GoScience – creativity and enhanced comprehension in science teaching and learning

Topic(s) addressed

Learning together, promoting creativity and sustainability

Target groups

22 professional schools

20 general secondary schools

103 science teachers

1801 students

Methodologies

• A systematic approach to science teaching and learning focused on comprehension using music, theatre, graphics, video and story-telling

• Changing the students’ focus from memorizing to understanding by encouraging them to look for solutions and explanations of scientific phenomena (with further revision by the teachers)

• Linking natural phenomena and everyday life situations with scientific concepts by making these concepts “alive” with an image, performance, music or a story

• GoScience relates different scientific concepts across different grades in the curricula and across different sciences.

Environments

GoScience focused on: 

• Building a critical mass of “teachers-innovators” who can be the leaders of change for their colleagues in STEM education.

• Including school administrations to support "teachers-innovators".

• Supporting creativity and sustainability in creating scientific educational tools - building on the networking effect between teachers and students from different grades, schools and countries. 

• The database of tools in GoScience is dynamic and allows both teachers and students to add content from all EU countries. 

Teachers

• Comprehension can be developed as any other ability. It is not only important but crucial for the education process as it is responsible for the most difficult task– acquiring and processing information, integrating new and existing knowledge and then applying it in everyday life.

• The teachers’ training organized under the GoScience project focuses on giving the science teachers knowledge and skills to implement in their practice an innovative methodology for enhancing comprehension.

Impact

• Boosting the skills and knowledge of all participants – both teachers and students

• Developing new ways of supporting the educational process in sciences - dynamic database of pedagogical tools that can be accessed and augmented freely in different languages by teachers and students from all over the world (all tools are checked for scientific relevance and correctness by the teachers trained under GoScience). 

• The approach allows improvement of scientific understanding also for participants with fewer opportunities because it is tailored to learners’ individual needs and capabilities.