Implementing strategies in science teaching, Menelaos Sotiriou
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The document summarizes a conference that took place in Brussels from October 24-26, 2014 to introduce creativity in science education. The conference aimed to help individual teachers become aware of weaknesses in their practice, be motivated to improve, and learn best practices. Objectives included proposing a methodology for introducing creativity and innovation in schools through teacher training and communities. The conference outlined learning activities like science cafes, science theater, and writing science operas that incorporate creative elements. Near future plans included teacher training workshops and an international conference in 2015.
Implementing strategies in science teaching, Menelaos Sotiriou
- 1. October 24-26 2014, Brussels, Belgium
- 2. Aims CREAT-IT project aims to take forward the agenda of practitioner led change at a European level by introducing creativity in science education. At the level of individual teachers this implies getting three things to happen: Individual teachers need to become aware of specific weaknesses in their own practice. In most cases, this not only involves building an awareness of what they do but the mindset underlying it. Individual teachers need to be motivated to make necessary improvements. In general this requires a deeper change in motivation that cannot be achieved through changing material incentives. Such changes come about when teachers have high expectations, a shared sense of purpose, and above all, a collective belief in their common ability to make a difference to the education of the children they serve. Individual teachers need to gain understanding of specific best practices. In general, this can only be achieved through training and demonstration of such practices in authentic settings.
- 4. Objectives To propose a methodology for the effective introduction of creativity and innovation in schools, a new approach to stimulating, incubating, and accelerating creativity and innovation which is strongly driven by users’ needs (CREAT-IT pedagogical framework). To design and develop training material and users’ communities for teacher training, so as to utilize the outcomes of the proposed methodology afterwards in their classrooms (late primary and early secondary school teachers) To implement a wide-spread training approach for teachers, facilitating intake of creative Science Education practices in schools. To provide guidelines towards the continued communication and exploitation of results by the education community. To systematically evaluate the CREAT-IT approach.
- 5. 8 CREAT-IT pedagogical principles Discipline knowledge: allowing space for the rigorous discipline knowledge of both sciences and the arts, as well as understanding how creativity might interact with these disciplinary knowledge bases differently, albeit in the context of science education. Possibilities: allow for multiple possibilities both in terms of thinking and spaces, and know when it is appropriate to narrow or broaden these. Ethics and trusteeship: consider ethics of creative science processes and products, guided in decision-making by what matters to the community, and act as ‘trustees’ of its outcomes. Empowerment and agency: allow learners and adult professionals to gain a greater sense of their own agency and self-expression, to be more creative scientists and science teachers. Individual, collaborative and communal activities for change - all three ways of engaging. Risk, immersion and play: creating literal space as well as ‘thinking’ space for these to occur. Dialogue: between people, disciplines, creativity and identity, and ideas - acknowledging embodiment, and allowing for irreconcilable difference. Interrelationship of different ways of thinking around a shared ‘thread’ or ‘throughline’: multiple ways of thinking (e.g. problem-finding/solving, exploring, reasoning, reflecting, questioning, experimenting) focused around shared arts/science threads or throughlines.
- 6. Learning Activities of IBSE
- 7. Approach/Framework Focus Groups of Teachers from 6 countries (≈ 100 in total) participated in a survey to express their view and needs
- 8. The Cases for Creative Approaches to Science Teaching Common creative impulses between science and art / reducing the divide Increased engagement An emotional context
- 9. Junior Science Cafes Junior Science Cafes scenarios will be based on the guidelines of the SciCafe Network (http://www.scicafe.eu/learn_more). They will utilize the existing experience and combine creative aspects according to the proposed pedagogical framework. In the framework of the CREATIT project Science Cafes will be organized within schools or schools theaters and the teacher and students that will organize them will attempt to incorporate creative aspects and combine science with e.g. music, art and/or theater and explore how these aspects could help science education. Through this process the teacher will be able to introduce science topics to the students with the help of an invited researcher while following the curriculum. The teachers will be trained to realize these activities within the Implementation phase of the CREATIT project.
- 10. Science Theater Science Theater is a case study that will incorporate art elements in teaching science. There will be three goals: 1) to explore the use of metaphor in scientific and theatrical frameworks 2) to explore the evolution of role playing 3) to test a common training for future liberal art and science teachers. As part of the exploration towards the creation of a play, students will be asked to explore science topics, supported by script outlines, which will inspire them. The play’s characters, costumes, music and dance all represent potential ways of interpreting the students' inquiries. They thus engage in Possibility Thinking (PT) regarding how the creative artistic process can act as a base for deeper inquiry as well as an aesthetic medium of communication of the various hypotheses and evidence- based conclusions.
- 11. Write A Science Opera Write a Science Opera (WASO) is a creative professional development approach to music and science education in which pupils of different ages, supported by teachers, opera artists and scientists, are the creators of an educational performance. WASO integrates science education into the original method by involving scientists who lead a creative process demonstrating common impulses shared by science and the arts.
- 14. CREAT-IT Collaboration Environment Design and develop training material and users’ communities for teacher training (late primary and early secondary school teachers) Tools for community building and support, and will encourage cooperation between teachers as well as students Material (Lesson plans, ppts, pdf, videos) www.creatit-project.eu (starts November 2014)
- 15. Targets
- 16. Near Future activities Summer School for teachers July in Athens, Greece September 2014, start the implementation activities in Schools (until May 2015). Training workshops, demonstration workshops September 2014, start the assessment and evaluation activities (until May 2015) – small amount of data already gathered and the results were very encouraging. October 2015, International Conference on creativity in Science Education (The CREAT-IT Conference). Calls for papers will start by the end of 2014.
- 17. Near Future activities – Two main implementation activities (National and International) Sky-Light «SkyLight – a Global Science Opera» is an ICT-based international creative education project within the Write a Science Opera (WASO) initiative of CREAT-IT. «SkyLight» has been endorsed by the International Astronomical Union (www.iau.org) as an official project of the International Year of Light 2015 (www.light2015.org). 28 countries will participate
- 18. Vision The vision of CREAT-IT is to constitute a common set of guidelines and recommendations on how scientific work can be used to provide an engaging educational experience through the exploration of “real science” in a creative way. The project is a tribute to the memory of Anna Craft who left us some months ago. Anna was the central person for the CREAT-IT pedagogical framework. A person of inspiration, dedicated to the project’s activities even in her last days. Thank you Anna, we will always remember you
- 19. Thank you! sotiriou@scienceview.gr More information about our activities: www.scienceview.gr www.creatit-project.eu lsst.weebly.com