UArctic TN Teacher Education and UNITWIN/UNESCO Network on Teacher Education organised a conference in collaboration with two other projects on March 26-27, 2019 in Rovaniemi. The conference was successful and there was about 140 participants.
The conference program included four keynote speeches, a book launch, a symposium and workshops. Recordings of some of the speeches and presentations are linked in this news piece.
Tuesday morning: Inclusive Teacher Education
First keynote speech was given by Tuija Turunen, dean and professor of teacher education at University of Lapland, Finland and lead of UArctic and UNITWIN teacher education networks. She talked about “Researcher-based teacher education towards inclusive schools – Case: Lapland”. Recording of her speech is available here.
Diane Hirshberg, professor of education policy from University of Alaska Anchorage, US held the second keynote. Her title was “Inclusive education policy from a critical perspective”. Recording of her speech is available here.
Ebook Including the North: a Comparative Study of the Policies on Inclusion and Equity in the Circumpolar North was launched as part of the conference. Editors Mhairi Beaton, Diane Hirshberg and Gregor Maxwell presented the book and told about the process of publishing a book. The book is available open access here.


Keynote speakers Tuija Turunen and Diane Hirshberg.
Symposium
First symposium presentation was held by professor Gottfried Biewer from University of Wien, Austria. Topic of his presentation was “Inclusive education as a subject – the radical shift in teacher education in Austria”. Recording of the presentation is available here.
Professor Leena Holopainen from University of Eastern Finland, held the second symposium presentation. Her topic was “The challenges of teacher and special education teacher education – Case: UEF”.
Senior lecturer Mhairi Beaton from Leeds Beckett University, UK, spoke about “Principles of inclusive education” in the symposium. Recording of the presentation is available here.



Symposium presentations were held by Gottfried Biewer, Leena Holopainen and Mhairi Beaton.
Wednesday: Inclusive pedagogies
Adjunct professor Lotta Uusitalo from University of Helsinki, Finland held the first keynote of Wednesday morning. Her speech was titled “Catch them being good! What is positive education?”
Professor Lani Florian from University of Edinburgh, Scotland spoke about “Teacher education for inclusive education”. She couldn’t participate the conference in Rovaniemi, so her speech was recorded via distance connection.
Professor Alvyra Galgiéne from Vytaytas Magnus University, Lithuania, had a presentation titled “Confrontative approaches to learning results in the process of educational changes”.


Keynote speaker Lotta Malmivaara and speaker Alvyra Galgiéne.
On the afternoon, there was four workshops under the theme “School profiles to facilitate inclusive education in”. The workshops were held by four schools from four different countries: Finland, Austria, Lithuania and Poland.


Workshops of Finland and Lithuania.


Workshops of Austria and Poland.