The Federal Science Project: A scientist in every classroom

The United States urgently needs science-based solutions for a multitude of policy issues, and a basic societal understanding of science is essential to gaining public trust and addressing these issues. However, there is a disconnect between professional scientists and engineers and K-12 science education. Many students will graduate after 13 years of school having never met a scientist. This missed opportunity is not an issue of supply. There are over 7 million practicing scientists and engineers in the U.S.; if every scientist spent just one hour a year in a classroom, each student would get at least three visits from a scientist every single year. Here, we propose the Federal Science Project: a federally funded, nationwide program to bring scientists into all K-12 schools across the U.S. with the goal of reaching every student, regardless of geographic location. Scientists and engineers across disciplines and sectors would undergo training in communication skills and cultural competency, connect with classrooms via a national database with support from full-time staff, partner with teachers to deliver interactive lessons aligned with existing curriculum and standards, and receive appropriate compensation. Close partnerships between scientists, engineers, teachers, policymakers, and community partners in science education (science centers, museums, etc.) would invigorate the trust-based connections needed for 21st-century science education and policy transformations.

The many flavours of STEAM education for an inclusive environment

<p>STEAM is often seen as the integration of an art form into the teaching of sciences. Although that is not necessarily wrong, it is a very limited view of the powerful tool that STEAM learning can be. Just like a pizza, STEAM education can have “many flavours” and each of these “flavours” can be focused on with different intensities.</p> <p>POLAR STAR is an Erasmus project that focuses on innovative educational methods. One of its pillars is an innovative STEAM methodology that focuses on delivering an engaging education for a diverse classroom. To make the methodology more understandable, the team has come up with an amusing exercise called “the pizza challenge”. It invites teachers to create a pizza. The aim is to reflect on the fact that even for a specific diet (for e.g., vegan), different people with choose different ingredients and flavours according to their likes and dislikes. Similarly, in a classroom, each student will have their likes and dislikes, their interests, their way of thinking and of working, turning them into unique “consumers”. With this parallel, teachers realize that it is important to offer different “flavours” to different students in a classroom.</p> <p>The POLAR STAR methodology offers teachers a variety of lesson planners, focusing on the different flavours of STEAM. It guides teachers into reflecting on their students and choosing one or more activity templates for a given lesson. These templates can focus on <strong>S</strong>TEAM (with special emphasis on a science-based activity), on ST<strong>E</strong>AM (with special emphasis on an engineering-based activity) and on STE<strong>A</strong>M (with special emphasis on an arts-based activity). By diversifying the way they deliver their lessons teachers will be reaching a wider diversity of students and providing them with more engaging, motivational and interactive activities.</p> <p>POLAR STAR integrates these methodologies in a diverse kit of activities provided for teachers and students, following the different activity templates, in the fields of Astronomy and Polar Science, as well as holistic interdisciplinary learning approach, based on the Big Ideas of Science.</p> <p>All teachers are welcome in the project and can find more information on the projects’ website: http://polar-star.ea.gr/. During this talk the STEAM methodology to deliver Astronomy and Polar Science interactive lessons will be presented.</p>

How Teachers use Formative Assessment Strategies during Teaching: Evidence from the Classroom

Using lesson observations, the study reported in this article explores how two practising secondary mathematics teachers implemented formative assessment actions in their classroom teaching. The study also investigated whether teachers’ beliefs about teaching and assessment could be mapped onto their classroom practices. In particular, while the two teachers were implementing student portfolio assessment in their own Year 9 mathematics lessons, the classroom observations focused on how they utilised formative assessment actions such as clarifying and sharing learning criteria intentions and criteria for success; activating students as instructional resources; and, providing feedback that moves learners forward. The findings suggest that one of the teachers made better use of formative assessment or assessment for learning actions while the other showed an emerging understanding of such ideas. A holistic analysis of teachers’ actions point to possible links to their beliefs about teaching and assessment. These findings imply that some teachers may hold productive beliefs about teaching and assessment that support the use formative assessment actions more readily. Such productive beliefs provide a useful platform for enacting better assessments inside secondary classrooms, given that there is paucity of research that deals with how secondary teachers make use of formative assessments. The findings implicitly confirm that better use of formative assessment strategies tend to result in more interactive lessons.

Experience in introducing a new interactive format of lectures at clinical departments and the attitude of students towards them

The modern model of education and the present conditions demand of the teacher to choose the latest teaching methods. The teacher is no longer the main source of information, he should manage education, implementing competence-based study methods. In order to achieve this, the latest teaching methods are introduced in Bogomolets National Medical University with the new lecture frameworks. Changing the lecture style at a medical universities and, in particular, using the modern lecture educational technologies provide important conditions for improving training future doctors. As Bogomolets National Medical University experience shows, this provides opportunity for turning traditional lectures into interactive lessons to increase students’ interest, to provide improved material perception through the dialogue between the lecturer and students. The article presents the results of surveys of 387 students conducted at the Department of Internal Medicine №3, as well as generalized information regarding students’ evaluation of changes in the lecture framework and the implementation of new training methods in Bogomolets National Medical University. According to the survey results, most students are satisfied with the quality of the updated lecture frameworks at the therapeutic departments. The main characteristics of the lectures that teachers need to pay attention to in order to improve the lecture quality have been analyzed separately. In the view of the students, the best features of the lectures are: actuality, availability of material, structure and laconicism, informativeness, interactivity, video footage using, practical orientation of the presentation, illustration and sufficient number of visuals, an opportunity to be engaged in dialogue with lecturer. Students find traditional attendance control useless, the majority of respondents supported free lecture attendance.

EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS OF THE ELECTRONIC LEARNING PROCESS IMPLEMENTATION IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

The COVID-19 pandemic that began a year ago was marked by mass isolation of the population and transition to the remote interaction in many areas of human life. In this regard the ability of the domestic vocational education system to fully function through electronic, mobile and remote forms and means of carrying out educational activities is of particular importance. Thus, the problem arises of choosing a software platform for a distance education system that can meet the criteria for organizing and implementing a high-quality and uninterrupted educational process at a university under conditions of distance learning. The article presents the experience of implementing e-learning in the conditions of isolation of students and teachers of Rostov State University of Economics (RINH). The purpose of the article is to analyze the educational capabilities of the Module distance education system based on the experience of its practical application. The research methods used are methods for collecting and accumulating data, methods of assessment and experiential learning. The practical use of the Module system has revealed such shortcomings as the lack of the possibility of conducting interactive lessons in the mode of videoconferencing and the built-in system for testing students' knowledge. Nevertheless, the authors have concluded that the platform is acceptable for solving educational problems. The experience gained in distance learning made it possible to determine the main subsystems that software tools for implementing the distance learning process must meet