Teacher's Experiential Development of Digital skills through the Young innovator's programme (TEDDY), takes place in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, with the climate crisis in the background. This Erasmus+ project focuses on the digital skills that secondary school teachers need and have developed over the course of the COVID-crisis. These skills are inventoried, selected and trained in an EIT Climate-KIC education programme, Young Innovators, currently running in a number of EU member states. We want to ask the question: how can we learn and iterate during these crisis times? The project involves the development of digital skills/competences of teachers and students through Young Innovators and the Big Ideas programme (UK): programmes that introduce students with system innovation and creating future scenarios through challenge-based learning. This requires the further integration of digital teacher training, tools and methods in these programmes. TEDDY aims to train teachers in the Young Innovators programme to work with digital tools in and after the pandemic. In this project, we will facilitate discussions and evaluations of teacher’s experiences with using digital tools in the classroom. Subsequently, we will use our lessons-learned to improve and strengthen the programme, make it more sustainable, future-proof and pandemic-proof. TEDDY will be a cooperation between four different countries in which the Young Innovators (or a comparable) programme is carried out. The duration of the project will be two years. We will facilitate a digital platform (SLACK) where discussions, the exchange of knowledge, and regular updates through blogs and vlogs from teachers and others involved with the programme will be monitored. On this platform, teachers will be stimulated to evaluate their experience and learn from each other. Through action-based research, we will explore together with teachers, students and actors from outside the classroom, how digital tools can improve education for sustainability through the Young Innovators programme and how these tools serve to connect students to the outside world. As a result, students can come up with creative solutions to solve the climate crisis, without leaving their classrooms or even their homes and subsequently initiate action and mobilize actors around them through digital platforms The project consists of three learning cycles. In the spring of 2021, the lessons learned on digital skills in the Young Innovators programmes in the participating countries are harvested and then used as a starting point for developing an approach for training and experiencing digital skills in the Young Innovators season in autumn 2021. In the spring of 2022, the results of the new approach are evaluated and used for improving the methodology. Early 2023, the results of the whole project will be evaluated and disseminated. During the project, there will be three physical, two-day gatherings. The actors from the four countries will come together in a central place that can be reached by train. This contributes to the image of a Green Recovery after COVID-19, and stimulates the idea that flying is not necessary anymore in a digital era. In these two-day gatherings, teachers’ experiences with using digital tools in the Young Innovators programme during COVID-19 will be evaluated and discussed. We will use a design-thinking inspired method of diverging and converging problems to come up with solutions. We will co-create digital tools and methods that help teach the Young Innovators programme in and after the COVID-19 crisis. In the end of the project, digital tools and methods will be fully integrated in the Young Innovators programme. Teachers will have learned how to adapt their teaching to the needs of the COVID-19 crisis by making optimal use of the digital tools available. The teachers of the Young Innovators programme will have been trained to use digital tools to keep their students involved and enthusiastic, and to stimulate creativity in new, innovative ways. The new knowledge about using digital tools will not only be useful for the Young Innovators programme, but for the development of Digital Education Readiness in general. Also, the results will strengthen the capabilities of educators to be resilient, adaptive and creative in times of crises.
The TEDDY project had three specific goals. The first was to equip educators with digital skills and knowledge to promote student-centered learning, critical thinking skills, creativity, and innovation. The second was to foster entrepreneurial skills and innovation in students to help them become active agents of change in promoting sustainability and addressing climate challenges. The third goal was to create sustainable impact on education for sustainability and climate action by developing and implementing innovative strategies and tools that can be adapted and replicated in different educational contexts. The target audience of the TEDDY project was educators and students in secondary schools across Europe. The project aimed to develop and implement innovative strategies that can be adapted and replicated in different educational contexts, making it accessible to a wide range of educators and students. Our goal was to find answers to two fundamental questions: How can we use digital tools and skills to enhance the effectiveness of sustainability education programs? And how can we use digital tools and skills to create education programs that are resilient in the face of global crises such as pandemics?
The TEDDY project was developed in response to the significant challenges that educators and students faced in promoting sustainability education and digital readiness in the context of the covid pandemic. Educators and students faced significant challenges in promoting sustainability education and digital literacy. In response to this need for innovative solutions, the TEDDY project aimed to equip educators with the necessary skills and knowledge to teach digital literacy and entrepreneurship, while also fostering creativity and innovation in students. The project was a direct response to the Erasmus+ call for proposals in 2020, which sought partnerships focused on digital education readiness. The call aimed to support projects that promote the development of digital skills and pedagogies, as well as the use of technology to improve the quality of education.