Teachers retreat for development av collegial community
The EECS School recently held a teaching retreat together with Future Education@KTH, which was developed and led by the KDL project (Kollegialt Drivet Lärarinternat, Collegially Driven Retreat). The retreat took place at Djurönäset in the Stockholm Archipelago and brought together nearly 40 colleagues from almost all of the school's departments.
Interest was high, with a 170% application rate among teachers who had course development work they wanted to bring and progress. The purpose of the retreat was to give teachers dedicated time and a collegial setting to advance the development of their teaching, as well as to build a broader collegial community within EECS. Participants brought a concrete piece of development work and were matched with colleagues who shared similar challenges or expertise, so they could support one another.
The result was focused work that could adapt to what colleagues learned from each other, and participants described the value of taking part as:
"A sense of not being alone in this, and a renewed appreciation for education."
"In my 'start of term anxiety,' this was a fantastic kickstart to the semester and a chance to engage productively with my course material. No more anxiety!"
"The large amount of dedicated time for specific work together with so many wonderful colleagues."
"Being free of other distractions. Having 'access' to colleagues outside my immediate team, to learn from other perspectives."
"Being able to bounce ideas around over a longer period, with time for reflection in between."
What is the next steps for KDL?
The project group is now continuing to evaluate the retreat, support the teaching teams in their ongoing implementation work for the courses, and will develop a proposal together with the school management for how KDL as a format can continue to support collegial collaboration on concrete educational development going forward.