Multiplier event 2023

During the conference, the results of the Erasmus+ project, Education for Resilience and Sustainability, was be presented. The project have included teachers, principals, researchers and student teachers from four countries. Reflections found during the project regarding important elements for creating schools for sustainable development and involving students, teachers, researchers to work towards increasing competences for agency was reflected on.

To provide a framework for the presentations we had invited professor Arjen Wals and professor Leif Östman who gave us important views on working with sustainable development in schools. Their work have served as a foundation for a lot of the work we have carried out during the project. All other presentors were from the project partners. 

The conference was held at the Conference Center,  Wallenberg, Medicinaregatan 20A, Gothenburg Thursday 23 March 2023 8.30-16.00

Event Description

This project is based on a holistic approach to issues related to sustainability. The project integrates environmental, social and economic issues into teaching, involving children and young people in the learning process, and preparing them for the future. Our point of departure - a holistic view on education, includes a critical place-based pedagogy that uses the community and their resources as a foundation, emphasising interdisciplinary teaching and learning and promoting a democratic empowering educational setting. The aim with such a setting is to provide students with a sense of agency, and to recognise them as producers of their own knowledge. The overall aim with this event was increased dissemination of knowledge on how to teach and learn about sustainability.

Eva Marsh, headmaster at Backatorpsskolan and coordinator of the Erasmus+ Education for sustainability and resilience project presented her thoughts abot how they have worked

strategically with the whole staff so that everyone have been included in the work with implementing Storyline as a tool for working with sustainable development. The lectures and workshops that we have used at the project meetings have been described and filmed and thereafter used in school with all staff to get as big impact as possible. This strategic work has been going on over several years and have now resulted in a lot of change in the school. Ingrid Jonsson, one of the teachers at the school, presented how the work in the classroom have been carried out. 

Leif Östman, Professor of Didactics at Uppsala University then talked about different ways of working with sustainable development and how that has changed over time. His work have been a startingpoint for the researchers work within the project. 

During the coffeebreak that followed the participants had a chance to mingle and discuss what they had heard so far. 

Margaretha Häggström, PhD in Educational Practice at the University of Gothenburg has been the leader of the research work during the project. She presented important elements needed at school for teaching and learning for sustainable development. We then watched one of the four filmes produced in the project about the interdisciplinary work done at šola ObRinži Kočevje, Slovenia, followed by reflections by the school’s teachers Katja IlcVirant and Mateja Vidrih, and researcher Gitte Motzfeldt, associate professor in Social Science, at Østfold University College.

Arjen Wals, Professor of Transformative Learning for Socio-Ecological Sustainabilityat Wageningen University joined us via link and gave his view on Sustainable development. We had planned to have Arjen as a speaker at the conference in Gothenburd during the project in 2022 but he could not take part then due to Covid. 

Then Ann-Catherine Henriksson, PhD in Education, The Center for Lifelong Learning, ÅboAkademi, Finland presented on evaluation and assessment in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Ann-Catherine have been leading the work on evaluation during the project. Anna Johansson and Torbjörn Nyberg, teachers at Backatorpsskolan, Gothenburg,  presented a pilot measurement tool for assessing changed action readiness, social skills and changed values that has been developed during the project and published here on the website.

During the following coffee break the participants was devided into groups to reflection and discuss their own work at their schools and what they can change to develop. 

Virginia Lockhart-Pedersen, Assistant professor at The Norwegian National Centre for English and Foreign Languages/Østfold University College then talked abot what changed that can be needed in professional teacher and schooldevelopment to address teaching and learning for sustainability and resilience. She will presented reflections on teachers' professional development. The film about research-results within the Erasmus+project was shown and the researchers and teachers from the procect formed a panel for discussion and questions. 

We showed the webbsite storyline.education which has developed to become broad and rich in content to support work in this field in schools with the intention to spread the results we have made.

The evaluation done afterwards shows that the participants found the day meaningful. 

The participants was generally positive and answers to our questions in the evaluationform can be seen below.

Have you received valuable input regarding how you can develop your school?

Have you received valuable input regarding; the state of research regarding interdisciplinary working methods?

Have you received valuable input regarding; evaluation and assessment?

Have you received valuable input regarding; storyline as a way of working?

Have you received valuable input regarding; How to work with learning for sustainable development?

Several participants also filled in that they would like to participate in future cooperation around school development and learning for sustainable development.