Report of the first PARSELWorkshop

Report of the 1st PARSEL workshop held at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, 26-28th October 2006.

Present were :

Wolfgang, Gräber, Martin Lindner, Annette Schön, Ivo Hammer (IPN (Kiel) - Germany); Claus Bolte (University of Berlin - Germany); Cecilia Galvão (University of Lisbon- Portugal); Claus Michelsen, Niels Kring (University of Odense – Denmark); Miia Rannikmäe (University of Tartu, Estonia); Avi Hofstein, Rachel Mamlok-Naaman (Weizmann Institute - Israel). Piotr Szybek (University of Lund- Sweden); Georgios Tsaparlis (University of Ioannina – Greece); Jack Holbrook (ICASE).

The meeting got underway with a presentation by Annette Schön on management and funding of the project. Special attention was placed on dealings with the European Commission, the rules and regulations pertaining to this and what constitutes eligible and non-eligible costs. The presentation drew attention to the terms in the contract and especially the method of payment in two pre-financing steps (one in month 3 covering 65% of months 1-18 and amounting to 331,500€ and the other in month 18) plus a final payment approximately 6 months after the end of the project.

(The powerpoint presentation on this can be viewed on the project website (www.parsel.eu)

The management structure for PARSEL was further clarified by reviewing section 6 of the Description of Work agreed by the partners with the European Commission.

The requirements, given as a powerpoint presentation, can be viewed here

An afternoon presentation by Ivo Hammer showed the progress on the PARSEL website and initiated discussion on what should be included. Ivo demonstrated an editing capability which could enable all partners to add components to the website. Following the discussion the website was developed further and development is expected to be an ongoing process in the months leading up to the second PARSEL meeting in May 2007.

A powerpoint presentation then followed which illustrated the main features of the description of work, especially those geared to the work packages and the involvement of each of the partners.

The powerpoint presentation, illustrating the main features, can be viewed here.

2. The second day was devoted to presentations by the partners which illustrated the work in which they were involved, a simple overview of the education system in their country and materials with which they were involved.

The powerpoint presentations can be seen here

The presentations showed the current involvement of the partners in teaching-learning activities and the areas of emphases they have placed on different age groups and subject orientations. These ranged from secondary level (largely upper secondary) to University (+3 on the Bologna system) level and from science (and technology) for all as the focus to chemistry and engineering teaching. Besides curriculum considerations, presentations mentioned research which focused on the interest and relevance of school science for students and the ownership of teachers with respect to promoting scientific literacy

3. The third day completed the presentations and then focused on the work ahead. It focused on the decision making required for the project to get underway, the steps to be taken by each partner to fulfill the milestones given in the description of work and dealing with concerns which arose.

A powerpoint presentation ( view it here ) was used to initiate the discussion on the meaning of popularity, relevance and scientific literacy that are appropriate with the philosophy given in the description of work document. Based on the initial suggestions in the powerpoint slides, a framework was put forward for classifying materials and the emphasis of direction of materials that would be appropriate. This took the form of suggesting preferences for materials collected:

(a) which focused on helping the teacher, rather than targeting the student (student material tends to be long and will lead to translation problems);

(b) detailed competences (learning outcomes) to be achieved, teaching approaches, student activities and assessment (feedback ) mechanisms for their design;

(c) which were related to a philosophy which encompassed science education as promoting education through the nature of science (including process skills) framework, personal development framework (covering cognitive, attitudinal, communicative and attributes e.g. initiative, ingenuity, safe working, perseverance) and social development framework encompassing cooperative working, leadership skill and the development of social values exhibited through socio-scientific decision making activities;

(d) which had relevance and were viewed as promoting popularity of science in general and school science in particular;

(e) which promoted a teaching approach that emphasised student involvement and responsibility, directed by a personal/social issue or concern and which included the higher order cognitive and conceptual science learning on a ‘need to know’ basis.

It was also indicated that - while a social focus was stressed (and personal skills were to be included), the learning was likely to be dominated (unless a specific individual lesson was considered) by the nature of science and cognitive demands associated with the subject. Teaching-learning materials which omitted conceptual science were not seen as appropriate. The philosophy was thus education through science rather than education through philosophy, psychology, or history etc, isolated from the conceptual science learning.

4. The meeting concluded with a general discussion. This drew attention to the 3 milestones which need to be attained before the end of 2006. These were:

(i) Intentions of each partner with respect to the project. This milestone enables each partner to give their perception of the project and the direction they perceive the project as going. By collecting these views the leader of work package 1 can ascertain the common ownership of PARSEL and any steps need to be taken during the 1st steering committee meeting to redress any misconceptions.

(ii) Agreeing guidelines for materials/resources to be collected (see point 3 above).

(iii) Agreeing a procedure for classifying materials. This refers to the process rather than the actual classifying (we won’t have the materials to classify until the next meeting). This procedure covers (for example):

Classifying materials as - (a) for teachers; (b) for students; (c) resource material.

Material for teachers, or students can be classified by -

(i) title

(ii) number of lessons covered;

(iii) age group/grade level of students;

(iv) conceptual science components to which related;

(v) learning focus – one or more of (NOS/process skills; cognitive learning; personal learning; social learning/socio-scientific decision making).

Resource materials can be classified based on -

(i) title

(ii) target audience

(iii) content focus

(iv) value of the materials (innovative value)

The discussion led partners to agree:

(i) the need for an agreement among partners on procedures and progress, especially with respect to the undertaking of publications by some or all of the partners relevant to intellectual property within PARSEL. This is scheduled as a subject of steering committee meetings;

(ii) the need for an external quality assurance group and agreed that this would consist of 3 persons. It was agreed that the identify of the persons would be finalized at the steering committee meeting, or failing that at the next meeting of the group in Israel in May 2007;

(iii) that the next meeting would be held in Israel in May 2007 (dates to be clarified later) and the third meeting in Sweden in late August. It was also suggested that an interactive poster presentation/symposium on PARSEL by some of the partners would take place in:

(a) ICASE world conference, July 2007

(b) ESERA, August 2007

(c) NARST, April 2008

The Coordinator encouraged all to enable Skype to aid further communication and thanked the University, and Cecelia in particular, for hosting the meeting.