Teachers Project in SINTRA

1. We have learned that in the Portuguese educational system the teacher students would be able to improve their teaching experience and competence further with more practice in their education.

2. We learned about the importance of dialogue and mutual cooperation between the stake-holders in teacher education in order to increase the quality of European teacher education.

3. We have learned that the different educational systems in Europe may seem equal at a first glance, but the more we go into detail the more differences there are, which in turn cause various consequences for the teaching profession in the individual countries.

We found common approaches in:

* the need for development of practice in student teacher education and training

We found common challenges in:

* consequences of the speed of implementation of the Bologna-process in the various countries’ institutions

* how multicultural integration and assimilation within each country is dealt with

We have identified the following effective and innovative solutions that may be applied to meet challenges:

• It may be effective that the various teacher education institutions, of the various countries, try out various methods, and then reflect, evaluate it in order to see possibilities of improvement before moving on to a new approach and seemingly innovations.

• Introduce a much more practice oriented teacher education where there is a change in the didactics from contents to methodology so that the teacher-student gets more practical work-tools for varied teaching.and classroom management
• Courses in teacher-education should also include the topic of migration and how one may include migrants in a new culture and environment, thus developing intercultural competence.
• In most cases teacher-students learn to identify problems, but
  

We believe that the following policies and practices can be further explored and possibly transferred to other countries:

• The development of a thorough democratic system of assessment and evaluation of the teacher educational system where both student-teachers, teachers in teacher education, experienced teachers and school representatives annually evaluate the teacher educational system. This may also eventually lead to an improvement of the national educational systems.

• Common European comparable standards for teacher training which will improve the possibilities for mobility in practice and theory of student teachers as well as for teachers of teacher education.
• Impose standard terms used in teacher education applicable for the various educational systems in Europe
• Open more for teacher-student exchange abroad as part of national teacher-education practice-period.
• In order to give the teacher-students a large variety of teaching tools, it is important for the teachers in teacher education that they themselves hold and show a high quality of varied teaching methods so that they work as role models by using many didactic methods in their own teaching.
  

The following ideas for future cooperation have evolved during the meetings and discussions:

• One week’s session is too brief on it’s own in order to establish new ongoing international co-operations. However, we all agree that it is important to continue these programmes and that they have a large value in planting seeds of ideas for future development and improvement of in teacher education.

• We suggest that, as a part of the program, there is a mandatory “follow-up” meeting 2-3 years later where the participants are called back to meet and discuss how they have managed to disseminate and develop the ideas that arose from the first meeting. This will require the need to disseminate and try out innovations learned in the initial meeting at ones own institutions, and then report those experiences in the “follow-up” meeting.
• We have seen the importance of increasing the didactic skills of the university teachers who teach teacher-students.
• Increasing the competence and use of multi-media in teacher practice to share experiences from/with other countries.
• The universities should pare up mentors, experienced teachers, with newly certified teachers who will encourage and follow up the newly educated teacher in their vital initial years of teaching full time on their own, thus avoiding newly educated and motivated teachers quitting the profession burned out.

1. We have learned that in the Portuguese educational system the teacher students would be able to improve their teaching experience and competence further with more practice in their education.

2. We learned about the importance of dialogue and mutual cooperation between the stake-holders in teacher education in order to increase the quality of European teacher education.

3. We have learned that the different educational systems in Europe may seem equal at a first glance, but the more we go into detail the more differences there are, which in turn cause various consequences for the teaching profession in the individual countries.