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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)
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Better policies towards young peopleDealing 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
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- To what end? Better than?
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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
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- 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
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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
3.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
4.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/ |