Arena 5: Teacher Education and Well-Being

Why Teacher Education and Well-Being 

The Teacher Education Arena is driven by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) „Quality Education“ (SDG 4), which converges many societal needs addressed by other SDGs (e.g. SDG 5 „Gender Equality“, SDG 10 „Reduced Inequality“). Its mission is to promote well-being in the school and educational context on an individual, societal and international level, in collaboration with its many educational and civic actors. The education and training of (future) teachers and students is one of the pressing challenges and responsibilities of the 21st century. The design of compassionate and vivid school communities, learning environments, and teaching pedagogies plays an important role as a societal vanguard for our democratic systems and values and the European future heritage. 

What we do 

EUniWell aims to increase the attractiveness and the recognition of the teaching profession, the social value of education, and the co-creation of communities of well-being in schools. This will be achieved through the development and dissemination of joint interdisciplinary research, innovative quality education and professional training programmes, the linking of school networks, and the involvement of societal stakeholders. This arena aims to prepare, support, and strengthen our teachers for the current challenges they face in our classrooms and societies. We follow a holistic and low hierarchical approach, bringing together different expertise, perspectives, systems, and structures. We emphasise the necessity of an international, transversal curriculum based on core issues in teacher education such as inclusion and diversity, guidance, sustainability, digitalisation, democracy, and health: defining and developing key-skills for the teaching profession. We are inspired to tackle the phenomena and realities of the 21st century by looking at what lies ahead, across the European continent and worldwide.

What we currently focus on 

In Arena 5, our objectives are centred around several key areas:

• Innovative research: Advancing trans-institutional research in the area of teacher education and well-being. Analysing new educational and pedagogical affordances, defining diverse professional skills and training needs, especially for second career teachers. Exploring innovative approaches and training. 
• Teacher education programs and educational offers: Developing academic content and supporting training offers focused on professionalisation of teaching, lifelong learning, and future skills, especially in the area of multilingualism and cultural competences. Defining and expanding a common guiding framework based on professional standards elaborated during EUniWell‘s pilot phase. Creating open educational resources (OERs), online and hybrid training modules and courses (particularly for cross-cutting topics such as diversity and inclusion, social media and digital literacy).
• Collaboration and networking: Facilitating knowledge exchange and networking opportunities for actors of all career phases according to their specific needs. Connecting local schools by expanding the European School Network established during EUniWell‘s pilot phase, bringing together teacher educators, students and civic stakeholders. Organising international conferences and lecture series addressing current and future challenges encountered by teachers and educators.
• Community engagement: Linking theoretical and practical knowledge transfer locally and globally. Creating international mobility experiences for teacher students, e.g. by promoting internships to foster a global sense of community through the experience of a local sense of belonging. Developing regionally-based training pacts to tackle international questions with local solutions.

Who to contact 

For more information, please contact teacheredu.euniwell[at]uni-konstanz.de.