To share and discuss the initial results of the TESTEd project with a broader public, the first CityLabs were held in Seville, Oulu and Bochum in October and November 2023. The CityLabs were designed in such a way that local representatives from schools, education administration, education-related civil society organisations and interest groups were invited to the individual TESTEd locations to jointly exchange information on the implementation of the cross-cutting topics in teacher training as well as experiences with good practice examples. This serves the purpose of not only looking at the international perspective on cross-cutting issues in teacher education, but also to consider national fit at an early stage.

Impressions of the CityLab in Seville

The event in Sevilla took place on the 19th of October with 31 participants in the Faculty of Philology. Three conferences were held during the day and a workshop organized in which participants had the opportunity to discuss some questions in small groups. This workshop was very fruitful as participants were able to exchange experiences and realize that many other teachers find some of the same issues as them in the classroom.

All agreed that spaces like the CityLabs are very much needed in order to help each other with emerging challenges in the classroom. After the experience, some of the participants remain in contact with TESTEd and are interested in collaborating with the project.

1. Magdalena Walenta showed the development of EMI in the last years, some of the difficulties there have been regarding this topic and what students and tea chers expect from it in the future. She showed the results of her research about EMI, specifically how was the experience of teachers and students that have worked with EMI, and how they need some things to be changed.

2. Tirso Priscilo Vallecillos explained the implications of gender through a series of personal poems and pictures of his childhood and younger years. He pointed out the role that women in his town have had th roughout his life, mostly his mother. He also explained some difficult situations in the classroom: children refuse how the topic of gender is addressed in the classroom.

3. Marta Morón showed in her talk the difficulti es encounte red by people who suffer from a congenital cardiopathy , and how common it is to find students in the classroom with this condition . She is working in her school in order to make cardiopathies more visible for other students who don´t know anything about them, trying to foster active citizenship in order to improve the quality of life of these students.

Impressions of the CityLab in Bochum

The CityLab in Bochum was held on 2^nd November 2023 at the RUB makerspace. With over 30 participants – visiting the CityLab in person or taking part virtually – the Bochum TESTEd team discussed challenges in implementing cross-cutting issues in teacher education and shared ideas on how to move forward. Participants included university experts in teacher education, teachers, education administrators, government agencies, principals as well as representatives from civil society organisations. They shared their good practice examples and experiences in a World Café and added further ideas to the emerging topics currently included in the Syllabus. With the different perspectives fuelling the discussion, we were able to delve deeper into the topics and look at the cross-cutting issues from different angles: a more systemic perspective taken by representatives from the government, interest groups and principals as well as a concrete and practical approach from teachers, who reported on what they would enable them to use the Syllabus more directly.

Impressions of the CityLab in Oulu

The event took place at Tellus, the innovation center of the university of Oulu. We followed a roundtable format with participants both from within and outside the university. A wide range of backgrounds were represented, including fields such as education, sociology, engineering, physics, water management and public health. We had primary school teacher, researchers, university teachers and university professors.

TESTEd was presented and discussed, and the lively discussion centered around sustainability, coimagining sustainable futures and the key role that education can play in it.

We are delighted that Paulo César Azevedo Dias and José Cândido de Oliveira Martins will be hosting the TESTEd CityLab in Braga at the beginning of February 2024.