by Jana Paju (Energy Discovery Centre, Estonia)

During autumn 2016, PARRISE-related developments were slow in Estonia, as many changes occurred at the Energy Discovery Centre (EDC) – changes both in structure and in our staff. Nevertheless, as time has passed, things have settled down and we are glad to announce another TPD one-day meeting with teachers at the EDC.

The meeting will focus on implementing the SSIBL framework in the context of experiential learning and formal learning, trying to bridge the two contexts. The participating in-service teachers (elementary school and also  upper level STEM) will have the opportunity to participate in a workshop about the development of suitable study materials. In addition to the SSIBL framework and our model of combining the immediate learning activities (at the EDC) with pre- and post-activities, we will also introduce the “SSIBL machine”, that our PARRISE colleagues from the Netherlands have created, to the participants.

The model of three types of activities (Figure below) helps the students to acquire deeper knowledge. The pre-activities are usually conducted at school, to prepare the students for learning activities at the EDC, in the informal environment.  After that, the students engage in post-activities, at their school or at the EDC. These activities provide them with the opportunity to analyze their new knowledge, put it into use and by that gain deeper knowledge of the topic.

The aims of this upcoming meeting are to:

1) Encourage the development of a stronger community of innovative teachers;

2) Introduce the novel methods of SSIBL to this community;

3) Encourage the community to create together;

4) To provide a platform for exchange of created materials on our website.

As this is the second time we are conducting such a meeting with in-service teachers , it is worth mentioning that the previous meeting was a fruitful collaboration with the teachers and that the teachers who participated back then must have been sharing their experience with their peers, as the teachers’ interest has grown. Previously we had approximately 10 participants but this time we had to close the online registration after just two days as we already had 23 registrations for the meeting.

Hopefully we will be able to have more of such meetings in the future!