24. The European University-Cyprus (CYCO)
The European University-Cyprus (formerly AS Cyprus College Limited) is a newly established University and one of the leading research institutions in Cyprus. Its 8 different Departments include a strong Department of Educational Sciences and a number of research centres and units, including the European University Research Centre, the Foundation of Social and Political Studies, and the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence. The University has been involved in research projects funded by national and international research institutions and the European Commission (FP7 and FP6 programmes, the Life-Long Learning 2007-2013 programme (Leonardo, Comenius, Grundvig) the 2004-2006 Leonardo, Comenius and Socrates programmes). It represents Cyprus in the International Social Survey Program, it has been appointed by the International Bank as the official administrator of their publications on Cyprus, and it is the national coordinator of the European Social Survey. The Learning in Science Group (LSG) conducts a co-ordinated program of research, curriculum development and instruction. Through in-depth investigations of student understanding, it seeks to identify and analyze common difficulties that students encounter in their effort to construct meaning in science and to develop the reasoning, investigative and communication skills. The LSG also has extensive experience in preparing future teachers to teach science and technology as socially relevant processes of inquiry and in the provision of on-going professional development to in-service teachers. We have been engaged for a number of years in research projects that involve collection and analysis of videotaped snippets of authentic learning and have developed broad expertise in developing video case studies of classroom environments for science teaching and learning. Task allocation CYCO will undertake the leadership of WP6 related to continuing professional development of science teachers. This includes the responsibility of investigating the professional development needs of science teachers, and closely collaborating with science teachers to collect videotaped data of authentic science teaching and developing a series of teacher-authored video-case studies of science teaching and learning. It will be further responsible for developing, implementing and evaluating a professional development seminar for in-service science teachers that will utilize the teacher-authored video-case studies as curriculum materials. Staff members who will be directing the work: Consantinos P. Constantinou, Ph.D., Associate Professor, will be the partner leader. He is an associate professor in Science Education and Director of the Learning in Science Group, with more than 20 years' experience in teaching and research for Science Education in Cyprus, and has been responsible for several national and international projects as well as the development of training and professional developments seminars for science teachers. Loucas T. Louca, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, will be the assistant partner leader. He is an assistant professor in Science Education at the European University-Cyprus. He has been involved in managing a number of locally funded research studies focusing on the science teacher's perceptions of students reasoning abilities and difficulties in science, and the teacher's abilities for identifying, interpreting, evaluating and appropriately responding to their students' reasoning in science.
Indicative Allocation of Person-Months: CYCO name role PM (total 42 ) Consantinos P. Constantinou WP leader, technical direction 4.5 Loucas T. Louca Assistant leader, technical direction 4.5 Researcher Identifying professional development needs, case studies 8 Post-doctoral student Identifying professional development needs, case studies 12 Technical Personnel Collating/editing video material 7 Graduate Student General assistance, package editing 6