The project is located in the context of teacher education. It pursues three goals: to foster inclusion in schools, to increase the necessary competencies of student teachers and to sharpen the professional profile of teachers in the direction of inclusion. Thus, the project's main goal is to support student teachers in their practical training to achieve a first subject-related professionalization for dealing with heterogeneity. Methodically guided reflection settings help students to act individually in complex situations during their practicum. By means of systematic, reflection-oriented support, student teachers become involved as educational actors in the diversity of school classes and the needs of multiply disadvantaged students (social background, flight, migration, etc.) even during their studies. Results from research on professions show that professionals are characterized by an extremely high level of case-related competence to reflect which is based on professional knowledge. The project aims to structurally support the acquisition of this competence. The profile of the participants results from the framework of professionalization for inclusive education. Students, internship supervisors from universities and schools, scientists, persons responsible for the first, second and third phase of teacher training and educational policymakers were involved in this project. In total, all over 2,000 people were reached by the internship support events, multiplier events and the homepage. Two interrelated products have been created in the project: a module for coaching in practicum and a corresponding training course for teachers and university staff who supervise students in their practical training. The following activities were carried out in the development process of the products. Expectations of the interest groups were surveyed, interviews, group discussions and surveys were carried out and the prototypes of the created products were implemented. Evaluations played a central role in the development process. In addition to four successful realized multiplier events, seven project meetings and 21 online meetings were held. For all of them, detailed protocols and relevant to-do lists for further activities were created.The results and effects are that the participants' awareness of the importance of reflection and especially of the emotional aspects was significantly increased. Between the qualification of the internship facilitators and the effectiveness of the internship facilitation exists a close connection which was shown to be innovative and important especially during the seminars for teacher training. From various evidence it can be concluded that the students involved in the project benefited from it in the following ways:- A greater understanding and open-mindedness for social, ethnic and cultural diversity, a feeling of coherence (comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness) was achieved. Thus a higher motivation and job satisfaction as well as a reduction of the stress experience during the internship was obtained. This is connected with increased professional competence of the prospective teachers and a higher probability of (mental) health in professional life.- They experienced a strengthening of their self-image and their profile as professionals. - They became more competent in dealing with diversity in learning groups. - The cooperative and innovative reflection on practice which was trained in the internship support event could be adopted in their professional habitus. For the future it will enable them to work more closely with other actors in school to promote inclusion and prevent exclusion. - The participating schools were involved in a process of exploratory learning. They are rethinking their practice of internship support and beginning to incorporate formats of reflection into their structure or to take up suggestions from them. In this way they were motivated for organizational and personnel development.- It can be assumed that universities will change their internship support courses, align them with the example of a reflected inclusive practice and train their staff and internship teachers accordingly. The willingness to deal with diversity in the educational system in a reflective way will be increased. It is expected that internship support seminars that focus on systematic and methodical reflection of complex pedagogical situations will also be implemented in other teacher training institutions. A first lasting effect can be seen at the University of Regensburg, since the Intellectual Outputs are used in the teacher training program for pedagogy in case of behavioral disorders.

<< Background >>In an era, which is characterized by a climate crisis, rapid loss of biodiversity, depletion of natural resources and continuation of global inequalities, it is pertinent to empower especially young people not only to change their thinking but also to change their actions in a progressive and sustainable way. While there is relative global consent, that transformative learning, which focusses on the idea that learners can adjust their thinking and acting based on new information, is necessary for sustainable development, the path towards it is often less clear. Schools need to react to the changing conditions, acting and educating for environmental protection and against climate change. This is not only a challenge for pedagogy but is often combined with processes of redesigning school buildings and yards. As Malinin and Parnell (2012) describe, schools communicate a “hidden curriculum” (p. 12) to teachers, students and the community, which unveils how learning is viewed and which role children and youths play in society. Accordingly it is important not only to work on pedagogy, but to simultaneously pay attention to the design, layout and day-to-day practices of schools. In line with a whole institution approach aspects such as energy consumption, mobility or food choices should be addressed by educational institutions. Accordingly it is important not only to work on pedagogy, but to simultaneously pay attention to the design and layout of schools as well as infrastructure, mobility and food choices.In order to deal with all these challenges, we need schools and educators, that lead by example and try out new, innovative pedagogical approaches in their schools and are willing to make changes to school policy beyond its pedagogy. In this respect, especially All-Day schools show a great potential. The extended time pupils spend at school means more equality between children from high and low income families. Secondly, they offer more extracurricular activities than half day schools, which is important in education for sustainable development (ESD) / transformative education. Furthermore, as children spend more time in this type of school social learning plays a more important role as well. The curricula of many All-Day schools contain numerous topics and educational principles, which are analogous to goals and principles of ESD or just need little adaptation in order to meet these goals. In addition, as students also eat at the school, food choices can be another aspect of a change towards sustainability and climate neutrality. Thus All-Day schools seem well suited to holistically incorporate ESD and transformative learning into their educational programme and to adapt their practice both in the mornings and in the afternoons as well as to the infrastructure and other aspects of school life. Thus, having All-Day schools as a starting point, sustainability education and practices can gradually spread to other social spheres such as families and the general public.<< Objectives >>The aim of our project is to support All-day schools in developing a curriculum as well as day-to-day practices, which foster sustainability education and make an impact toward climate stability. Thus, a major priority in the long term are environmental and climate goals in the sense that pupils are learning about sustainability in order to become active citizens, who are conscious about the environment and our climate and act accordingly. In order to reach this goal, key competences have to be acquired by teachers and pupils alike. Additionally value education, civic engagement and participation lie at the core of sustainability and environmental education and thus are vital ingredients to this project. The project endorses the whole-school approach, integrating ESD / transformative education in a holistic manner. Accordingly, teaching and learning for sustainability is extended to aspects such as community involvement and integrated governance. The whole-school approach further advocates for active, participatory learning (Hargreaves, 2008). In order to do so, this project will learn from existing good-practice examples. Based on these examples, which will be researched through case studies, the project aims at fostering the transformation towards sustainability education and practices by developing in-service training modules for All-Day schools wishing to adapt their programme towards ESD and transformative learning and to change their school policy in accordance with the whole-institution approach.<< Implementation >>Two case studies in All-Day schools will be conducted in each project country. Following the individual analysis of each case,, the next step is a comparative analysis of all cases, focusing on similarities and differences between the project countries and school types. The results will then be used to create teacher-training modules and materials. The development of these will follow an Educational-Design research approach based on researcher-practitioner-design hubs. Based on the idea of involving creative people with different professional backgrounds - partly from the case study institutions and partly from the project partners institutions - as an intellectual core within a design process, this methodology will be adapted to thedevelopment of the teacher training course and materials. Its core, the teacher-practitioner (TP) design hub, will be constituted by representatives of the project partners and collaborates remotely.The TP design hub is involved in every iteration of the design process. Following the development of the course, each partner will conduct one pilot course in their own country, inviting 20 teachers to take part. Through this course, we are supporting educators and head teachers in implementing sustainability measures in their institutions using a whole-school approach. The course will be evaluated by the participating teachers and revised accordingly. The revised course as well as the other project results will be presented at a final conference.<< Results >>The project will produce the following results:• Extensive case study reports from four different countries• Cross case analysis report• Guidelines for the selection and development of training materials• Training material as online documents (text, images) and audiovisual artefacts (eg. podcast, video)• Online course based on MOODLE or a similar online platform, involving synchronous (eg. webinars) and asynchronous communication.Furthermore the project will result in several (scientific) publications and all results will be presented at the final conference. All results will be shared through the project website to reach a broad audience. Through developing and holding a teacher training course, which will also be available as an online training module after the project, we are supporting educators and head teachers in implementing sustainability measures in their institutions using a whole-school approach even beyond the project duration. Additionally, teacher educators as well as educational authorities will profit from the developed course and materials for pre-service as well as in-service training beyond the project.

"<< Background >>Virtual or blended mobility, or virtual exchange cooperations, need to be promoted within universities, academic faculty members need to be trained, infrastructure like digital platforms need to be fit for the cooperation of two or more partners. The fact that we focus on virtual forms of cooperation is based on the intention to make our cooperation both more inclusive and greener in the sense that we want to offer our students international experiences that take into account the need to make our lifestyles more sustainable. Environmental impact, climate change and pollution of our environment make no halt at national borders. This is why collaborating with international partners in this field is of the utmost importance.We focus on Education for Sustainable Development. All lectures and seminars we wish to introduce in form of a curriculum that is being developed will address issues connected with ESD. The target audience will be students of teacher education (TE), as all the partner institutions are specialised in teacher training. We include TE for primary and secondary education in this project. It is our belief that the target group of future teachers is the perfect group of multipliers for the important task of spreading the idea of a more sustainable and environment-friendly way of life. As we see the task of universities in the 21st century in combining teaching and research not only with the transfer of knowledge, but also with the renewal of our society, we consider our students as change agents. With our project we hope to contribute towards achieving the SDGs. But not only the ESD content, also the application of sustainable intercultural collaboration will be transported by our students to their future school classes: their experience of Virtual Exchange will be the basis for their own implementation of VE in schools. At some of our partners, seminars on ESD are already part of the curriculum or at least part of the offer made to students. At PUK, however, ESD is not at all part of teacher education programmes. This is why we decided to collaborate and to open the existing classes at the other partners to students of PUK. In order to do so, we need to change the teaching format: Teaching will have to be done virtually, and the classes will have to be delivered in English. Despite the fact that our faculty is familiar with online teaching, the format of Virtual Exchange is still new to most. This is why we will develop a staff training framework, addressing both the general aspects of design and implementation of Virtual Exchange in our context of ESD, but also adding a new component of how to mentor students in a virtual environment, enabling them to open up for the intercultural experience and for behavioral change, developing the attitude of a teacher as change agent. Having in mind that intercultural exchange does not always lead to intercultural learning and growth – not even by going for a semester abroad –, we will develop a systematic material collection for pre-trained faculty on virtual intercultural mentoring with a focus on our ""green"" context. Opening classes for virtual mobility also brings up the question of recognition. The development towards virtual mobility is not well represented in previous recognition processes at HEIs. There is currently no possibility of enrolling or recognising virtual mobilities. This needs to be addressed in the project, and put into relation to the Erasmus without paper (EWP) process that is about to start this year and to which we all committed ourselves. Lastly, as we realise the need for certified professional development of in-service teachers, we decided to provide micro credentials as a way of certifying the participation of in-service teachers in our ESD curriculum, strengthening the role of our institutions in lifelong learning.<< Objectives >>The goal of the partner organisations is to strengthen their cooperation through this project by introducing virtual forms of collaboration, in order to make internationalisation both more inclusive and more eco-friendly. The structures for this closer, yet ""green"" cooperation are to be set up by NETT DEVISE.In order to do so, we commonly develop a curriculum around Education for Sustainable Development for our students of teacher education. We involve our teaching faculty in this, create new courses (Virtual Exchange cooperations) and train the faculty members to better be able to design and implement those. Having more virtual offers and more offers taught in English is one of the objectives that all partners have. Another important goal is to strengthen the digital skills of both teaching faculty and students of TE, as well as in-service teachers. The current situation made it way too clear that a lot has to be done in this field - especially in Germany, where the digitalisation of schools has so far not been a political priority. Our students will be assigned tasks of virtual cooperation, and working on these tasks will help them to develop digital literacy.As the project takes a structural approach to introduce sustainable internationalisation in teacher education, the international offices of all partner institutions are involved as central coordinators in the administration of the project. These units have been chosen because we all want to build structures that facilitate and upscale virtual cooperation in the future, and secure the quality of Virtual Exchange for students. As the project also includes numerous activities relating to administrative procedures, further administrative staff will be involved (e.g. the responsibles for Campus Management Systems, E-Learning etc.), thus spreading internationalisation measures within our institutions.<< Implementation >>The overreaching subject of our cooperation is Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). With this in mind, we are planning on implementing the following activities:- Virtual and blended mobility offers, including two Learning, Teaching and Training Activities (LTTAs), as well as Virtual Exchange experiences in order to make international experiences more inclusive and facilitate the access and participation of target groups with fewer opportunities. All teaching activity has a focus on ESD. - A Virtual Exchange training programme for academic faculty, developed on individual needs and according to the objectives of all partner universities (we will develop a framework).- The development of a mentoring programme for students participating in the Virtual Exchanges (we will develop a tool kit for faculty).- An evaluation of the new forms of cooperation with focus on the achievment of intercultural competence.We are planning to use different digital tools and online platforms, for example Moodle and eTwinning, to further develop digital skills and competences of both students and staff.<< Results >>We plan to realise six project results and two LTTAs within NETT DEVISE. PR1: This project result consists of the development of a curriculum on ESD for students of teacher education and for in-service teachers. All partner universities will offer courses taught both in English and virtually for participation of the students and associated teachers of the project partners. Responsible project leaders are PUK and VIAA. PR2: Means to accredit the ECTS, full recognition of participation in virtual mobility, virtual exchange cooperations and blended mobility. PR leaders: LUE and PHFR. There are strong links to PR 1, PR 3 and to PR 4.PR3: Green intercultural mentoring programme/tool kit to intensify the experience for students. Leading institutions: PHFR, HAN and LUE. There is a link to PR 4.PR 4: Training programme/framework for academic teachers for designing and implementing class-to-class Virtual Exchange (and introduction of Virtual Exchange cooperations amongst the partner institutions). PR leaders: PHFR and PUK. This PR is linked to PR 3.PR5: Evaluation of intercultural competencies earned in the different mobility programmes – physical, virtual mobility, blended mobility, virtual exchange cooperations. PR leaders: VIAA and HAN. Links exist to PRs 1 and 4 as well as to the Learning, Teaching and Training Activities. PR6: Creation of a micro-credential for the participation in the curriculum created by PR 1. Project leaders: PHFR and LUE."

<< Background >>Education today needs to prepare students for changing tasks and roles in an increasingly digital and dynamic society. Teacher educators need to be able to teach future teachers how to prepare their students to actively participate in such a society. The teacher educators' impact on the digitalisation of teacher education is indisputable (Carpenter et al. 2019). Likewise, the need to support and train teacher educators in using digital tools is widely acknowledged (OECD 2018). Yet, systematic learning opportunities and overall digitalisation strategies for teacher educators are still rare or non-existent (European Commission 2019). Many authors, along with the European Commission, have identified the general need to strengthen the teacher educator community in Europe to better address the educational issues arising in their complex working contexts (e.g. European Commission 2013; InFo-TED 2019). Based on the precedent needs analysis, the following needs were identified by the consortium and will be addressed by the digiTED@EU Project:*to train and support teacher educators more hands-on in their digital professional development;*to ensure that teacher educators develop the required digitally creative mind-set and become agents of their own professional learning, as well as democratic digital citizenship;*to connect and coordinate professional learning across borders and disciplines, inside and outside institutions;*to pool European resources and create spaces for exchange of good practices and reflective dialogue;*to evaluate and recognise European qualifications for teacher educators;*to develop overall digitalisation strategies and action plans on a European, national and institutional level.We believe that educators are trailblazers of a successful digital transformation. In the absence of formal structures for the qualification and development of teacher educators across Europe in regard to enhancing their digital capabilities, we believe it is crucial to come together with other teacher educators in order to learn and share our experiences. We apply for this project to learn from each other and to jointly promote and facilitate the digitalisation among teacher educators in Europe (and beyond).<< Objectives >>It is the overall aim of the digiTED@EU Project to promote and facilitate digitalisation among teacher educators in Europe (and beyond). By implementing this project, we want to achieve the following objectives:1) Develop a hybrid programme for professional development that:*enhances the digital skills, competences and creativity of teacher educators;*promotes the readiness of teacher educators to teach online and to design and organise digital courses;*provides resources for tech-based assessment and feedback for teacher educators.2) Empower teacher educators to become more involved, creative and active in their own learning and development.3) Stimulate transnational and interdisciplinary collaboration on all levels in regard to digital teaching practices of teacher educators.4) Promote the creation of a European Digital Education Hub.5) Provide concrete recommendations for policy-makers to generate practice-oriented digitalisation strategies on a European, national, and also institutional level.6) Help teacher education to become more professional and reputable.In a nutshell, by implementing the digiTED@EU Project we will follow up and innovatively connect, exploit and rethink what has been developed thus far in regard to promoting digitalisation among teacher educators on different levels. The COVID-19 pandemic in particular has provided new opportunities to teach, learn and research. Now is the time to become active and advance from the crisis together as a whole Europe in the context of the digital era.<< Implementation >>In the digiTED@EU Project we primarily focus on teacher educators as participants. The European Commission (2013) describes them as follows: ‘Teacher educators guide teaching staff at all stages in their careers, model good practice, and undertake the key research that develops our understanding of teaching and learning’. The participants of the digiTED@EU Project will be teacher educators who come from different professional backgrounds as well as disciplines and are working in teacher education programmes for primary and secondary teaching at one of the partner universities (including the associated partners). The participants will profit from their participation in several ways:*professional learning opportunities;*becoming part of a professional community;*possible publication opportunities;* winning a prize if they win a Hackathon.In total, there will be three cohorts of teacher educators. One cohort will include 34 teacher educators, including four from each associated partner. Thus, there will be 102 teacher educators in total taking part in this project. We further intend to integrate a mixed group of at least 24 persons that includes student teachers, in-service teachers, head teachers and external stakeholders to take part in the committee that evaluates the results of the programme (Project Result 1).The participants of each cohort will be involved in the following activities (for further info see Project Result 1):A1: Preparatory Kick-off Meeting (virtual);A2: 2-3 Preparatory Tasks (virtual);A3: digiTED@EU Innovation Week (hybrid - some join physically, some virtually);A4: digiTED@EU Innovation Conference (optional, hybrid).<< Results >>With the digiTED@EU Project we expect to lay crucial and sustainable foundations that help bring about extensive changes in regard to digitalisation of teacher educators in the future. The overarching Project Results are summarised as:(1) A Hybrid Programme for the Digital Professional Development of Teacher Educators;(2) The Design, Creation and Implementation of a Virtual Teacher Educator Makerspace;(3) An Online Catalogue of Criteria to Evaluate Digital Teaching Practices of Teacher Educators;(4) 5 Multimodal and Transnational Case Studies;(5) A European Digitalisation Strategy for Teacher Educators;(6) A Post-COVID-19-Vlog for Ideas and Solutions to Innovate Teacher Education.Other outcomes in regard to experiences and processes are:(1) To support and encourage teacher educators to engage in lifelong learning, processes of change and innovation;(2) To build capacity among teacher educators to become more competent and engaged in integrating the use of digital tools in their teaching practices;(3) To outline and test hybrid formats (a mix of virtual and physical activities) for the professional development of teacher educators.(4) To establish a wide transnational network of teacher educators that strives to promote the digitalisation of teacher education through virtual and physical exchange;(5) To promote a culture of digital creativity among teacher educators;(6) To enhance the European Dimension and internationalisation of teacher education programmes by connecting political priorities and educational initiatives;(7) To explore and exploit innovative perspectives from external stakeholders on rethinking teacher education in a digital era.

Functional thinking is not only highly relevant within mathematics, but also crucial in everyday and professional life. It is, for instance, required, when modelling the spread of a virus such as the current COVID-19 as an exponential growth or when monitoring the redemption of bank credit. Unfortunately, there is vast empirical evidence that functional thinking causes a lot of difficulties for students what may have serious consequences such as school failure, and affect correspondingly, their private success as well as their social and professional participation.Embedded in the program “Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices”, the project FunThink aims at improving this situation through enhancing students’ functional thinking. The cooperating institutions are Ludwigsburg University of Education (Germany; coordinator), University Pavla Jozefa Safarika in Kosice (Slovakia), University of Cyprus in Nicosia, Pedagogical University of Cracow (Poland), Hogeschool iPabo in Amsterdam and Utrecht University (the Netherlands). Each of these institutions and in particular the members of the project team will contribute to the project their specific expertise and longstanding experience in supporting students through effective teaching-learning-settings, in pre-service teacher education as well as in professional development for in-service teachers – with regard to mathematics. Although the partners focus on different types of schools and have their specific curricular and cultural background, they share the common vision that mathematics education can be significantly improved by enhancing functional thinking from primary to upper secondary school. For this purpose, effective teaching-learning-settings as well as adequate pre- and in-service teacher education are crucial.The main goal of this project is to improve functional thinking in a transnational perspective drawing on the partners’ specific and complementary expertise. Therefore, one of the project’s objectives is to develop digital-embodied, situated learning environments for inquiry that can be implemented in mathematics classroom from primary to upper secondary school in order to support students’ functional thinking. These learning environments will innovatively combine promising elements such as learning with digital tools, real-world situations, and embodiment activities through inquiry that all have empirically proven their benefit in teaching about functions but have never been merged in a coherent way. Moreover, they will be worked out – alongside with extensive teacher guides – in in the sense of a comprehensive learning trajectory, i. e., they will enhance functional thinking in a coherent and continuous way bridging between different school grades, and hence, overcoming teaching different function classes and aspects in an isolated, non-interrelated way. As a further project objective, the conception of a corresponding pre-service teacher course is intended to enable pre-service teachers to effectively enhance their future students’ functional thinking through these learning environments. Particularly edited classroom videos showing more and less effective implementations of the learning environments will particularly encourage the reflection and professional exchange between the course participants about supporting students’ functional thinking – an important prerequisite for their future professional success. The learning environments and pre-service teacher course will account for and merge the partners’ varying cultural and curricular requirements, and hence, they will provide high transfer potential. In order to enlarge the beneficiaries of our innovative and promising outputs, a further project objective is to launch an open educational, interactive and multilingual digital platform equipped with the project outputs. An integrated user forum will afford for teachers, teacher educators and researchers to engage in transnational interaction, exchange ideas and experiences, discuss practice and learn from each other with regard to functional thinking and beyond. The project outputs and corresponding empirical evaluation results indicating their effectiveness will be provided in the six languages English, German, Dutch, Polish, Slovak and Greek; together with the worldwide availability of the digital platform we expect a wide-spread and sustainable implementation of the project outputs at the level of schools and universities and therefore an impact on mathematics education across Europe. In particular, the digital platform will provide mathematics teacher educators from all over Europe and beyond with extensive support for adopting our innovative course concept in their local teacher courses. In addition, regular transnational project meetings and the collaboratively elaborated multiplier events will disseminate the project outputs and support their extensive exploitation in European countries and beyond.