The partners in the INSTEM project all have extensive experience of EU projects in relation to science education and the project idea is based on this experience. Partners recognised that the effectiveness of their individual projects is limited by the size of their own networks and the fact that changes in education need time, and therefore developed INSTEM, a Comenius Network with the overall goal of maximum valorisation of project results and of developing a sustainable strategy for the implementation of inquiry-based STEM education. Partners of INSTEM have shared the common aim of improving Science education across Europe and INSTEM is key to this aim.
To maximise the European added value of this investment, INSTEM has linked key players in Science education in order to cooperate in promoting innovation and best practice and to jointly reflect on how to overcome obstacles. More precisely, INSTEM is a network of networks which links 32 Comenius projects, networks and FP 7 projects (as partners and associated partners) and allows to disseminate their results not only in their own networks but in this meta-network.
INSTEM thus effectively – for the first time – has synthesized experiences from the Lifelong Learning Programme and the 7th Framework Programme FP7 (Science in Society), which leads to impressive synergies.
Projects of the partners:
- PRIMAS (FP7 / University of Education Freiburg / 2010-2013)
- COMPASS (LLP / University of Education Freiburg / 2009-2011)
- LEMA (Comenius / University of Education Freiburg / 2006-2009)
Partners of INSTEM are all experienced in international collaboration and most of them were coordinators of earlier big international projects (PH FR, NTMU, LFU, UOL, DCU, UNEXE). Furthermore, almost all partners have an extensive experience in collaborating as partners in international projects. These include projects like Primas, COMPASS, LEMA, S-Team, ESTABLISH, INQUIRE, PARSEL, PENCIL, TRACES, SAILS, Fibonacci, CreativeLittleScientists or SIS CATALYST. In the following you find information about all the mentioned projects.
Projects of the partners:
PRIMAS (FP7 / University of Education Freiburg / 2010-2013)
The PRIMAS project is about bringing innovation to 21st century education and thus it aims to effect change across Europe in the teaching and learning of mathematics and science by supporting teachers to develop inquiry-based learning pedagogies so that in turn, pupils gain first-hand experience of scientific inquiry. Ultimately, the project’s objective is that a greater number of pupils will have a more positive disposition towards the further study of these subjects and the desire to be employed in related fields. To this end the project provides materials, professional development and works with teachers, parents, students and policy makers.
Link: http://primas.ph-freiburg.de/
COMPASS (LLP / University of Education Freiburg / 2009-2011)
COMPASS is an EU funded project in the LifeLongLearning Program. The chief aim is to inspire the interest for mathematics and science in students by providing them with reality-based, interdisciplinary tasks that show them that these topics are not meant to be executed in ivory towers but are instead helpful in the process of decision finding and making, both on the macro (societal) and micro (personal) level. The teaching units use a problem oriented, inquiry based approach and set focus on critical argumentation and reflection on the basis of the results of students’ inquiries.
Link: http://compass.ph-freiburg.de/
LEMA (Comenius / University of Education Freiburg / 2006-2009)
LEMA (Learning and Education in and through Modeling and Applications) was an EU Comenius funded project in which mathematics educators from six countries worked to produce materials to support teachers’ professional development. LEMA supported teachers with development of their pedagogic practice in mathematical modeling and applications by developing a teacher‐training course. Current good practice across partner nations was captured to inform the development.
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- SiS Catalyst (FP7/MML action plan/ University of Liverpool / 2010-2014)
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Link: http://www.siscatalyst.eu/
- Creative Little Scientists: Enabling Creativity through Science and Mathematics in Preschool and First Years of Primary Education (FP7
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The project goal was to investigate the relation existing between inquiry learning and teaching and creativity development on one side and the teaching of science and mathematics on the other side, in preschool and the first years of primary school, in nine European countries.
Partners:
· Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA)
· Institute of Education, University of London (UK)
· Open University (UK)
· Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln (UK)
· University of Eastern Finland (FI)
· Artevelde University College (BE)
· Goethe University Frankfurt (DE)
· University of Minho (PT)
· National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics (RO)
· Université de Picardie Jules Verne (FR)
· University of Malta (MT)
· Universität Bonn (DE)
The research was performed on several levels, in order to assemble the complex picture of this phenomenon:
- a literature review, done on:
· science and mathematics education in preschool and early years of primary school;
· creativity in education;
· teacher training for early years educators and primary school teachers;
· comparative education; - a policy review, to pick up the major messages official documents carry on inquiry and creativity in early education;
- a teachers’ survey, to assess teachers believes and attitudes on the subject;
- a field research, to evaluate how the policy and teachers approaches on the subjects are practically implemented.
At each project stage, national reports on the investigated issues were prepared and a project summarizing report was developed and published. In the final stage, the project international team elaborated a set of curriculum design principles, along with some teachers training templates. The principles derived from project activities were tested during a Summer School for primary and preschool science and mathematics teachers. The project concludes with a final report and a collection of recommendations on the subject, targeting policy makers and all interested stakeholders. Some of these materials were translated into partners’ national languages. The project activities were finalized with an international conference.
Link: http://www.creative-little-scientists.eu/home and http://education.inflpr.ro/ro/MiciiCercetatoriCreativi.htm)
- Ellinogermaniki Agogi (co-ordinator) / 2011-2014)
- SUSTAIN
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- - Supporting Science Teaching Advancement through
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- Inquiry (EU Comenius multilateral network / National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics / 2013-2015)
Partners:
· FONDATION LA MAIN A LA PATE – FRANCE
· ECOLE NATIONALE SUPERIEURE DES TECHNIQUES INDUSTRIELLES ET DES MINES DE NANTES – FRANCE
· FREE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN – GERMANY
· ST PATRICK'S COLLEGE – IRELAND
· ANISN - NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NATURAL SCIENCE TEACHERS – ITALY
· NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LASERS PLASMA AND RADIATION – ROMANIA
· VINČA INSTITUTE OF NUCLEAR SCIENCES – SERBIA
· TRNAVA UNIVERSITY – SLOVAKIA
· UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA – SLOVENIA
· UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER - UNITED KINGDOM
· SCIENCE LEARNING CENTRE, UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION - AUSTRIA
This project is in its first year of implementation and it is focused on problem-solving and critical thinking, inquiry-based science education (IBSE) is well-suited for teaching Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at school. Like IBSE, ESD gives explicit attention to developing young people’s creative ability to problem solving and imagine new scenarios through the active learning processes of conceptualising, planning, acting and reflecting. It provides the space for critical thinking to be combined with the creative act of interpreting images of the future. This dimension helps students to develop skills necessary for democratic engagement.
In response to the 21st century global challenges highlighted by the economic, social and environmental crisis, ESD is taking shape in schools. To ensure that ESD becomes more widespread and brings about the desired awareness among pupils, teacher professional development is paramount: it is essential to provide teachers with appropriate and cutting-edge tools and learning materials for ESD.
During 3 years, the SUSTAIN network (11 CPD providers in 10 EU countries, with extensive experience in IBSE) will develop, through collaborative work on 3 cross-cutting ESD topics, an innovative IBSE-based “toolbox” on ESD for teachers and teacher educators, which can be used and adapted to local contexts in most European countries. The project partners will form 3 working groups on 3 major ESD topics, and develop IBSE-focused teaching and training tools and activities, which will be presented in 3 European workshops, and then made available for transfer/exploitation through 3 handbooks published on the network website. An initial conference on ESD will provide up-to-date insight on the field by invited experts, while a final conference will disseminate the project to a wider audience.
- i-BEST - Inquiry-Based Education in Science and Technology
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- (National project / National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics / 2013-2016)
Partners:
· National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics
· "Gheorghe Asachi" University from Iasi
· SC Computer Power S.R.L
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A second goal of the project is to build-up a democratic citizenship both to school students and local authorities, through a participative contribution of the general public, by involving them actively into weather/ environment monitoring research projects. By its new approach, the project is an exploratory one, as it proposes a new educational paradigm based on a real time, virtually collaborative web-based platform.
The third aspect to be considered in the project is the support the continuous professional development (CPD) of in-service teachers, based on various project activities, which by themselves constitute inter-disciplinary investigations (the project will imply physics, chemistry, biology, geography, IT).
In the project frame are planned the following activities to be carried out:
A. Inexpensive teaching aids (experimental kits, educational videos, training courses and demo sessions for teachers) will be developed in order to complement the written resources available or that which will be further developed. In this way, teachers will have an easy access to practical instruments (kids, demo video) to support directly science education and will be more efficient in spending the time allocated to science lessons.
B. Assistance in using the teaching aids will be provided either through training courses or an e-learning platform (http://81.181.130.13/teachscience/).
C. A set of collaborative projects engaging a higher number of Romanian schools will be a good opportunity to have a broader dissemination of the inquiry-based science education principles in Romania. Such a program will be diversified by:
- extending the observations to a set of topics related to weather and pollution monitoring (UV radiation, water quality, noise pollution);
- runnning of measurements using data loggers and sensors;
- building-up of a virtual community of schools.
All these will be premiers and will set a track on science teaching in relation to the environmental studies. An extended database will be developed with students’ investigations results heading to multi variable, multi annual investigations performed by school communities (http://81.181.130.13/ibest/).
D. The use of data acquisition systems and sensors for field measurements will be associated to geography and mathematics. In this way, a cross-curricular approach will assist integrated science teaching.
E. Generally, Romanian teachers lack the direct interaction with foreign expertise for several reasons: financial constrains to travel or attend events abroad; poor foreign languages management; some sort of introversion because of real or imaginary complexes. To fill this gap and bring the outside world experience for a direct contact several activities are run: translations from foreign languages of learning units; organization of workshops/ courses for Romanian teachers delivered by European leading experts.
F. Through conferences and workshops, journal publications and conference papers, and project web site the project results are promoted. This will assure a better visibility of Romanian educational system on the international stage, and further participation of Romanian teams to European funded projects is encouraged (Society in Society, Life long learning, networks, twining schemes).
G. The project will be also a test bed for the use of data loggers in large collaborative projects run with school students at quite early age of education (8 – 14 years old). Based on the collected results school students will be thought elements of data mining and comparative interpretation in relation to weather and environment pollution.
Every year the international conference “Science Education in School” is organized. Special pages on the project site are dedicated to teachers’ projects in order to build a national network of inquiry-based learning practitioners, and to assist interested parties in exchanging ideas and best practice. The great success of this project in Romania is proved by the impressive number of visitors registered on the project web site.
Link: http://education.inflpr.ro/ro/IBEST.htm
ESTABLISH
The objective of ESTABLISH was the dissemination and use of an inquiry-based teaching method for science with second level students (age 12-18 years) on a large scale in Europe by creating authentic learning environments, involving all stakeholders to drive change in the classroom. ESTABLISH teaching and learning units can be downloaded from the website at http://establish-fp7.eu/resources/units and information on the ESTABLISH Teacher Education Programme is available at http://establish-fp7.eu/resources/programmes.
SAILS
The aim of SAILS is to support teachers in adopting an inquiry approach in teaching science at second level (students age 12-18 years) across Europe. The SAILS project will develop appropriate strategies and frameworks for the assessment of IBSE skills and competences and prepare teachers not only to be able to teach through IBSE, but also to be confident and competent in the assessment of their students’ learning.
Recent project deliverables can be found at http://www.sails-project.eu/portal/resources.
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