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)
PRIMAS aimed to change the teaching and learning of maths and science in Europe by supporting teachers to develop inquiry-based learning (IBL) pedagogies, and thus to give students first-hand experiences of scientific inquiry. Besides overall support and dissemination of the idea of IBL, PRIMAS provided teachers with a collection of teaching materials and training.
During the project, 14 partners from 12 European countries worked together to disseminate the IBL strategies. The members of the consortium are highly experienced in IBL, in training teachers in IBL pedagogies as well as in research related to the topic. With this diverse background PRIMAS aimed at bridging the gap between the researchers, teachers and local actors.
Research has shown that IBL can foster what the PRIMAS consortium considered to be characteristics of good maths and science education:
- Stimulates motivation and generates interest for learning science and mathematics.
- Gives the basic knowledge.
- Develops a “task culture”.
- Enables students to learn from their mistakes.
- Develops cumulative learning.
- Develops autonomous learning.
- Allows pupils to cross subject boundaries and experience interdisciplinary approaches.
- Promotes student cooperation.
- Reduces gender stereotypes.
However, the new approaches can be demanding for teachers as they need to combine the new approach with the school curriculum and to use new materials, teaching styles and pedagogies. PRIMAS supported teachers in this by providing teaching materials and training.
PRIMAS believes that an increase in inquiry-based teaching strategies can be achieved by providing adequate support to the relevant groups: to teachers but also to other stakeholders and supporting networks. This is why PRIMAS also organised guidance, information meetings and events for parents, students, politicians and other target groups.
Within the National Consultancy Panels (NCP), specific education authorities, political authorities, disseminators and teacher training institutions were integrated in the project. The NCP met regularly to exchange experiences and continuously develop the implementation of PRIMAS activities.
PRIMAS is the interaction between the international and regional level: the project was coordinated and the results were shown at the European level, but it was locally based, locally adapted and locally implemented.
Link: www.primas-project.eu
COMPASS (LLP / University of Education Freiburg / 2009-2011)
The goal of COMPASS was to provide teachers with interdisciplinary teaching materials which link mathematics and science. With the materials students could analyse and discuss problems relevant to society and their everyday lives.
Throughout Europe there is an alarming decline in young people’s interest in scientific disciplines. Considering the importance of science, technology and innovation (and their founding subjects) in our dynamic and interdependent knowledge society of the 21st century, Europe may in the future be seriously disadvantaged without people’s interest in learning about the concepts and developments in these fields. European citizens need to be prepared and educated to actively contribute to the knowledge society and need to have a critical understanding of the important issues (und underlying scientific concepts) that affect the world in which they live.
Therefore, COMPASS developed teaching materials that connect science and mathematics with each other and, most crucially, with the lives of individual students and their communities. The materials have the potential to foster young people’s desire to learn and their interest in science, its concepts and new developments throughout their lives.
The interdisciplinary and real-life focus together with the working methods applied can also foster the development of transversal key competences and equity for students across the partnership nations.
Classroom materials were developed in iterative cycles of research-based pedagogical design, trial implementation and evaluation by teachers, and subsequent revision as well as local adaptation. This process ensured quality classroom materials combining high applicability to all countries across Europe with easy adaptation to local needs.
A variety of methods ensured impact and exploitation of the project results that go beyond the scope and scale of the COMPASS project.
Link: www.compass-project.eu
LEMA (Comenius / University of Education Freiburg / 2006-2009)
Throughout Europe people are growing increasingly aware of the fact that students have to learn how to apply mathematics both critically and deliberately in order to meet the demands of a responsible citizen and of a productive member of society. In order to be able to guarantee this, teachers’ competencies have to be broadened so that they are, unlike in today’s current situation, in the position to integrate modelling into their everyday lessons.
This project aimed to support math teachers in the development of their pedagogical and didactical competencies through teacher training on the topic of connections to reality and mathematical modelling.
The primary goal was to establish professional development concepts which can be flexibly transferred to other countries and which comply with the requirements of both involved partner nations and other European nations.
The different experiences made by participating countries with innovative ways of teaching have been incorporated into the project. The teacher training program should address both practicing teachers and those studying to become primary and middle school teachers.
The training was developed, tested, evaluated and optimized by means of a need assessment, which were developed particularly for this project. During the project, the Europe-wide communication took place on an internet platform which is used even after the project is over. Among other things, a DVD was provided containing miscellaneous materials and sample videos of lesson sequences from the individual partner countries. This DVD, in this way, emphasize the European dimension of this project as well as contribute to the distribution of its results.
Link: http://www.lema-project.org
SiS Catalyst (FP7/MML action plan/ University of Liverpool / 2010-2014)
SiS Catalyst was a four-year FP7 EU funded project under the Mobilising Mutual Learning action plan frame, based on the idea that as children are the future, we must involve them in the decision of today. SiS Catalyst was about finding, refining and applying ways to involve children as societal actors in the decision making process that will affect their lives. It was also about empowering young people and making sure their voices been truly listened to and not just heard. SiS Catalyst was about education in both formal and informal settings, and it aimed at enabling the process of mutual learning to happen between partners and associates, pulling together global elements and identifying local solutions to similar problems. The project was on a global scale, involving advisers and associates from all the five continents around the world.
Link: http://www.siscatalyst.eu/
The products of SiS Catalyst include:
The SiS Catalyst book
SiS Catalyst produced a book entitled ‘Children As Change Agents for Science and Society’ outlining a radical new educational agenda which places children at the centre of how we meet the challenges of the 21st century. It draws upon the achievements of SiS Catalyst and was launched in the House of Lords, London in February 2015. Contained within the book are descriptions of the twelve Responsible Research and Innovation tools which were developed by the SiS Catalyst consortium.
This book offers the beginning of the creation of a new roadmap for science with and for society by the simple act of recognising child-en as societal actors. The landscape of public engagement has now changed as a consequence of children being recognised as a ‘public’ in their own right. It also questions the role of higher education in this new landscape; how can universities be catalysts for the sustainable development that our world so urgently needs. The SiS Catalyst travellers propose that Children’s University type activities have the potential to become the bridge for academics not just to work with children but also to co-create knowledge with them.
This is a radical dialogue, which will require humility and openness within the higher education sector and a genuine desire to embrace change. However the third message that the SiS Catalyst travellers brought back with them is the very positive message, that not only must we change, we can change!
The following tools, and the book itself are available on the SiS Catalyst website. http://www.siscatalyst.eu
How to Listen to and Empower Children
Listening to, and empowering young people is a duty when developing science for and with young people. However it is also an opportunity. This is a key idea in the children as change agency model. Building ways to engage children in different ways is a responsibility, both in the context of legal frameworks, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 12, and if we are to meet the global challenges of the 21st century outlined above. It is also, a way in which professionals working with children empower themselves in their own work.
We produced a guide targeted in particular at three categories of professionals who are ‘the change makers’ on the day to day level:
- organisers of science in society activities
- facilitators of science in society activities
- scientists involved in science in society activities
The Guide has four modules:
Module 1: From science to empowerment
Communicating in science is a matter of recreating a meaning for scientific knowledge in a context different from the one in which it was produced. This module contains exercises and principles to sup- port scientists in communicating with children in empowering and engaging ways.
Module 2: From engagement to governance
Educators, museum explainers, teachers... are “listening to” the children all the time. It is a different challenge to include children in the governance of a project or enable them to contribute meaningfully to the decisions regarding an institution’s life. This module looks at methods of integrating children into how organisations are managed and led.
Module 3: Evaluating participation Self-reflection is the core of change-agency work.
Module 4: The Dialogical approach
Underpinning the practical techniques to listen and empower children there has to be a philosophical base. This module is based on Paulo Freire’s ideas of education in which teacher and student are subject of the action of learning. It consists of a set of exercises which deconstruct some of the deep- rooted assumptions regarding the teacher:student relationship. This process encourages practitioners to question what education is, and encourages them to see it as a process of collective and continuous formation.
The contribution of the SiS Catalyst project here is not to offer a rigid blueprint of training modules that should be replicated the world over. It is to present a set of flexible tools that practitioners in dif- ferent contexts and countries can draw upon in their own way to support their own change journey, and that of the students they work with.
View the Guide: http ://siscatalyst.eu/listen-empower
Peer mentoring
Harnessing the power of the networks is what will take the children as change agency movement forward beyond the SiS Catalyst project. Peer mentoring was the method by which this power was utilised to both extend and enrich the network under SiS Catalyst, as well as perhaps the major vehicle for innovation in the project. Peer mentoring on a global scale is a very powerful action. It enables partners to explore the work implemented by their peer in a different region, country and culture. Through the peer mentoring exchanges a pair of associates meets at each other’s institution to learn from the ‘Other’, and reflect upon the ‘Self’. The Mentoring Associate programme enabled a group of 36 science organisations, universities, museums and other intermediaries in science communication to learn from each other across the whole terrain of the children as change agency ecosystem covering: governance and strategic alignment, programme development and social inclusion.
We have used our own Mentoring Associates programme as a case study to inform guidelines for organisations hoping to facilitate peer mentoring in their own context.
You can view the guidelines here: http ://siscatalyst.eu/peer-mentoring
The Diversity & Inclusion map
The Diversity & Inclusion map is a self-assessment tool for organisations and practitioners who are involved in science engagement programmes with children. It aims to assist organisations in refining and improving the essential aspects of their work:
the impact they aim to achieve;
- the strategic embedding of programmes and their sustainability;
- cooperation, networking and communication skills;
- engagement with target groups and inclusiveness;
- evaluation and monitoring efforts.
The map is based on a four-stage model:
Stage 1: Assess impact through the self-assessment questionnaire.
Stage 2: Reflect on the results and use the benchmarking tool to enable an in-depth comparison with other programmes and organisations across the EU
Stage 3: Translate, prioritise and put what had been learnt into action using the planning tool and a self-support manual which contains a range of tips and tricks and references to interesting literature with regard to creating a safer and more inclusive environment for children and staff.
Stage 4: Embed evaluation of the changes implemented as part of the self-assessment process.
The Diversity and Inclusion Map includes examples of evaluation tools that can be used at this point.
More information: http ://siscatalyst.eu/dimap
Engaging students
Student engagement is a vital part of the change agency ecosystem. When students become involved in science communication projects it is a win-win situation, where all participants involved gain from the experience. The students themselves gain vital experience, skills and networks, all essential additions to their CV. The young people will meet role models, interacting with people who are generational go- betweens, and the project benefits from the wealth of knowledge and energy the students can bring, whilst also being able to give an accurate picture of what higher education is at this exact moment. SiS Catalyst made it possible for twelve students to work on eight projects around the world.
Several key points to orientate this work in the future emerged from the SiS Catalyst experience, which have been compiled into a set of guidelines for internship hosts. Originally developed as a pilot activity over the course of SiS Catalyst, ‘What is Science?’ is a self-contained workshop project, designed to be easily set up by any institution or organisation that works with students. It does not require much in the way of resources and can be delivered to any number of primary schools. It is a project that allows students to get involved as much or as little as their time and inclination allows, whilst still delivering a high impact workshop to the 10-12 year olds it is aimed at.
You can view these resources here: http ://siscatalyst.eu/engaging-students
What We Recommend Workshops
The most powerful mechanism by which children can be empowered is by enabling their voice to influence the policies and activities that affect them. This means going beyond working with practitioners to change how they work with children or formulating views on their behalf.
The SiS Catalyst Project designed and implemented a series of workshops held in 20 different countries during 2014. What We Recommend: The voices and opinions of young people
provided the opportunity for groups of 10 to 16-year-olds to reflect on education and to make recommendations on different aspects of Science and Society and access to knowledge. The What We Recommend workshops enabled the young people to consider and learn about their own decision- making. Young people were able to gain a greater understanding regarding their choice of options, and to develop a deeper comprehension about choices that they are making in their own lives both now and in the future.
Following on from this successful workshop series, a guidebook was created to encourage and allow others to host their own events.
You can view it here: http://siscatalyst.eu/WWR
The AHA Album
A basic objective in the SiS Catalyst project was to encourage more science and research organisations to recognise young people as a group with whom you can, and should, have dialogue with. Fundamental to this is equipping young people to be able not just to articulate their experiences through mechanisms such as bespoke sessions like What We Recommend, but to capture these throughout the learning journey. Tools are needed that enable young people to build their own narrative of success that then gives substance to the dialogue they can then have with institutions. Such tools should recognise individual developments and in particular ‘non-formal’ learning experiences.
The ‘AHA Album’ is an eye-catching booklet suitable for children aged 7-1 3 years. It aims to capture those ‘Aha’ moments when children realise change in both what they understand and what they know. They are also able to describe the actors, institutions or environments that helped create these moments through their learning journey.
Children are encouraged to share this information with peers, relatives and those organising the pro- grammes. This can be done either in a direct and personal way by exchanging the gathered information and/or passing back the entire album to the issuing organisation. A website has been built where these ‘Aha’ moments are captured, contributing to the development of the collective narrative of children-led change.
You can find more information here: http ://siscatalyst.eu/aha
Responsible Research and Innovation Tools E-learning Courses
Three e-learning courses were produced on topics aimed to address the key areas and audience for the SiS Catalyst project. The aim was also to reach the wider audience within the education community.
- Many organisations working to engage children in new and challenging ways face their own challenges, often in maximising impact with limited resources. How they manage the information and knowledge they have within the organisation is crucial. Capacity building offers interactive tools that organisations can apply to their own contexts to enable them to build their capacity for change.
- Working Ethically helps organisations and practitioners to develop ways of embedding ethical practice into the fabric of their work with children. In particular, it looks to help them navigate that line between protectionism and paternalism. How can we be mindful of the vulnerabilities of children, yet at the same time look to empower them?
- Developing Creative Websites for Children covers the state of the art analysis in the field of web site development for children. Users can find useful and practical tips and examples of best practices, taking into account the very different preferences, abilities, capacities to manage information, needs, interests and searching habits as well as with cognitive and motor skills of children com- pared to adults.
You can access these courses at: http ://siscatalyst.eu/elearning-courses
Change in Action – the Catalyst Case Studies
The core of the SiS Catalyst project was the different ‘case studies’ of children as change agency in action. These eight projects acted as pilot studies of how to take work with children in different and contrasting ways.
There were a series of messages for policy- makers coming out of the Change in Action part of the SiS Catalyst project:
- Create critical mass if you want innovation and learning to occur.
- Embrace diversity in how learning is delivered. The aim is not to find ‘the best’ programme. There will not be one optimum approach.
- Incentivise partnership between government funded agencies (in particular schools) and those working in change agency. The better outcomes from this aspect of the Catalyst project came from new partnerships across sectors.
- Accept unexpected outcomes. Some of the most positive changes were ones that the organisations did not expect.
- Finally, recognise the extent of challenge. In the case of the SiS Catalyst project most of the organisations attempted to reach out to new groups of learners: which in the majority of cases meant those from groups experiencing some form of social marginalisation. If a project/ organisation is not explicitly created to target such groups then to do so is a major challenge. As several recognised here, organisations need to do different things, not just deliver their existing programmes differently.
There is a very powerful message emerging from the core of the Catalyst project: If you create space in which children as change agency organisations can innovate and the support to help them do so, then they can change what they do, how they do it and who benefits.
View the case studies here: http ://siscatalyst.eu/case-studies
Working Ethically
At both the philosophical and practical level children as change agency looks to embed an ethical radar into the work. The question of the purposes of education and the very society that we wish to build through it are ethical ones. Is it right to try and prepare children for a society that is unsustainable and a future that they have to in- habit but cannot shape? Attempting to place children as societal actors rather than societal subjects, is itself an ethical decision which carries with it a vision of the good or just society.
The SiS Catalyst Project created a space where practitioners were able to develop their own visions for education, and use the frame of ethical consideration to help them do this. In itself this is a message coming from the project. While practitioners may focus their energies on delivering activities for children, they are not and should not be divorced from the broader issues that shape their everyday work. They need the space to be able to connect this work with such issues for it to have meaning to children and themselves.
Working ethically is not just an issue of reflection, it can permeate throughout the day to day deci- sions of those working with young people. The SiS Catalyst project developed two brief guides and an e-learning course to assist in this endeavour. They are suitably generic to apply across contexts.
View them here: http ://siscatalyst.eu/ethics
The SiS Declarations Booklet
Essential to advocating for change is developing techniques to distill the views of the community or group into succinct messages for policymakers that include clear messages of what needs to be done, and how, with realistic, achievable ways of realising change. The SiS catalyst approach was to develop a series of ‘declarations’ via different consultative techniques, which we refined and linked to four conferences.
The declarations were intended to support and be one element within a “pan-European mutual agreement process” and a vehicle to foster a common understanding of children as partners in the development of policies at the European Level.
All declarations were placed online for sharing and endorsing– either as an individual, or as an institution. It was difficult to get as broad an ownership of the declarations as hoped. Practitioners may not be authorised to speak on behalf of an institution, whilst University managers and other decision/ policy makers can doubt the value of just endorsing a declaration. These challenges show again that achieving change requires coordinated effort across a range of areas. Practitioners and managers both need other forms of support and engagement alongside something like the declarations to give them the legitimacy to endorse them.
The SiS catalyst experience provides important pointers to the need to address this challenge despite the difficulties associated with it. The power of belief in the rights of children and the imperative of overcoming social injustice provides the energy that drives forward those across the world who sub- scribe to the change agency agenda. However, this belief is not shared by everyone. There has to be ways of engaging those who have not ‘bought in’ to the agenda. The declaration approach is one way of trying to do this, whilst at the same time as the Catalyst experience has shown strengthening practice.
You can read more about the declarations here: http ://siscatalyst.eu/declarations
Academic Book
Crossing science in society and social inclusion agendas: Engaging the academic community
Engagement with the academic community is a fundamental part of engaging children in the processes of change. While there may be some dispute regarding the extent to which academics, particularly in the field of science, are themselves marginalised from the policy process, they remain the architects of the evidence base and the shapers of knowledge. While it differs much across countries (and within them) they also retain significant autonomy within higher education enabling them to structure how HE engages with all young peop- le, and particularly those from under- represented groups.
The SiS Catalyst project from the outset ensured that the academic community was part of the change ecosystem. The project produced a series of academic papers and a collection of these will be published in 2015. ‘Listening and Empowering: Crossing the social inclusion and the science in society agenda in science communication activities involving children and young people’, confronts some of the assumptions embedded in the relationship that children have with science and those who communicate it. It argues that while children are one of the main target groups for the communication of science, they are positioned as recipients of knowledge excluded from the dialogic approach that aims to ensure that scientists listen and have a dialogue with the public, or excluded altogether from science by their economic or social backgrounds.
It brings together examples of how to confront this exclusion by providing spaces where dialogue with children can be developed, and how these spaces can be used to open up the potential for institutional changes.
http ://siscatalyst.eu/crossing-agendas
Convincing Policy Makers
The children as change agents agenda is an unashamedly ambitious one. It requires fundamental change, not the tinkering around at the edges that characterises much of what passes for educational reform. But to achieve this change takes a whole series of smaller steps. There is no big bang solution. The SiS Catalyst policy seminar series was an attempt to develop a model that could move us along the road of change. The aim was to bring policy makers together with a range of other stakeholders to develop a shared agenda. The thread running through the ecosystem that SiS Catalyst laid the foundations for was that impact can only be achieved collectively and this requires a shared agenda to work from. The policy seminars were an explicit attempt to build this agenda at the strategic level.
SiS Catalyst delivered policy seminars in eight different countries testing different ways to bring stakeholders together, in particular implementing seminars as stand-alone events or as an annex to other bigger events. Using this experience, a set of guidelines was produced to aid others in planning, implementing and evaluating their own policy seminars.
Read the guidelines here: http ://siscatalyst.eu/policy
"The children as change agents agenda is an unashamedly ambitious one. It requires fundamental change, not the tinkering around at the edges that characterises much of what passes for educational reform.“
All of the these responsible Research and Innovation tools are available on http://www.siscatalyst.eu
Creative Little Scientists: Enabling Creativity through Science and Mathematics in Preschool and First Years of Primary Education (FP7 / National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics / 2011-2014)
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)
“SUSTAIN - Supporting Science Teaching Advancement through 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.
Link: http://www.fondation-lamap.org/en/sustain/project
“Inquiry-Based Education in Science and Technology – i-BEST” (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
The major goal of the project, to educate students for the knowledge-based economy, by increasing young generation interest in science and technology carriers and by promoting creativity and innovative thinking, will be achieved through a novel, mixed project-based / inquiry-based educational model for science teaching in schools at primary and lower secondary school levels. Emphasis will be placed to overcome the deficiencies Romania has as compared to the European achievements in science education at pre-university level.
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.
ESTABLISH has, over its lifetime (2010-2014), facilitated and widened the use of inquiry-based science education (IBSE) for second level students (age 12-18 years) across Europe by bringing together, within a collaborative environment, the key stakeholders in science education to generate a suite of substantial teaching and learning materials (Units) as well as a series of educational supports for both in-service and pre-service teachers.
Specifically the ESTABLISH partners have sought to:
- Identify, develop and localise inquiry-based teaching and learning materials;
- Provide supports for teachers to successfully implement IBSE;
- Share inquiry approaches and learn from one another’s experiences to promote IBSE across Europe;
- Stimulate student learning and promote careers opportunities in science to young people;
- Foster a mutually beneficial relationships between industrial, scientific, teaching and educational communities;
- Promote the experiential and educational benefits of IBSE.
The result of these collaborations have been a number of teaching and learning materials (ESTABLISH Units) enriched with industrial contexts and knowledge together with a series of educational supports for both in-service and pre-service teachers (ESTABLISH Teacher Education Programmes) designed to promote the use of Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE) in classrooms across Europe. In addition ESTABLISH co-hosted the international Science and Mathematics Education Conference in 2012 in Dublin (http://www.dcu.ie/smec/2012/index.shtml). During this conference, teachers from each of the ESTABLISH beneficiary countries travelled to Dublin to share and learn from one another experiences of using inquiry in their classrooms.
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 this project is to support teachers in adopting an inquiry approach in teaching science at second level (students aged 12-18 years) across Europe. This will be achieved by utilising existing resources and models for teacher education in IBSE, both pre-service and in-service. In addition to SAILS partners adopting IBSE curricula and implementing teacher education in their countries, 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. Through this unified approach of implementing all the necessary components for transforming classroom practice, i.e. teacher education, curriculum and assessment around an IBSE pedagogy, a sustainable model for IBSE will be achieved. SAILS will provide teacher education workshops in IBSE across the twelve participating countries and promote a self-sustaining model encouraging teachers to share experiences and practice of inquiry approaches to teaching, learning and assessment by building a community of practice.
The SAILS consortium consists of fourteen partner organisations, including universities, SMEs and a multi-national organisation, from across twelve European countries. The strength of this consortium lies in its vast experience and expertise in the areas of science education, teacher training and resource development for teaching, learning and assessment.
- Dublin City University, Ireland
- Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics & Telecommunications, Belgium
- INTEL Research and Innovation Ireland Limited, Ireland
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
- Hacettepe University, Turkey
- Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
- Jagiellonian University, Poland
- King's College London, United Kingdom
- Kristianstad University, Sweden
- Malmö University, Sweden
- University of Piraeus Research Centre, Greece
- University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
- University of Szeged, Hungary
- Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Safárika v Kosiciach, Slovakia
By using a pan-European approach, SAILS will ensure that the diverse practices built up in each country can be analysed and shared, resulting in the development of models of best practice. These can be used not only in all the consortium countries but will also be available for other countries to adopt. This European approach raises the standard for everyone by encouraging national implementation, and by extending and promoting innovation in science teaching and learning in the classroom.
Recent project deliverables can be found at http://www.sails-project.eu/portal/resources.
During the 2014 SAILS/SMEC joint conference, SAILS teachers presented their experiences of implementing inquiry and the assessment of inquiry. These presentations can be downloaded from the conference website at http://www.dcu.ie/smec/2014/oral.shtml