The Educathon at UNITE Summer School 2024: Creative Solutions for Well-Being in Education
A key highlight of the UNITE Summer School 2024, held from August 26 to 30 of 2024 at the University of Cologne, was the Educathon—an innovative challenge that brought together 83 students, teacher educators, and schoolteachers from 21 universities across 17 countries. The event, organized by the Centre for Teacher Education and the Department of International Mobility, in collaboration with EUniWell and teff Academy, focused on improving well-being in the teaching profession.
Collaborative Problem-Solving
The Educathon tasked participants with developing solutions to global educational challenges, using a Design Thinking approach. Divided into six teams, participants had one day to brainstorm and pitch ideas aimed at enhancing teacher and student well-being. The pitches, delivered in 90-second presentations, showcased creative solutions that ranged from teaching well-being skills to improving learning environments.
Diverse Perspectives, Shared Goals
By bringing together participants from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, the Educathon created an environment of innovation and fresh perspectives. As one participant reflected: “I really love the Educathon session, since I got a lot of insights from all the presentations”. The event highlighted the power of collaboration in tackling universal challenges within education.
Impactful Experience
The practical nature of the Educathon allowed participants to apply knowledge gained from lectures, workshops, and school visits during the Summer School. A student noted: “[…] I was able to gain insight into alternative approaches to not only teacher well-being but also to pedagogical practice from several other countries […].” The event also offered participants opportunities to form meaningful connections during social gatherings, including a barbecue and dinner at a local brewery.
Looking Ahead
The Educathon underscored the importance of well-being in education, sparking creativity and collaboration. As another participant shared: “I think we need more experiences of this kind”. The event was a catalyst for innovative ideas, building a foundation for ongoing discussions on well-being in education.
For more information and participant testimonials visit the website:
UNITE Cologne
In the meantime, you can read some of the resulting pitches below.
Participant Testimonials
Set the School on Fire: Hot Ideas
Stand up!
We are hoping to spread a fire about well-being, and it's also up you to set your school or institution on fire. We hope that the spark jumps on you, you and you! This morning, we're giving you some fuel to empower you and inspire you to start having a conversation in your own context.
We present you a tool that can help you to spread the fire and inspire others to become active about well-being. It is a dynamic instrument, that we will expand with some of the great ideas present in this group.
Our tool is a talking sheet, offering you lots of tips for activities so you can make working on well-being as specific as possible for different stakeholders.
It's all about experiencing the effect of paying attention to well-being, for:
- Leaders in schools/institutions
- Students at universities
- Teachers
- Teacher educators
- The environment
- Pupils in school
You are able to add your own ideas, so give us some sparkling ideas!
Together Side by Side
There's no doubt that teachers' mental health is facing significant challenges in the recent times, stemming from the complex relationships maintained with both students and families. This issue manifests in multiple ways, such as anxiety, burnout and even depression, not only affecting teachers'well-being but also the quality of education provided .
To address this challenge, we propose “Together side by side”, an integral well-being program aiming at the educational community as a whole. The key features of this program include psychological support provided by public-or-state specialized counselors at school, well-being training programs for educators and collaborative workshops among teachers, students and families.
The benefits of this initiative are clear: by strengthening the mental and emotional health of every individual, we enhance the school environment and, ultimately, promote more effective and harmonious education. The next steps will include evaluating the success of this programme by conducting pre-test and post-test questionnaires and interviews to get both a quantitative and qualitative insight of the impact of this programme.
In conclusion, by proactively addressing teachers' mental health issues, we are investing in the well-being of the entire school community, ensuring the whole community side by side has the necessary tools to thrive in their work environment.
Happy Teachers
If you could decide….what do you want?!!! Powerful, happy teachers or sad teachers? We say, it takes a whole village to enhance teacher well being!
With the teacher shortage being a real problem these days and teachers dropping out of their profession because of burnout and schools facing the cost of replacing burnt out teachers, it has never been more important to focus on the well-being of teachers. Happy teachers provide happy kids! So let's change the practical phases and use the fantastic instrument Advisory Board for teacher well- being!. It is an obligatory assignment for student teachers in teacher education which is supervised by teacher educators in a course. A team of student teachers works together with a school and the principal and creates well-being questions. For example: How can we create more space in the lesson planning for teachers to spend time together? The advisory board is practical, easy to implement and could be adopted across the globe.
The benefits for all participants are that they:
• act at eye level,
• learn from each other.,
• everybody will create more knowledge and awareness for well-being,
• the newest generation can influence the future of education,
• a safe space empowers the people to create “crazy” and new ideas for the future of teacher education.
Now, we have to convince all the responsible schools, faculties and the centre of teacher education. Then we will pilot the advisory board and evaluate it. It needs a whole village to enhance teacher well-being! Teacher well-being is more than health, it's a movement which is important all over the world. To implicate teacher well-being in all phases of the teacher education will improve democracy for all!