The two-day long Symposium included three workshops altogether for working and planning among joint teaching and research agendas of the TN. The common objective was to produce concrete plans and timetables on how to achieve the various goals of the TN and the status project of the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG) in enhancing arctic co-operation between the TN member universities.

The workshops and discussions during the Symposium generated knowledge about the current online teaching and course delivery in each university, as well as new ideas for teaching co-operation. Among other things, the TN decided to continue open online seminars with a specific focus on sharing good practices.

Photo: Workshop I: TN’s joint agenda for teaching co-operation. The Chairs were Gregor Maxwell from the Arctic Universities of Norway (UiT) and Erika Sarivaara, University of Lapland, Finland.

Research collaboration between the universities commenced with the invitation to write to the UArctic yearbook with the title “Including the North: Comparative study of inclusion policies in the circumpolar North”. The research goals and activities of the TN were discussed and for enhancing the unity, a vision was featured. The vision is:

“Co-creating culturally responsive arctic pedagogies and transformative teacher education to enable agency and sustainability for the Circumpolar North”

Photo: Co-creating a new vision.

In sum, the Symposium bore fruitful discussions and concrete plans for the future activities of the TN. The event was important for networking and for the unity among the member universities. New members are welcome to join to work for the advancement of social justice and diversity in education by teacher education.