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Work package 3 will be led by the Leibniz Institute for Science Education at the University of Kiel (IPN) with participation from all national liaison partners, who will evaluate "SINUS modules" with their respective teacher education institutions. For the SINUS programme, IPN has developed 11 modules for science teacherprofessional development that have been used in networks of teachers from 1800 schools in Germany. IPN also has access to science teaching approaches from the large scale programmes "Biology in Context", Chemistry in Context" and "Physics in Context". SINUS thus enables teachers to be supported in collaboratively reflectingupon, developing and evaluating their own instruction using the modules, guidelines, experience from SINUS and other programmes as a basis for further development. A useful presentation about SINUS can be found here and here is a useful journal article about SINUS. A detailed description of the SINUS modules and how teachers used them for developing their instruction can be found here.
1. Background
The sustainable impact of problem-based and inquiry-based science teaching techniques depends on various aspects of science learning environments withinschools. Teachers trying to systematically foster the development of scientific understanding and literacy need to know the basic principles of powerful learningenvironments. In particular, they have to take into account the recent challenges or problem areas of science teaching that have been identified in large scale assessments like TIMSS or PISA, and which have also been observed in video studies.Drawing on these research findings, IPN has elaborated 11 modules for science teacher professional development that have been used in networks of teachers from1800 schools. The modules focus on e.g. the use of experiments, argumentation and communication in science instruction, cooperation of students, and students'autonomy and responsibility for their learning.
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