In our European "adventures" we participate in various projects funded by the European Commission, which are looking to develop knowledge and support learning communities in various contexts. One of these projects is the Teacher Academy Project - Teaching Sustainability (TAP-TS) that we have already introduced through our blogs, here.
In the end of June, we had our first Summer School with the project, and Eummena was there to showcase our Moodle platform and work with the facilitators of the event and the participants. We presented our Moodle LMS and had the opportunity to listed to the needs of teachers and teacher educators on how we can serve them using Moodle.
A big part of the discussion was related to how we can #open courses and material with Moodle and how we can share material in a way that will increase its use, re-use and adaptation from teachers and teacher educators around Europe.
Learning & Teaching Packages
The TAP-TS project will offer Learning and Teaching Packages (LTPs) on Sustainability topics that will be reused by teachers (in-service or pre-service) and teacher educators around Europe.
As far as the Summer School was concerned, it was a five-day intensive experience for all the participants, brilliantly organised by our colleagues at the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute. We started off on Day 1 with a brief presentation of the project and its objectives as well as an ice-breaking activity to bring the participants together, reflecting on our map of a sustainable Europe. The day continued with the presentation of some of the LTPs that the project is developing and ended with participatory activity where the participants discussed on what they bring into the Summer School in the form of a reflection tree (see our photo on top of the article).
Day 2 included more presentations on the LTPs of the project, focusing on Sustainability and Digitality in a session led by University College of Teacher Education, Vienna. The day continued with 2 workshops on the topics of Climate Crisis Resilience that engaged the participants in the methods of gamification and serious digital games. On Day 3 we moved to the Cape Greco Environmental Education Centre where we learned about Marine Sustainability and we engaged in an outdoor activity. The topics discussed included microplastic and footprints on the marine biodiversity that were made visible and felt using injury-based learning approaches.
On Day 4, we had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Aravella Zachariou, the Head of the Education Unit for the Environment and Sustainable Development from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. Aravella talked about Mechanisms for Education for sustainable development and presented Policies and Frameworks. She also discussed about Education for Sustainable Development in Cyprus discussing on policies and good examples of integration. After a short break, Aravella introduced us to the whole school approach and reflected on the example of Cyprus in terms of good practices for Education on Sustainability. We also had the chance to talk in groups, about the situation in other countries.
The day ended with a captivating presentation from Dr. Sofia Avgitidou from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and member of our Project Steering Group. On Day 5, We met in the morning for a reflection on the Summer School work and outcomes and held an evaluation session with all the participants.
Related to our Moodle platform, we got back with lots of input from our partners and we are already adapting the platform to match the needs of our teacher trainers and teacher trainees. The amount of plugins that Moodle supports and the flexibility of the platform, allows us to address these requests easily. More importantly, we are building a version of Moodle that will be streamlined to serve needs of similar projects and communities. Contact us on solutions@eummena.org if you want to learn more.
See you soon Cyprus!
We are already counting-down for the next Summer School! Stay tuned to learn more about it,
and join us for a learning experience you will never forget.
This project has received funding from the European Unions’ ERASMUS+ Teacher Academies Action under Grant Agreement no. 101056248