Linguistically Responsive Biology and Chemistry Teaching — Cross-Disciplinary Reflections on Context and Materials Erasmus Project

Project Title

Linguistically Responsive Biology and Chemistry Teaching — Cross-Disciplinary Reflections on Context and Materials

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Based on the 2018 PISA ranking, German-speaking European countries continue to lag their OECD counterparts in reading and science. Reading comprehension is an important part of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), a key determinant for academic success in general and, more aptly, in science. To learn and understand science, one must ultimately master the language of science. Therefore, subject-specific and academic literacy are key to increasing educational opportunity and successful outcomes.

Children from multilingual and/or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds face unique challenges in attaining scientific and academic language competence. The situation is compounded for many migrant students. In German-speaking countries, the correlation between student performance and socio-economic status is significantly above the OECD average.

However, science teachers are not yet sufficiently aware that language may often be a stronger barrier to student achievement than the actual content. Many have had little or no preparation for providing the types of assistance that learners need to successfully learn academic content and skills through academic language while developing proficiency in academic language. Teachers in training are also often not adequately prepared for the increasing linguistic heterogeneity they will face in the classroom, both in multilingual and historically monolingual societies.

Science teachers must acquire linguistically responsive pedagogical practices and the necessary language scaffolding skills to support their students’ learning. What makes the situation even more challenging is that there are few scientifically tested materials or measures to aid them.

To address this educational gap, the project develops and evaluates lesson plans and strategies to bolster biology and chemistry students’ subject-specific and academic language competence and science teachers’ language awareness and their linguistic teaching skills.

The project is innovative in that it not only combines both theory and practice but also transcends institutional and subject boundaries. Several times per year, university experts in education research, science education and language education convene with science and language teachers and teacher trainers in cross-disciplinary communities of practice.

The project participants discuss, co-create and evaluate lesson plans and strategies suitable for implementing successful language-sensitive science teaching.

The sensiMINT database provides teachers with access to existing language-oriented tasks for biology and chemistry classrooms.

The sensiMINT materials include 60 biology and chemistry lesson plans aimed at students in the transitional period between lower and upper secondary education (years 8-10).

The sensiMINT cluster of quality criteria is based on the extensive project experience and allows for assessment of successful language-sensitive teaching materials.

The sensiMINT best-practice guide is a step-by-step manual on building cross-disciplinary teams to implement language-sensitive science teaching.

The sensiMINT coaching curriculum is the first certification program for the systemic implementation of linguistically responsive STEM teaching. The “sensiMINT-School” certificate honours systematic teacher professionalisation and interinstitutional networking.

The project’s innovative focus significantly reduces teachers’ time burden, the leading driver against the adoption of language-sensitive teaching.

All materials and strategies developed in this project are practically oriented to best serve the teachers’ needs.

To further lighten the teachers’ load, most multiplier events take place within schools, bringing the materials literally into their classrooms. This facilitates quicker adoption of the materials. The support of parents and colleagues from school boards and universities, who are also invited to the events, helps teachers to establish the strategies in their schools and disseminate them further. In addition, project members create CPD courses for the education departments of the smaller German-speaking speech communities in South Tyrol, East Belgium, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg to introduce the project outcomes to teachers in these locations.

Acknowledging the significance of linguistically responsive science teaching for educational opportunity and equality, the consortium has established a broad network of associated partner institutions to disseminate project results and ensure lasting impact and sustainability. Schools, education departments, teacher associations, STEM networks and initiatives for supporting future STEM professionals accompany and support the project as critical friends and advertise the outputs throughout their own networks.

Project Website

https://www.sensiMINT.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 364563 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAET INNSBRUCK & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Klassisches, Sprachen- und Kunstgymnasium mit Landesschwerpunkt Musik “Walther von der Vogelweide” Bozen – Liceo classico, linguistico ed artistico con indirizzo musicale in lingua tedesca “Walther von der Vogelweide” Bolzano
• liceo scientifico, liceo linguistico, istituto tecnologico “J. Ph. Fallmerayer”
• UNIVERSITAT WIEN
• Privates Oberstufenrealgymnasium St. Karl Volders
• GRG5 Rainergymnasium
• Gymnasium Vaduz
• Emil-von-Behring-Gymnasium