Goerudio - Promoting science education
The aim of the project is to create a learning community of European teachers and students in order to carry out a common analysis and reflection on the theme of how to make scientific issues more attractive to students, how to promote and share teaching methods and tools.
The project rationale relies on the shared identification of common challenges that the educational and training systems - within the partners’ countries and Europe in general - are facing and that need a common effort in order to find an answer to:
- the lack of motivation of secondary and vocational education students in studying scientific related topics, and the related insufficient results that they achieve during their school curricula;
- the lack of capacity of teachers and trainers in updating their teaching methods in order to promote the interest of their students toward scientific issues;
In this context the European Commission has financed the “Goerudio” project in the framework of the Lifelong Learning Programme (KA4 Dissemination and Exploitation of Results, and Exchange of Good Practice).
The current proposal intends to build on the existing experiences, explore the results of other projects addressing the promotion of scientific knowledge and innovative practices and methods aiming at putting the learner at the centre of the educational and training process and to involve teachers and students as the protagonists of an international peer-to-peer learning community to share, disseminate and exploit the best practices available in the field at European level.
This general aim will be achieved through these specific objectives:
- Promoting mutual comprehension between teachers and students that will share and match their everyday experiences in dealing with the teaching and learning of scientific issues, to understand what are the main obstacles to correct and effective transfer and acquisition of knowledge in scientific matters
- Enhancing the interest and stimulating the active learning process of pupils of all educational levels, concerning scientific issues, by sharing and exploiting the most effective experiences that promote an inquiry-based, interactive and exciting approach to the understanding of science
The aim is to create a network among teachers and students of different European countries and institutions for the exchange and comparison of experiences and knowledge in order to develop and exploit a new approach to science teaching and learning, to be used to make students acquire the necessary skills to manage their own learning process and thus be prepared to address sciences not as a mere set of information to be memorised to “survive” at school, but as a necessary part of their future personal development.
The Goerudio project can ensure a consistent impact on its direct target groups: students and teachers of secondary and vocational schools.
Basic information
The Goerudio project aims to promote scientific knowledge at all levels of education by implementing innovative strategies.
Teachers have to face a major challenge coming from the fact that the speed of the development of scientific knowledge is constantly increasing, so that too often the gap between the lessons and the teaching materials used and the evolution of research is increasing and leads to demotivation both of the teachers and of the students.
This phenomenon risks creating concrete and consistent obstacles to the achievement of some of the main objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy aims related to competitiveness and the excellence of scientific research in Europe and its capacity to answer and anticipate the needs of the market and the promotion of science education and knowledge among European citizens.
Many initiatives addressing the theme of promoting scientific knowledge have been financed by the European Commission. There are for example Lifelong Learning Projects such as Chemistry Is All Around Network, EnergeTIC project, Clim@TIC project, and FP7 projects such as My Science, etc.
All these initiatives have in common not only interest in scientific issues, but also the effort to develop innovative ICT-based teaching approaches to make science learning more attractive and interactive. The Goerudio project for its part is strongly promoting a model of learning and teaching based on fostering the active role of students in their learning process.
With the aim of identifying the needs of the teachers and students and issues and impediments raised in teaching/learning sciences, the project consortium conducted two main research activities. One of them is related to identifying science teachers’ experiences in adopting teaching methods to promote students’ interest towards scientific issues and science students’ experiences describing their difficulties and successes in learning science, both being summarised in the national reports analysing the teachers’ and students’ experiences. The second research activity was conducted delivered at European level to identify and create a collection of previous and current projects and initiatives focusing on the promotion of innovative practices for teaching scientific subjects.
The project’s main activities are:
- Collection of Teaching and Learning Experiences
The aim of this activity is to involve science teachers and students in the sharing of their teaching and learning experiences. Results:
- Creation of a network of science teachers and students in the seven project countries
- Collection of teachers’ experiences
- Collection of students’ experiences
- Assessment of Projects and Initiatives in the field of science education
- Database of reviews of existing initiatives in the field of science teaching and learning
- Learning Community
- Forum discussion
- Facebook page
- Teaching and learning resources for science education
- Communication campaign
- National seminars on science education
The aim of this activity is to create, in cooperation with students and teachers, a database of reviews of existing projects and initiatives in the field of science teaching and learning. Results:
The aim of this activity is to promote the creation of a learning community for science teachers and students in order to discuss and share knowledge and experiences on the theme of how to make scientific education more engaging. Teachers and students will also be involved in the development of teaching resources for scientific subjects. Results:
A number of seminars and events will be organised to share the project’s results. Results: