Report on the Participatory Engagement Activities

This deliverable D6.4 describes the Participatory Engagement Activities (Task 6.2) thattook place in the 2nd year of the project and consists of three major parts. Part 1 describesthe Go-Lab contest “Teaching Through Inquiry”, which constitutes an online participationengagement activity. The contest was launched to engage teachers in Go-Lab activitiesand familiarise them with the Go-Lab system. Teachers were asked to create a lessonplan following the Go-Lab inquiry cycle which would include the use of at least one GoLabonline lab. After National Coordinators‟ evaluation, teachers with the two winningentries from each country invited to attend the Go-Lab summer School in Marathon,Greece between the 13th and 18th of July.Part 2 describes the 2nd Go-Lab summer school and the activities performed. During theSummer school the courses included lectures and workshops focusing on the introductionto the concepts and the idea of the Go-Lab project, lessons on preparing, uploading andsharing digital learning resources and scenarios using the Go-Lab tools, presentation ofinquiry-based learning activities from the Go-Lab repository, familiarisation with the GoLabrepository and its content, hands-on sessions working with the Graasp authoringenvironment, with Go-Lab on-line labs and other external resources. Furthermore, pilotingevaluation activities and semi guided interviews took place offering significant input to theproject. Specifically, during the interviews teachers had the opportunity to express theiropinion-reflection about (on): a) their current teaching practices, b) the Go-Lab authoringenvironment, they have been presented with, and c) the potential of building communitiesof teachers and learners in order to nurture the upgrading of the teachers understandingabout inquiry-based learning and especially their science teaching (pedagogicalmentoring) skills. It was reported a) use of labs but limited use of online labs, which opensup great opportunities for Go-Lab, b) satisfaction of the Graasp authoring environmentbecause it supports the Inquiry Based Learning method, c) belief that the opportunity toproduce their own ILS can lead to better educational results and that they serve theirteaching needs. As main barriers of use of the Go-Lab system in classroom identified thecompatibility with the curriculum and the insufficiency of the appropriate infrastructure. Inconclusion, it was expressed strong belief that a community and supporting environmentshould be built.Part 3 describes the methodology, the format, and the implementation of the PracticeReflection Workshops (PRWs) of the first period, the methodology of data collection andanalysis, and the main outcomes of the PRWs. For the collection of teachers‟ reflectionthere were used both quantitative and qualitative data. The most important outcome of theanalysis of teachers‟ reflection is their positive response to the Go-Lab initiative. Inparticular, they identify great chances for Go-Lab as the believe that the use of online labscan increase the attractiveness of education, that students can use online labs at home isattractive, that online labs will motivate students more than the current school practice andthat students will learn more with online labs. Furthermore, there appear greatimplementation perspectives for Go-Lab as teachers appear positive almost to all therelevant statements of the questionnaire. However, some important issues are identifiedas crucial for the implementation of Go-Lab, such as the compatibility with the curriculum,the limited didactic knowledge of teachers on using online labs, the requirement fortraining for teachers so that they can use the Go-Lab portal and the fact that schoolsshould give teachers additional time to prepare their lessons based on the online labs.According to the qualitative data, teachers reported their satisfaction with the pedagogicalframework and the inquiry methodology but they think that there are misunderstandings in the implementation of the idea of the inquiry based learning approach. Teachers havealso positive attitudes towards Graasp as the Inquiry Learning Spaces (ILSs) authoringenvironment but they think that they cannot use it without adequate training. Finally, themost common barriers of use of the Go-Lab system identified were the following:compatibility with the curriculum, lack of the adequate infrastructure (computers, stronginternet connection), availability of the Go-Lab system in other languages, teachers‟illiteracy on online lab and ICT in general and time constrains in the classroom.The main problems of the Go-Lab implementation that emerged during the PRWs willeasily be solved by the tutoring platform of the project that is already designed. The aim ofthe platform is to provide guidance to teachers on the use of Go-Lad and that way thesupport to teachers will be improved