Promoting innovative Learning Approaches for the Teaching Of Natural sciences Erasmus Project

Project Title

Promoting innovative Learning Approaches for the Teaching Of Natural sciences

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics; Natural sciences

Project Summary

PLATON project was born from a partnership between six partners from six European countries (Portugal, Greece, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Spain and Finland) devoted to teacher training and innovation in education, whose goal was to create a teacher training framework that would introduce Inquiry and Interdisciplinarity to teachers in a progressive, step-by-step and effective way. The idea was to reach the gap between training methods and teachers’ real needs, transforming these innovative methodologies into something accessible, easy to implement and even an enjoyable experience for teachers. For this purpose, a new methodology was created, called WIIL – Working with Interdisciplinarity and Inquiry-Based Learning, under which several materials were created. First, in order to establish a collaborative and interdisciplinary framework in the school setting, the “3D Interdisciplinary Map of Science Ideas” was created taking into consideration the revision of the curricula topics of the six involved countries and including information about the different subject domains and grade levels where they are taught. This map creates a bridge between the topics taught in science disciplines and the Big Ideas of Science, providing teachers with a simple tool to establish connections between what they teach and what other teachers teach as well as with students’ daily lives. Second, a tool called “Inquiry Under the Microscope toolkit” was created. This tool breaks down inquiry into a series of 9 components that describe in detail the most important attitudes that teachers needs integrate in their practice in order to shift from traditional methods to inquiry-based learning. Using this tool, teachers find a comfortable and progressive step by step change towards inquiry without feeling insecure or too much out of their comfort zone. Third, a set of materials and guidelines were created to allow teachers and educators to train others in the use of the materials and to integrate any part of WIIL in the teaching practice. Additionally, a set of already-made activities was created to demonstrate to teachers how to use WIIL in the framework of stand-alone projects, following a seven-step inquiry cycle. Finally, a set of assessment tools called “Deep-Learning assessment toolkit” was created to allow teachers to assess their students when implementing WIIL considering 21st century skills and deep-learning. During the timeline of the project, 258 teachers from 99 schools used at least one part of WIIL, reaching over 5150 students. Of these, 144 teachers implemented full methodology, creating an e-portfolio and providing feedback to refine the final materials and tools. These received an international recognition as PLATON teachers. Furthermore, 61 schools received a recognition as PLATON School. In these schools, at least three PLATON teachers worked together implementing the full methodology, with the exception of the schools in the non-partner countries where in some cases only 1 teacher implemented the full methodology due to fewer support opportunities to create an interdisciplinary approach in the school. Overall, teachers provided very important feedback for the improvement of the materials and reported a very positive result from the implementation of WIIL. More specifically, most teachers stated that the 3D Map was easy to use and allowed them to establish more connections between topics, to integrate interdisciplinarity in their practice and to synchronize the teaching of related topics with their colleagues. Teachers also perceived that the use of the Big Ideas of Science helped their students to better understand science as a whole. Almost all teachers reported that the Inquiry Components where helpful for their practice and that using WIIL helped their students to achieve their learning objectives. The teachers that implemented the PLATON activities reported that their students appeared to be more engaged and motivated during their implementation than usual. Furthermore, an impact evaluation survey was created for all teachers that implemented the project. The preliminary analysis of this survey allowed us to conclude that, in general, teachers felt secure using WILL, reporting that it improved their lessons, making them more confident using Interdisciplinarity and Inquiry, increasing their motivation for teaching and discovering a better relationship with their colleagues. Teachers also reported to have experienced a better interaction with their students who seemed more motivated and engaged, showing a more positive attitude towards science. Given such positive impact of WIIL both in teachers and in students, the project consortium has decided to keep the methodology alive, promoting further teacher training courses and integrating all the materials in further projects, even after the end of the funding of the project. Future perspectives are alive and the project will continue to be used and enriched.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 274028,36 Eur

Project Coordinator

NUCLIO NUCLEO INTERACTIVO DE ASTRONOMIA ASSOCIACAO & Country: PT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS
• HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
• ELLINOGERMANIKI AGOGI SCHOLI PANAGEA SAVVA AE
• UNIVERSIDAD DE LA IGLESIA DE DEUSTO ENTIDAD RELIGIOSA
• CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
• Grundskoleförvaltningens IT-enhet Malmö stad