La Ciencia en tu escuela in-site and on-line

La Ciencia en tu escuelain-site and on-line

(In service teachers education)

MEXICAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Carlos Bosch GiralITAM

January 30 th. , 2013

Diagnosis (2001)What is wrong with the Teaching System?

• Emphasis on memorization rather than reasoning

•  Inadequated teacher training

• Poor use of programs and textbooks

• Changes in the programs every four, five years

What is going on around the world?

• USAFRANCEBRASILCANADAHands on, La Main à la pâte, …

• NO maths !!!!!• Nothing for secondary school.

Some differences

• We work with teachers not students• We work on primary and secondary school

teachers (9 grades)• We work mathemathics and language not only

sciences• We have history of sciences• We have students from last year of their BA going

to help teachers at their school• Teachers don’t pay

2 0 0 2First year of “La Ciencia en tu Escuela”

Initially

• Program imagined, structured and coordinated by the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

• Support from the Ministry of Education

The group

• Scientists and mathematicians• Good university teachers• People from popularization of sciences and

mathematics• Teachers• Principals• Students from the scientific areas in their last

year of studies

Goals

• Change in the teachers’ and students’ attitude towards Sciences and mathematics

• Bring together teachers and scientists to find new and attractive ways to teach mathematics and sciences

• Look for alternative teaching methods to awake the interest and curiosity of the children through more interaction with direct and simple experimentation, to incite a better and a more dynamical learning

Guidelines

• Follow the Mexican educative curriculum and program.

• It has to benefit teachers and students .• We will focus only on the 5th and the 8th

grades.• We have to evaluate all of our work to have

solid basis to change or to continue with the same material, organization …

La ciencia en tu escuela

• The centerpiece of this AMC program is a course offered to teachers of primary and secondary education with content and pedagogy.

• This course has now two modalities on-site started in 2002 and on-line (distance) started 2009.

2 0 0 3

Conclusions of the first evaluation

• We cannot work only with 5th and 8th grade. We need to work with all 9 grades

• For primary school teachers we need general guidelines (measurement)

• For secondary school teachers we need a general introduction and some specific work on their field

2005• We worked with teachers in sciences,

math and language for the 9 grades. • By now we had good evaluation of

our materials and have our academicians and lecturers were very well selected.

• The program had all the support of the AMC

2007

• We were ready to share our experiences (funding, politics, academy, organization, materials at low cost …)

• Invitations to international meetings

2008-2009 Structure • All (32) Saturdays 4 hours. Given by Academicians.

Taken by teachers.• Primary school teachers :Mathematics(8) , Sciences 1(8) and 2(8), Language (6) , computers(2)• Secondary school teachers• General: Math.(4), Chemestry(2), Physics(2),

Geography(2) Biology (2), History of Sciences (4), Computer (2) Language (2)

Subject: 12 sessions• Materials: www.amc.unam.mx/lacienciaentuescuela.htm• Discussion forum (teachers). Questions (answer)

Mathematics (8 weeks)

• Block 1. Measuring with fractions• Block 2. Measurement of lines in circles and triangles• Block 3. The size of surfaces• Block 4. Volume, capacity, and weight• Block 5. Size of rotations and regular polygons• Block 6. Probability and proportions• Block 7. Proportionality and non-proportionality,

applications• Exam (content, plan of class, poster)

Teachers working volume at LCE

Teachers working volume with their students

Impact

2008 Conafe Consejo Nacional de fomento educativo

Places not reached by the ministry of education are where Conafe works. All are rural parts of the countryThe village provides a room to be the school and another one as the teachers home. The village is in charge of the food of the teacher.About 20 students (multi-grade)

Preparation of teachers

• Students finishing secondary school have 6 weeks of preparation during summer and are provided with a map and send to the rural village, where they will teach for two years in that village as the primary school teacher.

• They get a salary for four years equivalent to about 160 US dollars a month.

• They go to the Conafe centre in the state once a month. • We work with them at that time two day per month.

Plus during Christmas vacations.

Same situation for students finishing the high school, They become secondary school teachers

• In general this students are very interested to participate with us and learn from us since usually they want to go to a high school or a college.

• So they use also the time with us to preprare themselves for admission exams.

Evaluación CONAFE

Summer camp in Mexico City

• Some of them go to college and we have for them an 8 week summer camp .

• 4 weeks to learn more about la Ciencia en tu Escuela • The other 4 weeks are spent with a researcher or a

professional that shows them what he is doing . • For most of them it is the first time they go to a city out

of their original state. • It is an experience they never forget.• In general they go back to work at least a couple of

years for Conafe

2009• Turning point• Money to make an external evaluation• Valora ( very prestigious firm) • Good results in general • http://www.lacienciaentuescuela.amc.edu.mx/

Evaluaciones

2009

• Support by the ministry of educaction (subsecretaria de educación superior) .

• The AMC will sign agreements academies of some latin american countries. (Colombia, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Panama and Peru and starting in Bolivia , Nicaragua and Venezuela)

• Supported by Conacyt • Supported by Fundación Televisa.

2010 -2013

LA CIENCIA EN TU ESCUELA• 400 teachers each year at the university in site volonteers• Conafe (150 per year) • On line ( 500 per year and growing) talk about in a few

slides• Camp ( one week 200)• Robotic course ( one week 50) • Latin america (80 finished on line) • Descartes course (26 teachers)

Estás a tiempo

• 43.9% of the mexicans older than 16 have not finish the mandatory education ( 9 years)

• The failure in math at grade 9 is around 70%• To diminish this index our group (mathematicians

+ students finishing their degree and as their social service) work during 3 months with the students that are having problems.

• From 2010 to 2013 we have worked with 3500 students and 2800 were successful with (82%)

Scaling the program

• In order to scale up the program throughout Mexico and other Latin American countries, we considered using technology and designing an on-line modality for "Science at your School".

• The pilot phase of this modality began in October 2009.

THE DISTANCE LEARNING MODALITY

• The on-line or distance modality is formed by a sequence of modules with structured curricular characteristics designed with the necessary quality to ensure their equivalence with the on-site modality.

• Different methods, techniques, strategies, media and as much multimedia were used, but with the guidance of an expert (mathematician, biologist..) consultant in the discipline.

Work

• There is an advisor/teacher for a small group of students (25), who will become a creator of innovative teaching situations that allow individualized instruction.

• The participant and the advisor will be in touch through the website, using internal messaging tool, discussion forums and Skype or telephone.

• With that we have a record of the communication and request of assistance, with the date it was made.

Work

• The advisor is responsible for clarifying doubts about the content, correcting activities, answering forums, integrating work teams, providing information to the group on the dates of video-conferences, chats and exams.

• The on-line modality does not require a fixed and determined schedule to perform the assigned activities, but the instructional design of this course requires compliance with the timelines set for the delivery to the advisor, in a timely manner, of all work assigned.

TECHNICAL DESIGN

• AMC has a physical space that has all the necessary security measures to provide optimum performance. The site hosts a cluster consisting of eight high-performance servers. (4000 participants simultaneously)

• Platform: open source Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) , in some case Moodle’s source code was modify.

• The system is programmed in PHP which allows a rich functionality.

Implementation of the pilot-phase

• The pilot phase of the on-line course "Science at your School" started in October 2009 with the participation of 350 primary school teachers from all the states, that were summoned by the Mexican Ministry of Education.

• To know the opinions and experiences of the teacher-students about content, implementation, advice, and materials, the Ministry of Education (SEP) conducted an assessment on the quality of the course.

(question 1) content ,(question 2) platform (Question 3), performance of advisors, (question 4), instructional design,

(question 5) materials, (question 6) didactic sequences.

• With respect to monitoring and evaluating the work of participants, each module has a space that shows the grades recorded for the activities performed. In this way students have the possibility of consulting their academic progress.

• Advisors, students, and coordinators also have a portfolio of evidence and personal progress of each module, which reflects the work done by students and advisors, providing the possibility of a more objective assessment.

Home of the current version

First phase of pilot test

No. of teachers

Status in the modules

350 Candidates to attend the certificate course in its on-line modality.

233/350 Candidates who passed the preparatory course.

96/233 Dropped out or failed the first module (Mathematics or Science 1)

137/233 Passed the first module (Mathematics or Science1).

77/137 Passed the second module (Mathematics or Science 1). And 70 finished

Participation of latin-american teachers 2010-1012

• Dominican Republic 21 out of 98• Guatemala 9 out of 15• Peru 36 out of 45• Panama 2• El Salvador 1• Argentina 3 out of 4• Venezuela 10 out of 12

• Overall, the main cause of desertion or failing of teachers enrolled in the Mathematics or Science 1 modules was a delayed performance of the assigned activities. The reasons that teachers expressed to the advisors and that advisors recorded on the reports were: too much work in their workplace, personal/health problems, andthey were forced to take this course and it is difficult requires a lot of work and that they prefer to take other courses (in general with no evaluation) that were the same time as this course.

• Being a distance-education student requires a great commitment and a desire to learn, overcoming fears, as well as self-discipline and perseverance to achieve a goal.

• These aspects can become a disadvantage in some cases, or an advantage in others.

• In order to improve the terminal efficiency of the "Science at your School" on-line certificate, different alternatives are being considered. One is requesting the education authorities in Mexico to recognize this certificate as a specialization formed by independent and serialized modular courses to provide teachers with a diversified, organized, and systematic offer that will allow them to advance their academic trajectory through a credit validation model.

What to do?

• The program must be on a volonteer basis• We are contacting by telephone teachers that

do not hand on time their homeworks. • We are having induction sessions so that

teachers will know better what will be asked from them and what skills do they need to devellop so that they will be succesful in this distance course.

2013 Numbers

• 44 from latin america 100

• 6 Tamaulipas 15• 179 Estado de Mexico 290• 33 Distrito Federal 100• 212 Nayarit 250

Conclusion

• Politic support Ministry of Education• Academic support AMC• Funding: a seed Funadcion Televisa• Adapt the proyect • Don’t start to big, do as much as you can• A lot of enthousiastic people