Baltic Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­gramme SAIL for Teach­ers 2018

The SAIL (Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Applied in Inter­na­tion­al Teach­ing and Learn­ing) Teach­ers course 2018 will start on the 4th of July in Gothen­burg, Swe­den, and end on the 11th of July in Sun­der­land, Eng­land. We will be sail­ing on the Pol­ish sail train­ing ves­sel Fry­deryk Chopin (http://www.fryderykchopin.pl/en/the-ship,t4/).

About the course

The SAIL for Teach­ers is an annu­al Baltic Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­gramme course orga­nized by the BUP Cen­tre for Fin­land at Åbo Akade­mi Uni­ver­si­ty and the Baltic Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­gramme sec­re­tari­at at Upp­sala Uni­ver­si­ty, con­duct­ed on-board a Tall Ship (Fry­deryk Chopin, http://www.fryderykchopin.pl/en/). The aim of the course is to gath­er teach­ers with­in the Baltic Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­gramme net­work, but we also invite Teach­ers from oth­er insti­tu­tions in case of avail­able places, that are active and inter­est­ed in sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. The course is based on all par­tic­i­pat­ing teach­ers’ com­pe­ten­cies and expe­ri­ences — we count on your active influ­ence on the con­tent of the course pro­gramme and dis­cus­sions on-board.

There are 30 places avail­able on the course. Teach­ers from dif­fer­ent coun­tries, cul­tures, uni­ver­si­ties, and dis­ci­plines will meet and exchange knowl­edge, share expe­ri­ences, learn and teach, devel­op their com­pe­ten­cies, work togeth­er, sail the ship, and expe­ri­ence their life’s adven­ture. We will sail far from stress, inter­net, and tele­phone con­nec­tion. This envi­ron­ment can­not fail to inspire and empow­er!

Uni­ver­si­ty teach­ers with a strong back­ground with­in the field of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment (see top­ics below) will be pri­or­i­tized. We also accept PhD stu­dents in order to give them an oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op their ped­a­gog­i­cal skills and learn from more expe­ri­enced col­leagues.

From the eval­u­a­tion from pre­vi­ous Teach­er­s¹ SAIL course: — An excel­lent idea of shar­ing expe­ri­ence, dif­fer­ent points of view, inter­pre­ta­tions by teach­ers of dif­fer­ent back­grounds, from dif­fer­ent coun­tries, dif­fer­ent age. The sea changed the per­spec­tive total­ly and made this meet­ing real­ly unfor­get­table. It was unique, unusu­al, fan­tas­tic time and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for per­son­al devel­op­ment. It nev­er hap­pens dur­ing tra­di­tion­al con­fer­ences or meet­ings on land.

Active teacher par­tic­i­pa­tion

Each par­tic­i­pat­ing teacher will be required to sub­mit an abstract to one of the ses­sions list­ed below, and par­tic­i­pate in on-board group work, oral pre­sen­ta­tions, and dis­cus­sions. Fur­ther, we will invite one teacher per ses­sion to give an invit­ed talk. All oth­er pre­sen­ta­tions in the ses­sions will be pre­pared on-board in group work based on the teach­ers’ exper­tise and sub­mit­ted abstract. All teach­ers should bring nec­es­sary mate­ri­als for on-board pre­sen­ta­tions includ­ing key ref­er­ences to facil­i­tate group work. As soon as we have the final list of par­tic­i­pants, we will announce speak­ers and orga­ni­za­tion of work­ing groups. Dur­ing the course, the teach­ers will be able to exchange up-to-date knowl­edge on sus­tain­abil­i­ty issues in the Baltic Sea region and work in teams with teach­ers from oth­er coun­tries in an inter­na­tion­al set­ting. It is expect­ed that the teach­ers will get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the prob­lems and pos­si­bil­i­ties for a sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.

Ses­sions

• The Baltic Sea Region: Cul­tures, Pol­i­tics, Eco­nom­ics, Soci­eties
• Ecosys­tem Health & Sus­tain­able Agri­cul­ture
• Sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion
• Cli­mate change
• Envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment
• Envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence
• Sus­tain­able ener­gy
• Learn­ing for a sus­tain­able future
• Urban devel­op­ment
• Sus­tain­able econ­o­my

Who can apply?

We are look­ing for active, open mind­ed, and moti­vat­ed teach­ers who are inter­est­ed in try­ing some­thing new — com­bin­ing a won­der­ful adven­ture with an uncon­ven­tion­al teach­ing and learn­ing expe­ri­ence. The course is pri­mar­i­ly aimed for teachers/researchers with­in the Baltic Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­gramme net­work, but appli­cants from else­where are also wel­come. Teach­ers from the BUP´s mem­bers’ uni­ver­si­ties will, how­ev­er, be giv­en pri­or­i­ty. Eng­lish is the spo­ken lan­guage on-board and flu­ent Eng­lish is required.

Impor­tant: Life on-board a Tall Ship

On-board the sail­ing ves­sel all teach­ers will act as a work­ing crew. You will be divid­ed into one of three watch­es that will be assigned 4 hours rotat­ing duties (nav­i­ga­tion, deck, and kitchen) — around-the clock! Please keep in mind that in spite of the weath­er con­di­tions, and in spite of your con­di­tion, you should par­tic­i­pate in your watch duties. You should also be aware that sail­ing a Tall ship means pulling lines, climb­ing masts to set and haul sails in the old-day fash­ion. Teach­ers are expect­ed to work togeth­er in the watch­es to ful­fil their sail­ing duties, which in our expe­ri­ence is an excel­lent tool for team build­ing and to cre­ate a dynam­ic learn­ing envi­ron­ment. More­over, as crew mem­ber you must also do oth­er duties on-board, in addi­tion to your sail­ing and teach­ing duties. This includes clean­ing, cook­ing meals, wash­ing dish­es, and main­te­nance work. The course will be a phys­i­cal and social chal­lenge and will hope­ful­ly devel­op a strong feel­ing of coop­er­a­tion, trust, and friend­ship. In addi­tion, it will be a prac­ti­cal and inten­sive way of learn­ing inter­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the marine envi­ron­ment, and ­ of course ­ sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Prac­tice of teach­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing in Eng­lish is an added val­ue. A note for per­sons sen­si­tive to sea-sick­ness; the heav­ing motion of a Tall ship usu­al­ly leads to an ini­tial unpleas­ant phys­i­cal expe­ri­ence.

Costs

The course is free of charge for teach­ers com­ing from the BUP’s Mem­bers’ uni­ver­si­ties – their costs of accom­mo­da­tion and food will be cov­ered by the BUP Cen­tre for Fin­land at Åbo Akade­mi Uni­ver­si­ty. 

A course fee of 700 Euro per per­son applies for all oth­er teach­ers. All teach­ers must how­ev­er cov­er all trav­el costs them­selves. Please see the updat­ed list of BUP’s Mem­bers’ Uni­ver­si­ties on the BUP web site (http://www.balticuniv.uu.se/about-us/member-universities/). Teach­ers are encour­aged to inves­ti­gate the pos­si­bil­i­ty at their own uni­ver­si­ties to get ERASMUS staff Euro­pean exchange fund­ing to cov­er their par­tic­i­pa­tion and trav­el costs.

 

Appli­ca­tions

Please fill in and sub­mit the Appli­ca­tion Form and the Health State­ment (enclosed). Please save all doc­u­ments with your name. The appli­ca­tion should include a CV (max 2 pages) and a per­son­al let­ter (max 2 pages). Apart from your research and teach­ing expe­ri­ences, also describe your oth­er inter­ests, such as sub­jects you love/like/teach, your dreams con­cern­ing your pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment, etc. In addi­tion, please give a short descrip­tion of how you envis­age that you can con­tribute to the SAIL course on-board. We appre­ci­ate your comments/ideas on ses­sion sub-top­ic­s/ac­tiv­i­ties, teaching/presentation meth­ods, extra activ­i­ties on board in con­nec­tion to the course, ­ and any oth­er rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion.

Please notice that the pre­vi­ous sail­ing expe­ri­ence is not nec­es­sary and will not give you any pri­or­i­ty for the course. Par­tic­i­pants will be select­ed based on their com­pe­tence and strong back­ground with­in the field of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment (http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/).

 

Appli­ca­tions should be sent to the BUP Secretariat/Maria Hej­na (maria.hejna@scduppsala.uu.se) no lat­er than April 3, 2017. 

 

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