Czeducon is an annual international conference on strategies and policies in international education held in Prague by the Czech National Agency and the Czech Ministry of Education.
As a major event of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU, this year’s Czeducon focussed on the strategies and policies in the management of HEIs and in the alliances of European universities. The conference thus was a great opportunity to share the experiences gained while developing joint strategies and activities in NEOLAiA, and to hear and learn from others. Renáta Tomášková (Ostrava University), Ida Andersson-Norrie (Örebro University), and Anna-Susan Franke (Bielefeld University) took the international audience for a walk along the NEOLAiA path towards internationalised teaching and learning, an inclusive environment embracing diversity, and joint research teams and research-based teaching. Discussing the different conceptualisation of inclusion and diversity across European countries, we invited the audience to contribute to a Mentimeter word cloud to see a range of interpretations right on the spot. Finally, we guided the attendees of our panel through the BIP adventure – the blended intensive programme on the diversity of educational systems and inclusion for students in teacher-training programmes designed jointly by educational scientists at the Universities of Bielefeld, Örebro, and Ostrava and piloted online in June 2022. We were very happy we could also share samples of the very encouraging feedback the participating students provided in evaluation forms, including the one summarizing the BIP experience as follows:
It’s a lot of work, you need a lot of coffee but it’s definitely worth it, it’s an amazing experience and it will improve you as teachers in so many ways!
Presenting the collaborative activities in NEOLAiA at Czeducon is gradually becoming a tradition: Czeducon 2021 hosted a NEOLAiA panel on the emergency online teaching experience and its implications for virtual mobility, with Marisa Pérez (Jaén), Meike Vogel (Bielefeld), Rasa Pocevičienė (Šiauliai), and Renáta Tomášková (Ostrava) as presenters. Looking forward to being part of this inspirational gathering of international educators in the
autumn of 2023!
