The “emergency eLearning” (Murphy, 2020) caused by covid-19 pandemic forced lockdown showed us that although technologies enable online student learning, it has some shortcomings (Kidd & Murray, 2020). These are especially visible when it comes to the hands-on and learning and experiments, especially in cases like teaching and learning practical science online. Teachers and teacher educators were creating and sharing ideas about and instructions for online practical teaching and some of these can be very inspirational too (Kidd & Murray, 2020). Therefore the objectives of our project are i) create innovative experiments, hands-on and minds-on activities that are designed for online science (chemistry and biology) practical courses. These will include experiments that can be conducted at home without any special instruments and equipment as well as computer assisted and instrumentally supported (e.g. probeware) experiments and innovative 3D tools; ii) deepen the understanding of online teaching science practical courses and learning through them. The results of the project will be shared through the examples of good practice with emphasis on the identified principles included. The participants of the project are: - coordinator Charles University (CUNI), Faculty of Science, members of departments of teaching and didactics of chemistry and biology - partner University of Matej Bel (UMB), Faculty of Science, members of departments of chemistry and biology - partner University Maribor (UM), Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, members of department of biology - partner Sorbonne University (SU), Laboratoire Interfaces et Systèmes Electrochimiques (LISE) - prof Maisonhaute who prepares university students for so called agregation (exam for students become a secondary school teacher) - partner CESIRE (CESIRE) - educational centre and service that supports innovation and educational research - partner INS Sabadell (INS), a school of compulsory secondary education (ESO), post-compulsory education (Batxillerat), and vocational studies on computer science - pre-service teachers (university students) - in-service teachers and their students To meet the objectives of the project, we will i) create, evaluate and publicly share innovative experiments, hands-on and minds-on activities - experiments which can be conducted at home without any special instruments as well as instrumental supported experiments and innovative 3D tools. All the activities will be evaluated in practice either with pre-service teachers, secondary school students or both. The instructions for teachers and students will be translated to partners national languages and English and shared; ii) create, validate and use a new questionnaire (based on existing models) to collect data about how did science teachers incorporate their experience from the spring 2020 emergency online teaching into their teaching in the 2020/2021 school year and possibly in the future. We will also collect examples of good practices (using the questionnaire and recommendations of the in-service teachers aiming at specific sources and our own expertise) linked to online science practical courses. All the data will be analyzed and will enable us to understand the best ways of how to incorporate online teaching into science practical courses and possibly to practicals in general. The outputs will be used in several ways for pre- and in-service teachers in a means of increasing their pedagogical and digital competencies and content knowledge (and consequently their students): (1) Pre-service and in-service teachers (approx. 500 participants) will be part of the evaluating (piloting) the online activities and will be introduced to their benefits and possible pitfalls. (2) The final versions of experiments together with examples of good practice and the best way of implementing online practicals will be promoted in teacher training courses, professional development for in-service teachers (300 participants). These teachers, or at least some of them, will consequently use the innovative activities/units in their science teaching which will lead to approx. 15000 secondary school students supported by HomeLab outputs. (3) And the third impact meets students themselves: enabling practical work outside the laboratory, at home, outdoors can be motivating for students, and at the same time it is an opportunity to develop psychomotor skills. Estimated number minimum 25 000, in case 500 teachers use project outputs in two classes. The outputs will become an organic part of the partners’ curricula and will be incorporated into their professional development courses for in-service science teachers which they organize. The outputs will be also publicly shared on different already existing websites frequently visited by science teachers. By these means, the project will be sustainable and the outputs will be used in future education even after the project finishes.
The project was focused on fulfillment of three objectives. The project's main goal was to (1) develop didactically high-quality and verified experiments suitable for implementation in home environment. The created experiments needed to have a motivational potential, an appropriate didactic sequence, a link to the educational content of the participating countries, and be feasible with equipment and materials readily available at home or in a commercial network. The aim was to verify their functionality and the possibility of application in teaching at primary and secondary schools. Another goal of the project was (2) the development of several selected physical aids, produced mainly by 3D printing, including proposals for their implementation in teaching, again in connection with the teaching content. An essential aspect of these aids was their visibility and possibility of easy (mass) production, and emphasis was placed on their verification in teaching. The last goal of the project was (3) an investigation aimed at sharing good practice experience among teachers of science subjects, which were used during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the ambition to identify those approaches that are also applicable to regular teaching.
Restrictions in science education during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that there is a lack of a suitable platform for the implementation of experiments in the home environment so that these experiments reflect the needs of teachers and the need to fulfill the key competences or educational content. Although, for example, it is possible to find a considerable number of experiments on the Internet, sometimes focused on home experiments, these experiments are not presented sufficiently, do not include a meaningful didactic sequence, or do not reflect the appropriate educational content. Therefore, the project's main goal was to create a platform for implementing science experiments in the home environment so that these experiments are verified, didactically appropriate, and suitable for the curricula of the participating countries. Online teaching also brought a significant amount of teaching in front of a computer screen, which significantly limited the activity of pupils and/or led to their fatigue. In addition to the development of home experiments, the project also focused on development of teaching aids produced by 3D printing, which enabled wider involvement and activation of the pupil's during online education.