Project Overview
TED aims to transform teacher education in Kosovo by integrating equity-based practices, international collaboration, and a focus on democratic school development. Its primary goal is to conduct development research empowering teachers with democratic, international, and meta-reflective competencies. Kosovo’s education system faces critical challenges. Traditional curricula and teaching methods often fail to nurture students' critical thinking and active citizenship. Additionally, the education system may inadequately address the diverse needs of students in a globalized environment. This lack of focus on democratic principles hinders the development of responsible youth who can actively contribute to Kosovo's democratic society. TED employs a multi-method research design involving future teachers, current teachers, and teacher educators. It examines how effectively democratic values are integrated into curricula, teaching methods, and school culture to identify strategies for strengthening these elements. Through an intervention study, TED explores how international collaboration via blended-learning activities can enhance democratic and international competencies in future teachers while fostering reflection and meta-reflective skills essential for ongoing democratic transformation in emerging democracies. The cooperative curriculum development fosters democratic values, social cohesion and democratic education practices. TED provides multiple international collaboration opportunities for future teachers, teachers, teacher educators and researchers on critical issues leading to improved competencies in innovative learning (digital) environments and thus transforming teacher education. Joint research will provide new insights, theories, and empirical data regarding the integration of democratic and international competences in teacher education. The project promotes cooperative curriculum development to embed democratic values, social cohesion, and democratic education practices. TED offers multiple international collaboration opportunities for future teachers, educators, and researchers to improve competencies in innovative digital learning environments, thereby transforming teacher education. Joint research will generate new insights and empirical data on integrating democratic and international competencies in teacher education, supporting sustainable models that prepare teachers to nurture students as active democratic participants.