Student Teacher Well-Being: Deepening Understanding and Building Support Erasmus Project

Project Title

Student Teacher Well-Being: Deepening Understanding and Building Support

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Teacher recruitment, retention and well-being are ongoing issues in Europe and internationally. The well-being of student teachers is not well researched, possibly because issues in reduced well-being on such programmes has been normalised. However, there is a growing body of literature on well-being of qualified teachers, which suggests that challenges begin during training and are linked to mental health problems. The teaching profession is a core resource in any national system attempting to meet the challenges apparent in the early 21st century. However, in some countries, the profession is under pressure due to a lack of retention and a long-term problem with recruitment.
The participating institutions (Kobenhavns Professionshojskole – University College Copenhagen, University of Eastern Finland and Bishop Grosseteste University) have been working together to explore student teacher well-being for two years. This project bid seeks to build upon this work, further exploring the well-being and workload of student teachers in Europe and applying these insights to the building of support structures through the development of toolkits. Its objectives are therefore to:

1. Deepen understanding of well-being issues affecting student-teachers in the three contexts (Denmark, Finland and the UK);
2. Understand the needs of stakeholders in developing support for student-teacher well-being
3. Build support resources/toolkits for Initial Teacher Education providers, student teachers and school-based mentors.

Participants are drawn from networks linked to the three participating institutions and involve student-teachers, school-based mentors and lecturers involved in delivering teacher training at university level.
The aim of the project is to understand in more detail the resources and challenges involved in student-teacher well-being and how these can be used as the basis for the creation of three toolkits to support key stakeholders; one for student-teachers, one for school-based mentors working with student teachers, and one for lecturers in initial teacher education (ITE). These toolkits will be designed to aid each group in their ITE work and offer both information and resources to support their work. Activities build on our past work to further understand the complex nature of student teacher well-being, enabling the project team to understand the wider issues faced by student teachers, the issues teacher educators face in integrating well-being into university-based curricula, pastoral systems, and through individual tutor contact. It will also facilitate an understanding of the complexities of the school-based mentor role in not only supporting student teachers professionally and academically, but also in relation to their continued well-being. The insights gained are used to build and test the three toolkits, developed and trialled by the three main stakeholder groups over two cycles of refinement. To structure these activities we utilise a design-based research (DBR) methodology to use research insights gained in baseline activities to inform and focus the production and testing of the toolkits which act as the main practice-based output from the project.
A number of outcomes are planned over the period of the project. A state-of-the-art narrative literature review will be conducted which will encompass literature on student teacher well-being and the resources, challenges and potential support systems which may mitigate challenges. These insights will then be augmented by baseline research in the three institutions to contextualise and particularise these issues. These baseline outcomes will support the main outputs from the project, the toolkits, including evaluations of their utility and impact. The work completed by the project team will be presented and archived on a project website and it is further expected that the project team will produce a number of academic outputs. These will ensure sharing of the project outcomes with the wider academic community as well as sharing with professionals through Open Access publishing systems used by British universities. They will also ensure a clear legacy for the project to have longer term impact.
The key anticipated impacts and long-term benefit of this project is to support the well-being of student teachers, through providing guidance and a help bank of resources to those working closely with them – specifically university-based staff and school-based mentors. As a consequence of this support package and university-based curriculum reform, it is intended that retention rates of ITE students and qualified teachers new to the profession, locally, nationally and internationally will improve as a result of the well-being toolkit developed. The toolkits aim to improve the practice and offer a support resource to school-based mentors in supporting trainee teachers’ well-being.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 178830 Eur

Project Coordinator

BISHOP GROSSETESTE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LINCOLN & Country: UK

Project Partners

• ITA-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO
• KOBENHAVNS PROFESSIONSHOJSKOLE