In CONNECT we encorporate the #OpenSchooling methodology to evolve practices that enchance #Science__education. Our project is founded on the most important publications on active student participation and science capital. Care to take a look?

From March to November 2021, 40 schools, 91 teachers, and 1359 students from Greece, Catalonia, Romania, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, participated in CONNECT’s pilot. The pilot consisted in the implementation of CONNECT’s science actions for open schooling, which can be open-ended or structured. 

• The open-ended scenarios follow a flexible methodology aimed at triggering students’ interest in science by aligning science education with societal needs and values through the adaptation of participatory methods to the open schooling agenda, an inclusive and flexible learning environment.​ 
• The structured scenarios are a pre-defined set of activities that schools’ teachers can easily customise and adapt to maximise the chance of a successful first-time project supported by science professionals. 

On October 15, our partner Regional Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education of Crete (RDE), represented CONNECT in the European Programs Fair as part of the Erasmus Days, at the Municipality building of Heraklion in Crete, Greece.

 

 

The Fair counted with the participation of 31 schools and educational institutions and more than 500 visitors including teachers, students, and citizens. This event was a great opportunity to introduce CONNECT to key stakeholders, such as open schooling practitioners, other projects, teachers and students, and to present the work carried out with schools and students under the frame of the project.

For instance, the poster developed by the students, from the school 1st Vocational school of Arkalohori, during their participation in CONNECT activities was presented by their teacher Avraam Apostolakakis during the Fair.

 

The User Advisory Board (UAB) met for the third time on October 11^th, 2021, in this occasion the objective of the meeting was to share and discuss experiences, barriers, and benefits from working with the Jury Format open-ended scenario in different school contexts. Experiences were shared by UAB members and project partners.

In the Jury Format, students work on a local challenge they have defined themselves. Based on research and interviews made by students, the students will consult a stakeholder panel with the purpose of discussing possible solutions and writing recommendations to the local challenge. The open-ended scenario is based on the CONNECT Care-Know-Do framework, which aims to stimulate students’ interest in science supported by their families and the local community.

Experiences from Brazil

Presented by Raquel P. G. Kowalski (APC) and Luciane Hilu (professor, PUCPR)

303 high school students were involved.

The open-ended scenario was used as a guide for the development of activities, but adherence to the lesson plan was spontaneous.​ The experiences with the open-ended scenario in Brazil were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it difficult to involve the local community. There was a general interest of teachers to adopt open schooling, but the lack of support from the community made it difficult, and there were mixed experiences involving the parents. Furthermore, some difficulties emerged when making teachers follow the methodology proposed by CONNECT and it was suggested that practice should not be tied into a single methodology. The experiences also show that students and teachers were very engaged in the project. Choices of theme and how to display content in an advertising campaign format encouraged the participation of students. Despite the difficulties, the views on the open-ended scenario process were optimistic.

Experiences from Greece

Presented by Panagiotis Toumpaniaris (Association of Physicists of Crete)  

30 high school students were involved.

The Jury Format was applied with no significant changes to the process. Both teachers’ guides and student sheets were used. Together with the students, a project about global warming and chemical pollution was decided on.

In Greece, the pandemic also made it difficult to involve the local community, in particular the last part of the process, where results from the project should be shared with the community. The overall knowledge and interest of the students were above average. The first part of the process worked well, and students produced materials such as videos, texts, and a game.

Experiences from Brazil

Presented by Miriam Struchner (University Federal of Rio de Janeiro)

15 8^th graders and 2 high school students were involved

The Jury Format was applied, and the students were involved in the different steps of the process. The students decided to work with racism and produced podcasts. The choice of podcasts made it possible to integrate the open-ended scenario with the prescribed curriculum.

Because of the pandemic, the project was delayed and a lot of students were not able to follow the online teaching. However, those students involved were very engaged because they had chosen the subject themselves, and some students even invited friends to participate. The students also enjoyed and felt empowered because they had the opportunity to exchange views with scientists. Based on the experiences it is proposed that the work with open-ended scenarios can be used as a method to make school make more sense to students, which could help the transition to universities.

Experiences from Spain

Presented by Rosina Malagrida (IRSI)

868 students from primary and secondary schools were involved.

COVID-19 was selected as the challenge by coordinators. The methodology used was a dialogue model containing five phases (exploration, consultation, integration, prioritization, and dissemination). In the consultation phase, a participatory workshop was held with the teachers. Afterward, the teachers conducted similar workshops with the students.

The experiences shared from Spain addressed the following question: How can teachers, students, and families collaborate with scientists and act as co-researchers to improve Covid-19 prevention? One of the conclusions is that the open-ended scenarios are a great opportunity to facilitate the link to open schooling, and the cooperation with the government increased the engagement by teachers, students, and families. Furthermore, the participatory research method contributed to increasing meaningful learning and scientific literacy among students and their families. Also, involving teachers, students, and families as co-researchers in research to improve policies that affect them is key to assure that the policies respond to their needs and expectations.

The CONNECT User Advisory Board will meet again on 14 February 2022.

Learn more about our UAB members here.

The open-ended scenarios developed by CONNECT is a novel model adapting participatory methods to open schooling and the CONNECT CARE-KNOW-DO framework. It is an experiment aiming at encouraging students’ interest in science by approaching it from a perspective where societal needs and values are at the core.

Educere is an event held every two years with the aim of promoting reflection on training, practice and educational research in a globalised context, diversified and with strong social demand.

The XV edition of EDUCERE was once again organized in partnership with the VI International Seminar on Social Representations, Subjectivity and Education – SIRSSE and the VIII International Seminar on Teacher Professionalization (SIPD/CÁTEDRA UNESCO), and this year the Congress was also supported by CONNECT Project.

The theme of the event INSPIRATIONS, SPACES AND TIMES OF EDUCATION was strongly marked by all the changes we have experienced as a result of the pandemic that has so affected our lives.

In these difficult times, it was even more imperative to hold the event with the same quality as always, valuing training and the dissemination of scientific knowledge to as many people as possible. The congresses have always been spaces for debate, criticism, reflection, and a place for boiling ideas, for the management of new projects and partnerships.

They are events aimed at the participation of national and international higher education and basic education teachers, researchers, undergraduate and post-graduate students.

The meetings provided by the events strengthen the sharing and inspirations, re-signify and democratise spaces and expand the time for education, thought, criticism and collective action.

The 2021 Edition was held from 27 to 30 September 2021 in online modality, with the diffusion carried out from the city of Curitiba/Paraná/ Brazil. In this Edition, we had 2256 registered participants, 1345 approved works, 77 round tables and 60 lectures.

Among the papers presented we had a round table entitled Science Education in practice that discussed the approaches and experiences of teaching from the perspective of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), presenting the research projects: Online Learning and FUN (OLAF), Educational Research (PDE) and the experience developed by UNEB in Project CONNECT.

We also had in the 4th Communications Session of the axis: Education Technology and Communication the presentation of the report of the experience developed in the CONNECT Project at the Bilingual School COC Araucária Eireli entitled: RRI in Portuguese language classes: developing students’ multilingualism with the support of digital platforms by Gabriele Polato Sachinski, Patricia Lupion Torres and Raquel Pasternak Glitz Kowalski.

We also had in this event, meetings of several research groups, among which we highlight the 1st Intergroup Research Meeting of the Connect – Brazil Project. Also, we gathered teachers, researchers and students from three research groups: PRAPETEC-PUCPR, GENTTES-UNEB and GEC&TIS-UNEB. This meeting aimed exchange between the groups of experiences developed in the schools included in Project Connect and the presentation of the project’s website by Candela Bravo from Loba Agency and the project’s platform by Georgios Kolions – EXUX.

The Sustainable Development and Education Conference took place online on August 26th – 27th as a special edition of the 8th International Conference for Responsible Research and Innovation organised by LSME – London School of Management Education.  This event brought together academics and practitioners across three continents: Asia, Europe and South America, more than 70 presentations and more than 150 attendees.

The core theme of this event focused on “Democratic Participation in Educational Process & Sustainable Development.”  The objective of this large event was to discuss the vital role that  education is playing in preparing learners to cooperatively address the global challenges and its local issues faced humanity nowadays, such as global warming, climate change, environment destruction, diseases, inequalities and violence.

The event was open by the keynote speaker Professor Petra Molthan-Hill Faculty Lead, Green Academy, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, UK, with an inspiring talk on “High Impact Climate Solutions: We can do it!”. Petra’s work highlights the importance of equipping youth with the information to teach others about climate change and providing skills needed to make these high impact changes in our activities to reduce carbon emissions.

THE COMMUNITY, THE LOCAL INSTITUTIONS INVOLVED, THE CONTEST AND OUR ACTIONS

The PRAPETEC group invited two institutions to implement a contest supported by CONNECT project, namely the Centro Vicentino de Educação Infantil Santa Luiza, located in Curitiba – PR, and the SCHOOL PROFESSORA ADELINA REGIS located in Videira – SC.

About the Contest

The partnership between PUCPR and SCHOOL PROFESSORA ADELINA REGIS  was established to collaborate in the Contest named: PERSONA “Hands-on Action”, which aimed to encourage and disseminate creativity and power of expression of students at the Escola de Belas Artes. The competition, which is held annually and existed for over a decade, aims to encourage artistic production, contributing to the critical and creative development of the participants. This special edition of 2021, presented a guiding theme, which aimed to share the experiences of the University and school community during the COVID-19 pandemic, promoting reflection on the approximation of the University to society in this context.

In this edition, the competition was divided into two categories: one for students of the design course at PUCPR and another for high school students at SCHOOL PROFESSORA ADELINA REGIS. Different profiles of individuals and their diversity participated, from creation, dissemination, judgment to the formulation and submission of ideas and proposals. In this list, the following groups were involved: high school students, undergraduate students, master’s, doctoral and post-doctoral students from the graduate program in Education at PUCPR (PPGE), professors from the Education and Design courses, experienced researchers, and young research students, as well as professional designer from the company LOBA – Portugal in order to promote exchange.

The contest awarded the best work for each category defined for this edition, respectively, seeking to reflect on this important challenge we are living in nowadays and its expression on the specific support of the protective mask.

During the PERSONA Contest, students were invited to illustrate masks considering the theme “Together against COVID-19 with CONNECT”.

In the Design Course at PUCPR, which takes 4 years and has 600 students regularly enrolled, more than 50 works entered the competition, involving students from all periods of the Design course.

In the state school of basic education Professora Adelina Regis, which serves students from the New High School, participated in the PERSONA contest, involving two teachers and twelve groups of students, resulting in 200 students with submitted works.

The works submitted for each category – high school and higher education – were submitted for analysis by a jury of professionals. The winning masks will be produced and distributed to students from the state school of basic education Professor Adelina Regis and to the Centro Vicentino de Educação Infantil Santa Luiza.

AWARDS

1. Students submitted their work to two evaluation categories (i.e. undergraduate students and high school students);
2. A jury composed of professors, design professionals and educators evaluated the work;
3. The work with the highest evaluation by the jury was published on the PRAPETEC group’s social network;
4. The work was available for popular voting;
5. The work with more votes for each category was selected!
6. Winning designs were produced and distributed to the community.

Check out the winning masks!

On June 14^th 2021, the CONNECT User Advisory Board (UAB) met for the second time. This meeting consisted of two parallel sessions, where the highly engaged new and existing members of the UAB (including Ph.D. students) were invited to select which of the following topics they preferred to provide inputs: the project’s plan to engage schools or the online multi-actor platform. Finally, the meeting was closed off with a presentation on deliberative methods in open schooling.

The School of Education and Humanities and the design course at the School of Fine Arts from the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, in collaboration with CONNECT, are promoting the PERSONA Contest – Together against COVID-19 with CONNECT.

The students from the Prof. Adelina Régis School of Basic Education (Videira, Brazil) and University students from the design course at the School of Fine Arts of the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (Brazil), are invited to present original and creative drawings inspired by the theme “Together against COVID-19”.

The CONNECT project offers an amazing opportunity for Early Career Teachers to develop pedagogical strategies skills and specialist curriculum knowledge.

This provides an opportunity for teachers to work together on a project and may be particularly beneficial for an NQT/ECT and their mentor as part of their training package.

Teachers that take part in the project will work directly with a coach, who is an experienced science teacher and expert in open schooling projects. The Coach will guide the teachers through the project, providing feedback and offering support.

Using our adaptable ready-made resources, the teachers will gain valuable experience in how to carry out effective inquiry teaching – how to teach skills such as argumentation, using evidence and analysing data, as well as, successful adaptation of contexts and implementation of tools like group discussion and effective questioning.

Teachers will also become part of a community of CONNECT teachers across the country who will share successful practices. There will be a special certificate recognised by the International Board of CONNECT project funded by the European Union.

Oscar Gonzalez is a secondary science teacher in Col·legi Lestonnac (Barcelona), who participated in an open schooling pilot recently conducted in Catalonia, facilitated by The Living Lab for Health at IrsiCaixa, under the frame of CONNECT project.

The objective of the pilot was to address the prevention of Covid-19 in the school environment by monitoring and evaluating SARS-CoV-2 infection in schools and to elaborate recommendations for improving the prevention and control policies. In order to enhance the engagement of participants, the pilot had as innovative approach to involve the education community to participate as co-researchers in the research project “Escoles Sentinella” led by the Catalonia Local Government.

This CONNECT pilot consisted of a transdisciplinary and participatory research approach with a systemic perspective and had the participation of 44 teachers, 533 students and their families from 6 primary and secondary schools. Together with the support from scientists, the participants came up with 58 recommendations that cover the different areas of the system, beyond those of the health system.

Students presented the recommendations to improve COVID-19 prevention in the classroom in the “Escoles Sentinella” Congress on June 3^rd 2021. More information HERE.

Open schooling is where schools, in cooperation with other stakeholders, become an agent of community well-being. Among those stakeholders, we can highlight the role of families who are encouraged to become real partners in school life and activities, and professionals from enterprises, civil and wider society who are actively involved in bringing real-life projects into the classroom.

Open schooling enables schools to create a flexible and inclusive learning environment inspiring the students to explore the world through science, making science more accessible and authentic.

But what is the opinion of those that have experienced open schooling activities?

We asked different actors involved in the open schooling pilots conducted under the frame of CONNECT project, such as implementers like secondary education teacher/s, representatives from school administration, facilitators like open schooling scientists or coaches, and the ultimate beneficiaries, the students.

We asked them 4 questions:

Q1. What is open schooling for you?

Q2. Does open schooling bring added value to the class?

If yes: how? / If no: why?

Q3. What are the main barriers to its implementation?

Q4. What would you recommend to better meet your needs?

Understanding the impact of the pandemic on open schooling projects is a key topic of the European online event using the “fishbowl approach” organised on March 24th  by  Open Schooling Together (OStogether) a network with nine European projects – all part of the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme – Science with and for society. The moderator was Maria Zolotonosa (from Make it Open project).
The debate was kicked off by four speakers:

• Alexandra Okada (The OU, UK – CONNECT): How can we help schools to connect and cooperate with local communities during the COVID pandemic?
• Matteo Merzagora (Association TRACES, France – SALL): the challenge of building trust at distance – the difficulty of stakeholder engagement when actors do not know each other
• Nicole Salomon (OVOS media, Austria – COMnPlay): experience of organising a virtual maker space
• Erik Knain (UNIVERSITETET I OSLO, Norway – SEAS): Open schooling can help to teach during a pandemic, but maybe not a teacher

The rapid spread of the new COVID-19 variants has put the world on alert. The various school lockdowns have affected the educational system in our countries.  Challenges and opportunities must be considered to better respond to these issues. How can our open schooling projects support schools during and post-pandemic? What can be done, and what can be done differently?

Open Schooling (OS) is a key approach promoted by the European Commission through nine funded projects to support the cooperation between schools, scientists and local communities for youth to become more engaged with science through real-world problems.

These OS projects have been developing a variety of relevant approaches to bridge formal, non-formal and informal science education to improve students’ experience in science. These approaches include a variety of relevant scenarios, themes, pedagogical methods, tools, environments and multi-actor platforms with high-quality resources, learning materials, and events, for example, workshops, courses, coaching and mentoring programmes.

A relevant issue suggested by a member of OStogether was:

“How could we help schools connect and cooperate with local communities through open schooling in science during COVID-19?”

This question leads to many others…

… Are schools interested in connecting with communities? What type of connections are they willing to establish? Will they benefit from cooperating with external partners? What are the advantages of cooperation for schools and partners involved in open schooling?

To respond to these issues, more questions are necessary…

… What are the participants’ needs (what they care about)? What are their priorities (what they need to know)?  What are their expectations (what they can do) during and post-pandemic?