ESERA CYPRUS Summary

1. Alexandra Okada

2. ESERA is one of the most important events in Science
Education in Europe.
The theme of the 2013 conference was Science Education
Research for Evidence-based Teaching and Coherence in
Learning. It underlined key aspects of contemporary science
education research:
• Reflecting on different approaches
• Enhancing knowledge of learning processes
• Understanding the role of context,
• Exploring new opportunities for formal or non-formal
learning
• Innovating science education research and practice.
Summary about the Conference
02-07 of September 2013
Alexandra Okada

3. KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Louise Archer - Why ‘liking science’ is not enough: Understanding young people’s science and career aspirations
Hans Ernst Fischer - The matter of trustworthiness in research on science education
Andrée Tiberghien - How does knowledge live in a classroom?
Brian Hand - Building understandings of the role of language in science classrooms

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6. Inquiry Based Learning presentations
• Towards a standards-based approach to teaching science by inquiry
• Teachers’ reflections on inquiry-based teaching
• Diffusion of inquiry through training activities
• Effectiveness and efficiency of inquiry teaching
• A comparative study of early learners’ engagement in scientific inquiry in the U.S. and Germany
• Developing investigations with a lower level of difficulty for teachers: Experiments in small groups
and collective conceptualization work in science
• How does a teacher’s action enable or not students to adopt scientific ways of acquiring knowledge?
• Trainee teachers in the primary classroom: The role of questions in developing a sequence of
inquiry-based classes
• Common challenges in improving science education in different educational systems across Europe
• SUN – An effective model for teacher professional development and school development in science
• Science teachers’ individual and social learning related to IBSE in the frames of a large-scale, long-
term, collaborative TPD project
• Learning with and about modeling as a tool for teaching through modeling

7. • Inquiry based primary science: lessons from experiences in English classrooms
• Assesment of three PriSciNet activities in a French primary school: a first qualitative analysis
• Promoting IBSE in the 6-8 age group in Greece as part of the PriSciNet project
• Experiences from the Pri-Sci-Net project: Testing IBSE activities with young primary level children in Germany
• Science, Technology, Environment, Society (STES) Literacy for Sustainability: What should it take in Science
Education?
• Using the inquiry laboratory to teach asking question cognitive skill
• Problem Solving – moving students to tackle more open ended problems
• Environmental Citizenship: Evidence-based Promoting ASSESSMENT of complex LEARNING for sustainability
Inquiry Based Learning presentations

8. • Stakeholders’ views on science education in Europe: Method and first insights of the profiles international
curricular Delphi study on science education
• Stakeholders’ views of science education: PROFILES curricular Delphi study in Finland
• A comparative analysis of stakeholders’ views on science education from five different profiles partner
countries
• Stakeholders’ views on empirically based concepts for science education to enhance scientific literacy –
Results from the third round of the PROFILES international curricular Delphi study on science education

9. ESTABLISH (European Science and Technology in Action: Building Links with Industry, Schools and Home) is a
four year (2010-2013) The overall objective of this project is to facilitate and implement an inquiry-based
approach to science education for second level students (age 12-18 years) on a widespread scale across
Europe by bringing together, within a collaborative environment, the specific key stakeholders in science
education.
The aim of ESTABLISH is to create authentic learning environments for science education by bringing together
and involving all the key communities in second level science education. The ESTABLISH group of over 60
partners from 11 European countries are working with these key communities including science teachers and
educators, the scientific and industrial communities, the young people and their parents, the policy makers
responsible for science curriculum and assessment and the science education research community.
"What is scientific inquiry?" … it is describes an engaging constructivist learning approach, providing
opportunities for students to search for and construct meaning from the real world and to reflect on
experiences.
PRESENTATIONS
• Bringing innovative IBSE teaching to school: A collaborative approach of university and school
• Profiling in-service teachers across Europe to determine their attitude to IBSE.
• Collecting evidence about the impact of inquiry based science education on students – The ESTABLISH
project approach
• Teachers’ and students’ views on industry-related competences.

10. ESTABLISH (European Science and Technology in Action: Building Links with Industry, Schools and Home) is a
four year (2010-2013) The overall objective of this project is to facilitate and implement an inquiry-based
approach to science education for second level students (age 12-18 years) on a widespread scale across
Europe by bringing together, within a collaborative environment, the specific key stakeholders in science
education.
The aim of ESTABLISH is to create authentic learning environments for science education by bringing together
and involving all the key communities in second level science education. The ESTABLISH group of over 60
partners from 11 European countries are working with these key communities including science teachers and
educators, the scientific and industrial communities, the young people and their parents, the policy makers
responsible for science curriculum and assessment and the science education research community.
"What is scientific inquiry?" … it is describes an engaging constructivist learning approach, providing
opportunities for students to search for and construct meaning from the real world and to reflect on
experiences.
PRESENTATIONS
• Bringing innovative IBSE teaching to school: A collaborative approach of university and school
• Profiling in-service teachers across Europe to determine their attitude to IBSE.
• Collecting evidence about the impact of inquiry based science education on students – The ESTABLISH
project approach
• Teachers’ and students’ views on industry-related competences.

11. ASSIST-ME Assess Inquiry in Science, Technology and Mathematics Education
The overall aim of ASSISTME is to provide a research base on effective uptake of formative and
summative assessment for inquiry-based, competence oriented Science, Technology and
Mathematics (STM) education in primary and secondary education in different educational
contexts in Europe and to use this research base to give policy makers and other stakeholders
guidelines for ensuring that assessment enhances learning in STM education.
Based on an analysis of what is known about summative and formative assessment of knowledge, skills and
attitudes related to key STM competences and an analysis of European educational systems, the project will
design a range of combined assessment methods. These methods will be tested in primary and secondary
schools in different educational cultures in Europe in order to analyse the conditions that support or
undermine the uptake of formative assessment related to inquiry processes.
PRESENTATIONS
• Contemporary Issues in Science Education - Discussion

12. PRI-SCI-NET is an EU funded FP7 Supporting and coordinating action (Call SiS-2010-2.2.1.1) on innovative
methods in science education: teacher training on inquiry based teaching methods on a large scale in Europe.
The project promotes Inquiry-based learning approach among primary teachers teaching science to young
children in the age range of 3-11 years. The inquiry approach involves the active engagement of children in the
learning process with emphasis on observations and achieved through authentic and problem based learning
activities where there is no need to get the correct. Children draw conclusions on the evidence collected. It
promotes student autonomy, involves discursive argumentation and communication with peers (talking
science), self regulated learning, social interaction and collaboration.
This project is about setting up a Europe-wide network for professionals and academics in the area of Primary
Science Education. The aim is to provide training and professional support to teachers to help them use Inquiry
based learning in Science in schools. The platform at European level will network professionals as well as
support the organisation of training courses. It also recognises teachers’ and researchers’ achievements in
implementing Inquiry-based learning in science, as well as provide an opportunity for teachers and academics
to share their experiences and successes.
PRESENTATION
• Policy and practice in early years science and mathematics

13. PRESEES Preparing Science Educators for Everyday Science. The aim of the project is to engage elementary and
secondary pre-service teachers in critical discussions of everyday science through socioscientific issues (SSI), and
prepare them to teach SSI. Socioscientific issues
The ability to deal with everyday scientific issues and socioscientific issues (SSI) has been recognized as an
important goal of science education (e.g. Sadler, 2009). Furthermore, the inclusion of SSI in science teaching could
move science classes towards unwrapping and engaging discussions and, thus promote dialogic
arguments, understanding the nature of science, and conceptual understanding. The inclusion of SSI in the
curriculum offers a means of expanding both the curriculum and the range of instructional practices commonly
experienced in the school science classroom. Studies in SSI so far have focused on students’ decision making (e.g.
Jiménez-Aleixandre & Pereiro-Munoz, 2002; Ratcliffe, 1996), conceptual understanding, and engagement with
science (e.g. Albe, 2008). A main gap in research however is how teachers (either pre or in-service) approach
everyday science and SSI in their teaching.
PRESENTATIONS
• Using models and SSI as a context of instruction in science: Students’ emotions and engagement

14. CoReflect (: Digital support for Inquiry, Collaboration, and Reflection on Socio-Scientific Debates) aims to bring
together eight diverse and multi-disciplinary teams from seven European states, the project members promoted
evidence-based practice in science teaching and learning, by collaborating to iteratively design, enact, critique, and
validate problem-based innovative inquiry learning environments.
These environments, which are being hosted on the STOCHASMOS web-based teaching and learning
platform, coupled data-rich scientific rigor with the flexibility and easy modifiability that is needed for widespread
adoption and use by teachers.
PRESENTATIONS
• Collaboration scripts to scaffold inquiry-based learning: An investigation of guidance
level, students’ help-seeking and teacher's help-giving activities

15. weSPOT (Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies for inquiry based learning) is a
new project supported by the European Commission launching on 1st of October 2012. weSPOT aims at
propagating scientific inquiry as the approach for science learning and teaching in combination with today's
curricula and teaching practices. It lowers the threshold for linking everyday life with science teaching in
schools by technology. weSPOT supports the meaningful contextualization of scientific concepts by relating
them to personal curiosity, experiences, and reasoning. weSPOT addresses several challenges in the area of
science learning and technology support for building personal conceptual knowledge. The project focuses on
inquiry-based learning with a theoretically sound and technology supported personal inquiry approach. In
weSPOT inquiry based-learning enviroment, co-learners will be motivated by their personal curiosities, guided
by self and collective reflections, for developing personal knowledge and collaborative scientific reasoning.
weSPOT will work on a meta-inquiry level. Its aims are:
• define a reference model for inquiry-based learning skills,
• create a diagnostic instrument for measuring inquiry skills,
• implement a working environment that allows the easy linking of inquiry activities with school curricula
and legacy systems.
PRESENTATIONS
Undergraduate Biology students' perceptions of pre-service teacher education
for using ICT in the classroom

16. Undergraduate Biology students' perceptions of pre-service teacher education for using ICT in the classroom
PhD student Andre Correa presented his doctoral research in development at ESERA . The first phase of his
investigation focused on the perceptions on use of ICT by Brazilian undergraduates who are or will soon be pre-
service Biology teachers.
His initial outcomes describe a new generation of teachers, who are familiar with new technologies like web 2.0
and mobile devices (smart phones and tablets). The majority think that they are able to apply new technologies
for Biology teaching. However, most have never used ICT during their formal learning in the University or during
their teaching training courses.
Andre Correa will analyse the use of weSPOT of this group of pre-service teachers. His research aims to identify
benefits and barriers for promoting technologies for inquiry based learning for the new generation of teachers.
These new science educators are familiar with new technologies but do not have experience nor pedagogical
models for applying technologies in their classroom.

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