward-looking teacher education”. 8 2.2 Key Challenges The lack of structural support for teachers participating in in-service teacher training poses a challenge, as teachers express the need for CPD courses in teaching and especially assessing cross-cutting issues in classrooms. During the research and writing process, there were several key challenges that we would like to highlight in this paper. First, the cross-cutting issues are highly complex and multifaceted. This makes it difficult to implement them in teacher education and schools, where content is much more compartmentalised. Meaningful implementation of the issues would require addressing and dealing with their complexity, but acknowledging their complexity fully is a major barrier to their meaningful implementation, either because the required interdisciplinary approach does not fit subject-oriented teacher education and school curricula, or because schools do not provide enough support, resources, time, or opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration between teachers. We decided to address this challenge by including good practice examples in the syllabus, highlighting how teachers can implement the cross-cutting issues in their specific subjects. As this is a solution that works with the constraints rather than challenging them, we hope that the syllabus will have a more immediate impact on teacher education. However, supporting widespread interdisciplinary and cross-curricular teaching practices that provide opportunities for teachers to work phenomenon-based would promote the implementation of the cross-curricular issues in a more meaningful way. A related challenge is the lack of suitable methodology and assessment tools, both for schools and in teacher education. Learning, teaching and assessment are closely intertwined and any policy or strategy which impacts one of these elements will also affect the others. This means that decisions made in relation to assessment have a major influence on how the key competences are taught, and therefore, on what learners learn. (European Commission, Directorate- General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture 2019, p. 16) It is, thus, vital to equip teachers with suitable teaching methodology and assessment strategies for teaching the cross-cutting issues. As the issues are highly complex and are often linked to a change in attitudes and actions, it is recognized that teaching methodology and assessment should not be confined to school walls. Instead, teaching these cross-cutting issues should encourage pupils to become more active in their communities. Therefore, traditional assessment tools seem insufficient to evaluate learning that is interdisciplinary and should bridge a knowledge-action gap. This lack of common frameworks for assessment also translates into concerns regarding quality assurance of teacher education programs that aim to equip teachers with the necessary competencies to include these issues in their teaching practices. To support teachers in implementing the delivery of the cross-cutting issues, the Syllabus will showcase adequate teaching methodologies combined with good-practice examples. Another challenge we would like to address is the lack of incentives for teachers to shoulder the workload linked to the teaching of interdisciplinary, intersectoral cross-cutting issues. Even though political support for the inclusion of the cross-cutting issues on an EU and national level in the countries participating in TESTEd is expressed through i. e. policy documents on the European Education Area (EEA), in school curricula and competency frameworks for students, the political will often does not reach the classroom because it does not tackle infrastructural problems or provide teachers with more time or resources. Furthermore, as TALIS 2018 shows, there is a need for CPD courses, which enable teachers to include and assess these cross-cutting issues in their classrooms (see chapter 1.1). However, even though CPD is a professional duty for teachers in almost all European countries (Eurydice 2021, p. 92),8 there is often little structural support for teachers to participate in in-service training. Thus, they have to invest their own time and resources in professional development: Around half of teachers and principals report that participation in professional development is restricted by schedule conflicts and a lack of incentives to engage in these activities. While support mechanisms in some TALIS countries and economies are associated with higher participation rates, in other contexts, the support still seems insufficient. (TALIS 2018: Online publication) In TESTEd, we try to meet the need for CPD in the cross-cutting issues by implementing the Syllabus not only in initial teacher education but also in a CPD course for in-service teachers (see also section 4). Furthermore, we are mindful of conflicting work schedules and limited amounts of time for teachers. Therefore, our CPD course takes place in the afternoon to work around teaching hours and combines synchronous and asynchronous elements to provide diverse input. It will – furthermore – offer flexible paths of participations, adapting to teachers’ needs, interests, and constraints as well as open-office sessions with experts in the field to freely talk about individual questions and seek direct advice. 8 Exceptions are Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Turkey where teachers are not statutory obliged to participate in CPD (European Commission et al. 2021, p. 92). 9 2.3 The current structure of the Syllabus To support teacher educators as well as teachers already working in the field, the TESTEd Syllabus includes a competency framework for each of the cross-cutting issues as well as good practice examples from classrooms to value high-quality work done by teachers all over Europe and directly support the implementation of the cross-cutting issues in teaching practices. In accordance with the experts’ and practitioners’ feedback as well as being mindful of the key challenges mentioned, the Syllabus is now structured as follows. Chapter 1 introduces the Syllabus. It presents its’ background, terminology used as well as a guide on how to use the Syllabus. As the Syllabus is directed towards both teacher educators, and teachers, it includes guidance to lead these different target groups to the parts of the Syllabus that are the most relevant for them, thus enhancing its readability and user-friendliness. Chapters 2 to 6 then discuss the cross-cutting issues. These chapters follow the same basic structure, first introducing the main concepts of the cross-cutting issues and then detailing the emerging topics (see table 3, chapter 2.1), defining their scope and relating them directly to teachers’ work, highlighting the gap between current practices and needs. The chapters then each include a list of competencies that teachers should acquire to teach the specific cross-cutting issue. The competencies focus on (a) knowledge and understanding of the cross-cutting issue, (b) skills for teaching the cross-cutting issue and (c) attitudes towards the cross-cutting issue (adapted from Mohamed, Valcke & De Wever 2017; European Commission 2019; see also figure 3). Teacher competency structure Knowledge and understanding of the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Aims and purposes of the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Content knowledge related to the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Key international frameworks and principles that relate to the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · National curricula that relate to the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Different possible contexts of learning the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE Skills for teaching the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Planning of approaches, methods, and opportunities for learning about the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Incorporating principles of the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE and practices into one’s own teaching · Establishing ground rules and sustained environment for learning the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Developing a range of strategies to facilitate learning the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Use of a range of approaches to assessment of the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE Attitudes towards the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · A sense of self-efficacy concerning the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Professional beliefs, including learning, teaching, and pedagogy on the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE · Motivation and interests in developing own teaching for the CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE Figure 3: Info box on basic competency structure employed in the Syllabus Going one step further, each chapter then includes methods for teaching the emerging key topics as well as good practice examples for teachers. A glossary and overview of literature ends the Syllabus. A first version of the Syllabus was implemented in initial teacher education in the international joint lecture series that focussed on the five cross-cutting issues and was supported by lecturers from all five participating universities. 16 more appropriately. We, therefore, also conceived the Syllabus as a dynamic document from the beginning of the project to be able to respond to (future) teachers’ needs, new emerging issues, as well as to integrate further good-practice examples over the project’s runtime and beyond. After the first implementation of the Syllabus in initial teacher education, we now also developed a CPD course for European inservice teachers. In the CPD course, teachers from the participating countries will come together to receive information about the cross-cutting issues, exchange teaching practices and discuss good-practice examples. It is structured in three phases with synchronous and asynchronous learning elements: (a) a more theory-based, international phase, in which international teachers come together, learn about, and discuss the cross-cutting issues. (b) a transfer phase, focussing on nation (if applicable Länder) specific regulations and curricula and concrete lesson plans and material. In-service teachers will be asked to carry out a learning module based on the European Syllabus at their schools and reflect on their experiences. (c) An international multiplier training to support teachers in transporting ideas from the CPD course into their schools. As multipliers, the in-service teachers will promote school development and act as European beacons. The CPD courses’ kick-off was on 27th September 2023 and the duration of the course is set until 13th March 2024. In the beginning, over 50 teachers registered from Ireland, Finland, Germany, Spain, and Portugal, showcasing the importance of these issues to in-service teachers. The CPD course will also be evaluated – with a questionnaire in a pre-/post-design as well as through focus group discussions. Responses from the evaluation will again be integrated into the Syllabus. Parallel to the CPD course, TESTEd also started its student research exchanges. Students who participated in the international lecture series and the maker space event are offered the possibility to write either their thesis or a research paper at one of the partner universities in the consortium on aspects of ESD, democratic education, gender sensitivity in teaching and learning, multilingualism, or digitalization from a European perspective and under binational supervision. Students applied for a mobility grant and the selection process to place in early summer with a selection committee consisting of project leads from all participating universities. During their stay abroad, students will be placed at a participating training school to conduct their research. The best research papers will then be published to disseminate the results to a broader audience. 17 Literature Bianchi, G.; Pisiotis, U. & Cabrera Giraldez, M. (2022). GreenComp – The European sustainability competence framework. Punie, Y.; Bacigalupo, M. (eds.). EUR 30955 EN, Publications Office of the European Union. doi:10.2760/13286, Available online: https:// publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128040 (last checked 22 Sept. 2023). BMBF (2021). Bericht der Bundesregierung zur Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung. Available online: https://www.bne-por- tal.de/bne/shareddocs/downloads/files/20210407_bne-bericht_breg21_kabinettvorlage_cps_bf.pdf;jsessionid=D7541CE- 710927837FECED2F9CF659A0E.live091?__blob=publicationFile&v=1 (last checked 6 October 2023). Brundiers, K.; Barth, M.; Cebrián, G.; Cohen, M.; Diaz, L;, Doucette-Remington, S.; ... & Zint, M. (2021). Key competencies in sustainability in higher education—toward an agreed-upon reference framework. In: Sustainability Science, 16, 13–29. DAAD (2023). Merkmale und Bedingungsfaktoren von Auslandsaufenthalten im Lehramtsstudium – Auswertung der Lehramtsdaten aus dem Projekt „Benchmark internationale Hochschule“ (BintHo). Available online: https://static.daad.de/media/daad_de/ pdfs_nicht_barrierefrei/der-daad/analysen-studien/2023_arbeitspapier_bintho_lehramt_fin.pdf (last checked 16 October 2023). European Commission; Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (2019). Key competences for lifelong learning, Publications Office. Available online: https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2766/569540 (last checked 13 November 2023). European Commission (2020). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions ‘On achieving the European Education Area by 2025’. COM(2020). Available online: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52020DC0625 (last checked 6 October 2023). European Commission; European Education and Culture Executive Agency; Motiejūnaitė-Schulmeister, A.; De Coster, I.; Davydovskaia, O. et al. (2021). Teachers in Europe – Careers, development and well-being. Publications Office of the European Union. Available online: https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2797/997402 (last checked 22 November 2023). European Commission; Joint Research Centre; Muench, S.; Stoermer, E.; Jensen, K. et al. (2022). Towards a green & digital future – Key requirements for successful twin transitions in the European Union. Publications Office of the European Union. Available online: https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/977331 (last checked 22 November 2023). OECD (2019). TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners. TALIS, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1d0bc92a-en. Available online: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/1d0bc92a-en/1/2/6/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/1d0bc92a-en&_csp_=1418ec5a16ddb9919c5bc207486a271c&itemIGO=oecd&itemContentType=book (last checked 6 October 2023). Ministerio de Educación, Formación Profesional y Deportes (2023). Guía para el anclaje curricular de la Educación para el Desarrollo Sostenible – SGCTIE. Available online: https://www.educacionyfp.gob.es/mc/sgctie/comunicacion/blog/febrero2023/guiaeds.html (last checked 22 November 2023). Mohamed, Z.; Valcke, M. & De Wever, B. (2017). Are they ready to teach? Student teachers’ readiness for the job with reference to teacher competence frameworks. In: Journal of Education for Teaching 43(2). pp. 151-170. DOI: 10.1080/02607476.2016.1257509. Available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02607476.2016.1257509 (last checked 4 December 2023). Mykrä, N. (2023). Ecological Sustainability and Steering of Finnish Comprehensive Schools. In: Thrupp, P.; Seppänen, P.; Kauko, J. & Kosunen, S. (eds.). Finland’s Famous Education System - Unvarnished Insights into Finnish Schooling. Springer Singapore. pp. 87-104. Available online: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-8241-5_6#Sec1 (last checked 14 November 2023). Punie, Y., editor(s); Redecker, C. (2017). European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators: DigCompEdu. Publications Office of the European Union. doi:10.2760/178382. Available online: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/ JRC107466 (last checked 16 November 2023). Vuorikari, R.; Kluzer, S. & Punie, Y. (2022). DigComp 2.2: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens - With new examples of knowledge, skills and attitudes. Publications Office of the European Union. doi:10.2760/115376. Available online: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128415 (last checked 17 November 2023). Wiek, A.; Withycombe, L. & Redman C. L. (2011). Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development. In: Sustainability Science 6(2). pp. 203–218. 18 TESTEd Consortium Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Coordinator) Björn Rothstein Henning Feldmann Marie Vanderbeke Sophie Ingenillen Joana Kadir Eugenia Seibel Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Braga) Paulo César Azevedo Dias José Cândido de Oliveira Martins Raquel Rodrigues University College Cork Briony Supple Nico Lorenzutti John Barimo University of Oulu Sari Harmoinen Kati Mäkitalo Juan Miguel Castro Diaz Megumi Iwata Nils Jäkel (University of Oulu and University of Copenhagen) Universidad de Sevilla Jose Javier Martos Ramos Yolanda Morato Agrafojo Leonarda Trapassi Rosa María Coronel Ortiz Carmela Simmarano Inmaculada de la Luz Rosal Bustamante Elisa Diaz Prada Akademie der Ruhr-Universität Bochum Yves Gensterblum Christine Linster Jessica Böcker Hannah Börsting 19