News . Our Blog The CONNECT User Advisory Board provides inputs on sustainable engagement and CONNECT’s online platform
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On June 14th 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.
Sustainable engagement with schools
Hosted by IRSI, Rosina Malagrida and Jessica Fernández
In this parallel session, Rosina Malagrida from Living Lab for Health at IrsiCaixa presented the action plan to engage schools. The plan was developed based on the results from previous workshops, conducted internally in the consortium, where main barriers and opportunities when engaging schools and teachers, were identified and analysed.
The UAB members participating in this session provided valuable inputs and useful recommendations. Some of the suggestions and opinions for engaging teachers were the following:
- to consider contact institutions that already work closely with teachers as well as to coordinate with institutions that represent researchers which already have engaged teachers.
- to take advantage of researchers that are willing to collaborate in countries where the government encourages such actions through incentives.
The UAB members also provided relevant networks and stakeholders, which collaboration could support the engagement and be beneficial for the project.
In terms of policy-related recommendations that can have an impact on the engagement strategy, the UAB members pointed out the following:
- to give visibility to inspiring policy initiatives, such as those that promote research in schools.
- to advocate the local governments to develop policies to promote Open Schooling, the project could inform governments about innovative projects and initiatives that illustrate how change is happening, rather than “pushing” the agenda.
CONNECT’s Multi-actor platform
Hosted by EXUS, Marcos Varveris and OU, Alexandra Okada.
In this parallel session, Marcos Varveris from EXUS presented the CONNECT Multi-actor platform and its functionalities. The discussion and suggestions from the UAB helped to specify the who’s and why’s of the platform, making its overall purpose clearer.
Who – The platform should primarily aim at engaging teachers, coaches, scientists, as well as, CONNECT’s consortium
Why – Based on the constructive discussion from the UAB members, the purpose of the platform was defined as “a hub for the CONNECT’s community, a place to find CONNECT’s Resources (structured and open-ended), teaching lessons for recognition, and good examples for obtaining badges. The platform should be also a place for communication and bringing users together to cooperate, sharing of experiences and solving difficulties together, i.e., support teachers to access and get in touch with relevant scientists that could be involved in Open Schooling activities”.
In terms of technical functionalities, the members highlighted the following:
- The platform should be easily accessible and from different devices.
- The loading speed should be improved, as well as the experience of registration and navigating back to the previous screen.
If you are interested in CONNECT’s platform and would like to be the first to be notified when the Platform is launched, then, pre-register in the CONNECT Platform here.
Deliberative methods in open schooling
Hosted by DBT, Sigrid Vedel Neuhaus
The last session of the UAB meeting was facilitated by Sigrid Vedel Neuhaus from The Danish Board of Technology (DBT) who did a presentation on participatory methods, how they were adapted to an open schooling context and the reflections behind the new Consensus Format Open-ended Scenario.
Based on this presentation, the participants discussed the challenges related to finding the right level of scientific information that should be taught to the students when borrowing methods from social sciences. On the one hand, it is important to help the students understand all the complexities at stake. On the other hand, it is important to teach the students scientific methods and give them the tools to find their own results. Hence, it was suggested to use “science capital” as an indicator to help determine ‘how deep and how far’ the level of science should be. It was moreover suggested to find inspiration from other similar projects, such as www.irresistible-project.eu.
The CONNECT UAB will meet again on Monday 11 October.
Learn more about our UAB members here.