Čakovec PMGY meeting - notes and recordings

Platform for Motivated and Gifted Youth’s Docs Čakovec PMGY meeting - notes and recordings

You are currently viewing a revision titled "Sharing expertise in educational support for gifted and motivated youth - notes and recordings", saved on 2012-03-23 at 20:07 by Ivan Novosel
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Sharing expertise in educational support for gifted and motivated youth - notes and recordings
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Sharing expertise in educational support for gifted and motivated youth

Notes and recordings prepared by Elizabeth Mc Donnell

 

A: Presentation themes

 

Theme/ Topic Features/ purpose/interest Challenges/ questions
Centres of excellence
  • Informing business by knowledge from students
  • Network of companies (international)
 
Better policies towards young people Dealing with the political /state system
  • Importance of contacts and meetings/ involvement
  • Personal stories – politicians and policy makers with personal experience/ motivated to act
  • Wider impact – cannot do everything or work alone
  • To what end? Better than?
Summer schools/camps
  • Focussed and intensive
  • Across a range of disciplines or one e.g. mathematics
  • Taste of the ‘real thing’
  • Can be creative and innovative (not constrained by institutional needs/norms)
  • Mentor-student ratio high
  • Mentors may lack skills /training (pedagogical, group-work, psychological)
  • Limited capacity – funding for accommodation/ travel
  • Reliance on volunteers
  • Limited collaboration with schools; limited community reach (PR)
  • Different levels of prior learning
Cross-sector knowledge transfer
  • Between business and academia
  • Transfer of knowledge from universities to economy
  • Talented young students / schools connect with universities and business
 
Connecting scientists/ science to the school curriculum   Collaboration between scientists and teachers
  • Recognition/ fits school agenda
  • Buy-in from teachers / school
  • Start close to curriculum / build relationship then innovate – make curriculum contemporary
  • Interdisciplinary/ multidisciplinary approach?
  • Improve communication between scientists and teachers
  • Improve science communication skills
  • Make use of e-platforms and online repositories; update to maintain interest
  • Balance between working with existing curriculum and adding something new
  • Some subjects way outside school curriculum / little match
Scientific workshops
  • Undergraduate students and young scientists develop and facilitate the workshops
  • Training and support
  • Better means of mentor training
  • Evaluation – knowing what works, impact?
  • Working with primary school children. Older age groups?
Physics for gifted students
  • School-Institute of Physics, each provides input
  • Students motivated but teachers? Scientists? What do they get out of it?
Science Academy/ choosing careers
  • Helping students to know what they want to study, their options
  • Connect high school students with the professions
  • How to measure efficiency of e.g .orientation meetings?
 
  • (in Croatia) perception that university education will lead to high salaries; vocational education least attractive yet skilled young people needed
  • Self-perpetuating loop- vocational teachers ‘second rate’
Grow knowledge and skills of teachers in educating young people    
Rethink education at university level    
Open Curriculum / autonomy of schools
  • School can design a curriculum suited to local context; work with local economy, community
  • Blend of state-defined curriculum, extensions to it and new additions
  • (Slovenia) confined to secondary vocational and technical schools/ not mainstream
Self-paced learning
  • Young people who like to learn (motivated and gifted?) but hate the school system
  • Responsibility for own learning
  • Independency- do not accept given knowledge/ challenge
  • Learning skills
  • Joy of discovery
  • giftedness’ isn’t enough for doing science; different competencies
  • Change in role: from teaching to guiding; from assessing to tracking
  • Extracurricular is not an alternative curriculum
Inquiry –based learning    
Working in difficult social conditions
  • can be innovative; work outside institutional requirements
  • children/ young people as agents of change?
  • Building skills, self-confidence, awareness
  • Science as empowerment
  • Social purpose of science – to bring about change? Do good?
Working with students from very different backgrounds
  • More possibilities to work with disadvantaged students if move to student-centred and active learning?
  • Need for students to experience success
  • Challenging social situations
  • Change in culture – from passive to active learning
  • Teacher resistance; lack of skills
  • Changing government policy
Science and conflict management
  • Indirect – not work directly on areas of conflict
  • Build relationships, networks
  • Skills and aptitudes of relevance in conflict management?
  • Focus on children – is this enough?

 

 

B: Ideas

Swapshop
  • Individuals swap between disciplines – new group, new area
  • Challenges, different experience
May not participate well or be interested
Interactive lectures
  • Meeting with experts in the fields
  • Able to ask questions, interact
  • Does it favour the more confident? How interactive?
Teaching and research through games
  • Open up learning in different ways; through play
  • University students
  • Perception of students – waste of time, don’t recognise their own learning
Self-determination
  • Listening to young people/ children – letting them decide
  • Set limits / boundaries
 
Dancing molecules    
Slash mob    
Scientists in schools    
Teacher education on science workshops    
Competitions    

 

 

C: Ideas developed following sharing and discussion (26th Feb)

 

  Idea for an activity Key elements Outcomes/ purpose How to start?
1. Exchange/ volunteering -abroad -pupils or teachers -practice a language - behind the scene of an event (festival, camp) - discovering a new culture -exchange emails and personal contacts
2. Share educational material/ projects website/ collaborative for teachers/ mentors   -share methods of teaching/ subjects -improve teaching -who is in charge? -project proposals - who is working on it? -is it international or not? (language problem) Build on existing/ online repositories of teaching materials, open source
3. Case study-based collaborative strategies -perspectives (approaches) -problems faced -solutons - advisor group, database? Forum- focus question (i.e. evolution for students of 8-12 years)
4. Science teacher exchange/ primary school   Collaboration with national agencies to help dissemination of results -gathering teachers to improve class experience -exchange (and create) an international curriculum -observing real classes in other countries     To provide better teaching to students Duration of 3 hrs or more Find us the money!   (EU Lifelong Learning programme – Leonardo)
5. Project or curriculum based on student inquiry/ questions/ ideas -introduction to the topics - develop questions or ideas of projects - perform the projects -long-term project in class or advanced-level after summer camp -go further with what we do - for all youth? Obstacles -we don’t know / not skilled yet -time and money -organization -can’t do the all program    
6. Travelling science playground -cheap creative equipment -kids can freely play with this -teachers are allowed to watch them but there are separate activities for them -playground travels from school to school - international mentors -raising interest in science experiments through game - identification of motivated kids and teachers Collaboration with the county in fall 2012
7. Joint education for mentors and teachers -teaching us for us -get professional help -use old experience -better mentors -more mentors -good documentation -refresh knowledge In Zagreb, SSF people already do it. - online communication
8. International exchange of mentors -money -joint planning -language -diversity of workshops -perspective -schedule of calls for mentors -money!
9. Seeing Maths as an experimental science -computer -good problems -games (board games, card games, strategy) - ‘see’ the maths -aid some clever pupils who are not ‘math’ orientated (in a traditional sense) -find the place -the problems
10. Annual newsletter of activities Individually towards schools AND pupils Better communication towards schools Annual plan in advance

 

 

D: Discussion topic: What do we mean by ‘gifted’/ ‘motivated?

 

(Recordings from group discussion of Sat 25th Feb.)

Gifted: talented, highly-capable, intelligent, clever; above average, fast learner, communicator;

Motivated: hard-working, wanting to change one’s life; driven, passionate, curious, interested,

 

Issues/ questions

  • Identifying motivated is easy; identifying gifted is?
  • Gifted is hidden, you can see motivation; motivation is variable, you can modify it. Context-dependent
  • Gifted are, by definition, motivated?
  • What is our real goal when we work with gifted/ motivated kids? To help them or to recruit them?
  • Experts can define gifted – we should listen to them, have criteria. Don’t agree – expert criteria my not work/ be right. Do we need to define/ follow the official line? We are working with unofficial education.
  • Do we see gifted as a ‘dirty’ word? That we should not tell them that they are gifted? Acknowledge that they exist/ not all the same ability.
  • Gifted can create problems – social/ egos/ self-absorbed; gifted have their own way of thinking.
  • Balance – encourage v be realistic, not all can/ will realise their dreams.
  • What is the role of the teacher?

 

(Recordings from group discussion on Monday 27th Feb)

Gifted/ motivated

  • we don’t know what ‘gifted’ is – won’t use the word anymore; motivated we know
  • there is a clear difference between gifted and motivated
  • we work with motivated, gifted may be amongst them
  • in Croatia, must use the term ‘gifted’ for funding purposes, not motivated; in France, must not use gifted, use motivated (national context); buzz words
  • not important that kids are gifted but important that they are motivated; recognize that some are gifted
  • motivation can be developed, gifted is inherited
  • working with science for social action, focus not on gifted
  • need to work on motivation
  • unrealistic social expectation from gifted (Croatia); not helpful
  • gifted and motivated should appear together – need both

 

Purpose in working with gifted / motivated

  • develop skills; motivation needs developing- be curious, ask questions ok to be wrong
  • good’ qualities of children often lost through the education system
  • See a need to do something different to the official educational system
  • Need to be specific on what you want to achieve (France)
  • Too much emphasis on initial purpose may miss added value / emergent, unexpected outcomes
  • Keep up level of motivation – it spreads; work with those with the potential for motivation

E: Different organizations – exploration of similarities and differences in activities / projects

SSF – science workshops; Uni Paris 11 – interdisciplinary BA; PMF Zg- chemistry education, inquiry-based; Os Spinut- facilitating teaching; CERI- games in education, research in education

MNM- math workshops, projects

 

Similarities: small groups; project work; we experiment with teaching; kids think themselves; critical and creative thinking developed

Different but generalizable.

 

Similarities: Become a ‘researcher’; experimentation, present your results; meeting with scientists; difficulties to work in schools without teachers; diversity: mix of social / geog. Backgrounds

Specificities: local, national, international – scope of target; cost of mentor- volunteers, paid; type of actions- camps, long-duration projects, festival.

 

Similarities:flexible approach (personalised approach); small groups; active and interactive programs; directed to motivated students

Differences: Collaboration with local business needs?; different ways of communication with students and teachers in gov. schools; competition

 

F: Discussion of issues identified by group members (25th and 26th Feb)

  1. Continuity/ irregular attendance
    • Give responsibility, students have a choice
    • Create sense of community – use internet/ keep link, contact between sessions
    • Be prepared to say ‘ bye bye’ (both to students and to mentors)
  2. Funding

  • Small organizations need to collaborate
  • Apply for projects that have a wider appeal than one’s own target group
  • Start small/ gradual, then increase

 

  1. Attracting children from socially-deprived backgrounds

  • Go directly to where people are from such backgrounds are
  • Market your work- use visuals
  • Language may be a barrier (lack of confidence)
  • Ask on website to fill out a short form/ leave info – build up a database of direct contacts

 

  1. How to persuade politicians and policy-makers of the value of our work?

  • Get politicians involved in the project in some way
  • Involve media e.g via involvement of a celebrity / well-known person

 

5. How to empower and not impose?

  • Have activities to collect ideas and get thoughts
  • Do not push too hard – help in expressing ideas and thoughts

 

G. Summer school discussion (27th Feb)

  • Meeting / learning with different people; not necessarily different methods
  • Education in school not good enough, say it!
  • Not our job to change the curriculum – that of government but not doing it; civil society and teacher doing it (Croatia)
  • Working outside the system but want to change the system
  • Whose job – gov? civil society

 

 

 

H: Action planning (27th Feb)

Participants wanted to go further and develop some of the ideas from the previous 2 days.

 

Proposals

  Title Strengths Potential Concerns
1 Change the policy about ‘giftedness’ So we won’t need to work ‘in the dark’; do the good stuff without the buzzword stuff To change how we are funded and to strengthen our reach How to communicate it to politicians; how to articulate our arguments (it’s abstract)
2 Develop project-based curriculum For deeper understanding of the subject, methods – reusable knowledge, increasing motivation, increasing awareness of usefulness of science Complement of traditional teaching methods Teachers’ constraints more expensive? More time-consuming
3 Influencing the Ministry/ Regional authorities to support the SSCs Together we are stronger normalising of the work; growth, sustainability, visibility Lack of political will and envy of the official systems (science competitions); lack of straightforward indicators of the value of SSCs.
4 Mind Twister Workshop Incorporation interdisciplinary scientific workshops into summer schools Easy to design and perform Adaptable and reusable ideas/format Motivating students for exploration of various areas of science Adaptable to any age Additional diversity in summer schools Design of challenging workshops for advanced student Lack of mentors (exchange!) Possible lack of interest(unlikely)
5 Retired Educational Hobby Inclusion of ‘grand’ people and grandchildren Quality time together Memory from childhood Using experience (skills and knowledge) Transferring tradition/culture Quality Training of them Not easy
6. Workshops with families      

 

Participants split into 2 groups. One group developed topic 3 (influencing the Ministry/ Regional authorities) and the other, topic 4 (Incorporation of interdisciplinary workshops into summer schools).

 

 

 

I: Useful websites

  • MERLOT: academic repository for teaching materials; professionally curated
  • comPADre: academic repository for teaching materials in physics; professionally curated
  • Scienceamusante.net (in French, Google translator is your friend): teaching materials in chemistry/ physics; very detailed in all aspects; activities, security, materials
  • howtosmile.org: use of science activities by museums of science
  • instructables.com: practical step-by-step tutorials on how to make or do stuff; it’s free and open; anybody can post stuff
  • USTREAM: simple iPhone/Android phone applications for live video streaming and recording
  • Khanacademy.org: short, simple teaching videos explaining basic maths
  • www.artofproblemsolving.com : forum and a repository of maths problems and solutions
  • salto-youth.net and otlas.eu: websites for finding partners for international projects of non-formal education (part of the Youth in Action programmes)
  • Teacher blogs: Dan Myer – maths; Think, Thank, Thunk – mostly physics but more; Ira Socol- special education and tech in school
  • Action-Reaction (Frank Noschrence) – modelling physics

 

 

Elizabeth Mc Donnell

[email protected]

http://ifacilitate.co.uk/

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