EDiTE Summer School at Masaryk University
A week long summer school of the European Doctorate in Teacher Education (EDiTE) programme was held at Masaryk University and organized by the Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Arts, from 28th June to 2nd July 2016. The summer school kicked off with an interesting opening remark from the Dean of Faculty of Arts which was then followed by a lively keynote speech from the Director of the EDiTE Consortium. The day then continued by Professors’ short introductory presentations on the universities that are part of the EDiTE programme.
The participants for the Summer School included experienced scholars, educationists, as well as Early Stage and Self-funded Researchers. The participants come from many countries around the globe, such as Bhutan, Ecuador, USA, Nepal, Syria, and many European countries, and are currently pursuing a PhD course at one of the five partner universities (Eotvos Lorand University, University of Innsbruck, University of Lower Silesia, University of Lisbon, and Masaryk University), where they are expected to work closely with supervisors and pursue individual research projects of the EDiTE joint research programme. There were all in all about 50 participants, including all of the supervisors.
The main theme of the summer school revolved around the three key themes of EdiTE programme: transformative teacher learning, effective student learning and emerging European context. Pertaining to the key themes, the EDiTE summer school at Masaryk University was initiated by the Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Arts, on the overarching theme, Research as social change.
Over the five days of the summer school, individual research plans fitting the three key themes of the EDiTE programme were shared by Early Stage and Self-funded Researchers. The summer school also warranted rooms for experts and experienced supervisors to provide their constructive and valuable feedback on individual research plans so they can further realign, improve and refine their research plans considering the themes of the project. Parallel relevant and enriching sessions were also resourced by experts on areas such as experience based research in education, qualitative research design, ethnography, teacher education/training, issues and challenges of teacher learning, and publishing and writing an academic paper.
The summer school also provided networking opportunities for the Supervisors, Early Stage and Self-funded Researchers alike to discuss any other matters. In addition, to enliven the programme, parallel cultural programme was also actively initiated for the participants during the evenings. Finally, the summer school concluded with a reflection on a week long programme and with a clear outline of the further cooperation. Summer school was a knowledge and experience-packed week and an excellent kick-off for future common activities within the EDiTE project.
Kinley Seden,
Early Stage Researcher at Masaryk University