7. University of South Bohemia (USB)
University of South Bohemia (USB) consists of seven faculties and three associated institutes and has about 14 000 students. Science teachers are prepared mainly at the Pedagogical faculty whose history dates back to 1948. Five departments develop and realise science teacher education: Pedagogy and Psychology, Departments of Biology, Mathematics, Physics, and Department of Applied Chemistry and Chemistry Education. Research in these Departments is oriented both to teacher training and science teacher training. Pedagogical faculty (USB) staff activities include production of primary and secondary school textbooks (especially in biology, mathematics and physics). These activities have also included an international project, creating a textbook of biology for Japanese junior high schools (granted by The Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture) and also the dissemination of new biological knowledge. The Pedagogical faculty of USB also support and organize the science student competitions (regional and national-wide levels), including the preparation of related teacher training courses and coordination of the development of the competition tasks. Long term research projects of Pedagogical faculty, USB granted by The Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic include the following topics: emotional and motivational factors in education; biodiversity and biology education; reflection on the progress of technical disciplines in the preparation of mathematics teachers; mathematics classroom Culture; development of mathematical literacy in primary education.
Task allocation
The main tasks attributed to USB in S-TEAM are investigation of motivation of students who are active in science competitions via narrative analysis (WP6), development of teacher training courses based on applications of P4CM (WP7) and the SINUS program (WP3), application of collaborative activities of student teachers, their mentors and university science teachers (WP4). USB is also national liaison partner for the Czech Republic. Staff members who will be undertaking the work: Iva Stuchlikova, Ph.D., is a professor of educational psychology; Head of Department of Pedagogy and Psychology. Her main research will be concentrated on motivational processes in science education. She has published 2 books and approx. 100 papers, and has been responsible for several national and international projects on emotional and motivational determinants of learning and teaching and teachers' professional identity. She serves as a member responsible for teacher training programmes in the Accreditation Committee for higher education of the Czech Ministry of Education. Miroslav Papacek, Ph.D., is a professor of zoology and the Head of the Department of Biology. He served 1992-1997 and 2001-2006 as a Dean of the Pedagogical Faculty and has been responsible for development of the science teacher training curriculum. He has coordinated several national and international projects on ecology, biology of water bugs, and biology education, and published or participated in publication of 4 books or monographs, 4 textbooks and 90 original scientific papers. He will concentrate on scientific literacy research and on collaborative activities of teachers. Lecturer Jan Petr, PhD., participated in several research projects and has published over 20 papers. He will focus his research on student science competitions and on biology teaching methods for primary school teachers. He is chair of the regional committee of Biology Olympiad and member of committee of other biological competitions for students.