Zurich University of Teacher Education - International

🌳 Learning Outdoors, Learning for Life 🌳

Join us for a free public keynote on nature-based learning with two leading international experts!

🎤 Prof. Cathy Jordan (University of Minnesota; Director of Research, Children & Nature Network) and Assoc. Prof. Patty Born (Hamline University) will share insights on the Teacher Field School, nature-based learning, human-animal interactions outdoors, and the work of the Children & Nature Network.

This keynote is part of a week-long international conference on outdoor learning, bringing together researchers from Norway, Sweden, the USA, Italy, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland. 🌍

📅 Wed, 2 September 2026, 16:00–17:30
📍 PH Zurich, Lagerstrasse 2, Room LAA-J002C
🔗 Register by 26 August: https://phzh.ch/en/about-phzh/news-events-and-current-topics/events/event/?anlassId=144736779

👉 Discover more of our research events: https://phzh.ch/en/research-and-development/research-events/

Education in times of conflict, AI, gamification and drama: 44 students from Switzerland and abroad shared two inspiring weeks of learning, discovery and intercultural exchange at the PH Zurich Summer School.

Looking back at the PH Zurich Summer School Artificial intelligence, classroom conflict, gamification and performative learning: over the course of two weeks, 44 students from Switzerland and abroad explored current issues in education and

🎓 Last week, PH Zurich was home to the Zurich Workshops on Learning in a Digitalised World!

Educators and researchers came together at our campus and the beautiful Schloss Au on Lake Zurich to explore three exciting sides of EdTech:
🤖 Building Intelligent Tutoring Systems with CTAT (Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tool)
📊 Digging into process data to understand how students learn, not just what they learn
🎯 Designing adaptive teaching that truly responds to every learner's needs

By the end of the week, participants had developed functioning prototypes, new analytical skills, and a deeper understanding of adaptivity to bring back into their own research and teaching practice 💡

A huge thank-you to our mentors from PH Zurich, ETH Zürich, Carnegie Mellon University, the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and the Universität Potsdam for such a rich week of learning and exchange! 🙌

Learning school leadership – in Barcelona! ️☀️

21 principals from PH Zurich's module School Leadership International spent three days at the Swiss School Barcelona, diving into strategic management, intercultural cooperation and pedagogical practice.

"That's how you discover your own blind spots," one participant shared. 💡

Training school leadership at PH Zurich – and in Barcelona Continuing education profits from international perspectives.

Looking back at Learning Cultures in Universities (LECU)📚✨

From 2017 to 2021, the Department for International Projects in Education and the Centre for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education connected 30 teacher educators and educational experts from ministries in Switzerland, Albania and Kosovo to exchange ideas on university teaching. Meetings rotated between the three countries, both in person and online.

LECU wrapped up in November 2021 with a joint symposium, and its legacy lives on through various follow-up projects bringing Swiss and international universities together to co-develop teaching. 🤝

📖 Curious what came out of it? Dive into LECU and discover the free handbook in Albanian on teaching and learning in higher education and the edited volume with contributions developed in international groups over the course of LECU: https://tiny.phzh.ch/lecu

🌐 Explore our international education projects: https://ipe.phzh.ch

🌟 Looking back: CORE life in Greece

From 2022 to 2023, our project CORE life helped unaccompanied refugee children and youth in Greece build vital life skills using the CORE digital learning tool.

Overall, the project realised:
✅ 44 workshops with refugee children and youth, in Athens and Thessaloniki
✅ 65 staff from 8 NGOs trained across 13 sessions
✅ New material on gender-based violence, "Empowerment for Girls," piloted and shared with 10 NGOs
✅ Reaching NGOs active from Athens to Le**os, Chios and Kos supporting around 1,000 young people

A huge thank you to our local team, Magdalen Bardaka, Dimitra Skempi, Marta Moretti and Kostas Nosa Achile and to all our NGO partners for making this possible!

And the story continues: Currently we are active in Italy with the follow-up project CORE vita, focused even more closely on unaccompanied minors' life skills.

👉 Learn more about CORE life: https://tiny.phzh.ch/core-life

🌐 Explore our international education projects: https://ipe.phzh.ch

🎨 Every child brings skills to the classroom. FACE helps you find them.

FACE (Families and Children in Education) is a hands-on, three-volume teaching series that helps children aged 4 to 12 discover their own talents, interests and self-confidence through play, creativity and teamwork at school and at home 🏡

The FACE material has empowered teachers to support Roma children and their families in Romania, Kosovo and North Macedonia. In Romania, teachers reported improved communication and creativity of the children, along with greater independence, and stronger self-awareness which also led to a more positive classroom atmosphere.

The best part: FACE is completely free, available in Arabic, English, Romanian, Serbian, Macedonian, Albanian and Hungarian. Perfect for any teacher who wants to bring more confidence-building into the classroom!

👉 Discover FACE: https://ipe-textbooks.phzh.ch/de/life-skills/

🌐 Explore our international education projects: https://ipe.phzh.ch

Last week, a new cohort of Lower Secondary Degree Programme students kicked off their Global Learning elective. 🌍

It was the first of two study weeks exploring global competence in education, this time with a focus on Southeast Europe and North Macedonia. Students delved into the region's history, exchanged ideas on sustainable education online with their peers and professors from Универзитет „Св. Кирил и Методиј“ во Скопје (Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje) and got a first look at the Sustainable Democratic Culture (SUDECU) project, a collaboration between the Department for International Projects in Education at PH Zurich, the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, and the NGO TAKT - Together Advancing Common Trust.

The journey continues in September, when the Global Learning students travel to Skopje to deepen the exchange and explore extracurricular learning sites across the city.

Thinking about building your global competence by studying at the Zurich University of Teacher Education? PH Zurich welcomes exchange students from more than 100 partner universities and offers exciting courses in English, German, and French.

👉 Learn more about student mobility at PH Zurich: https://phzh.ch/en/studies/student-mobility/

🌐 Explore our international education projects: https://ipe.phzh.ch

🌱 Building the future of education together!

At the beginning of June, Corinna Borer and Wiltrud Weidinger sat down with Tatiana Verdes from the Universitatea Pedagogică de Stat „Ion Creangă” din Chișinău and Turchină Tatiana from the Universitatea de Stat din Moldova to map out the next steps in strengthening future skills in Moldovan schools and universities as part of the FutureS Moldova project.

From tackling climate change to navigating digitalisation, the project aims to ensure that teachers and learners in Moldova are equipped for the challenges ahead and for the sustainable development of their country.

We are grateful for the valuable expertise, openness, and constructive dialogue that will help shape the project’s next phase.🙏

👉 Want to learn more about FutureS Moldova: https://tiny.phzh.ch/futures-moldova

🌍 Our international projects: https://ipe.phzh.ch

FutureS Moldova is financially supported by the Community Fund of the Kanton Zürich, Switzerland.

In our blog, Corinna Borer, lecturer at PH Zurich, explains why green skills can be understood as «future skills with a sustainability compass.» Drawing on insights from Estonia and Finland, as well as current European competence frameworks such as GreenComp, she highlights the role educational institutions play in fostering sustainability competencies – from schools to higher education.

Green Skills: How to make education sustainable - Lifelong Learning Blog In this blog post, author Corinna Borer describes how Green Skills empower people to shape a sustainable future through knowledge, values and action.