Croatian Academic and Research Network – CARNet invites all interested parties to register and participate in a massive online course titled "Innovative Teachers: Application of Educational Trends and Digital Tools," which is organized within the framework of the project "e-Schools: Establishment of a System for the Development of Digitally Mature Schools (pilot project).".
The course begins on March 1, 2017, and will last until April 12, 2017. Applications for the course are ongoing and will remain open for one week after the official start of the course, i.e., until March 7, 2017. All those interested in participating can apply in the system. Moodle, while for participants in the e-Schools project, enrollment is mandatory in CSUED system, and then into the Moodle system using your AAI@EduHr electronic identity.
The course's objective is to teach participants how to apply selected contemporary teaching methods and technologies, focusing on research-based, problem-based, and project-based learning, as well as so-called gamification, to make lessons more student-centered. Participants will have the opportunity to learn how to use numerous digital tools, portals, and simulations and will be introduced to the concept of e-Schools teaching scenarios and their application in teaching.
The course is divided into four chapters:
- Educational trends for contemporary teaching, which covers research-based, problem-based, and project-based learning, as well as so-called gamification.
- Selected digital tools for classroom application, including descriptions and video tutorials, for Moovly, Kahoot, Piktochart, Coggle, Stellarium, Space Telescope Designer, and Scratch.
- Selected digital portals and simulations for use in teaching, containing descriptions and video tutorials for Science Kids, BioDigital Human, 100,000 Stars, PhEt, Nikola Tesla Portal, Google Earth, NASA's Eyes, and Brain POP.
- e-Schools teaching scenarios, which describe the concept of scenarios and their application in teaching. Teaching scenarios contain ideas for the creative application of modern pedagogical methods and ICT in teaching. This concept can be interesting to various profiles of educational professionals, but we emphasize that within the e-Schools pilot project, teaching scenarios are being developed for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology, for 7th and 8th grade of primary school and 1st and 2nd grade of secondary school.
Some course content, such as pedagogical methods and some digital tools and portals, can be useful for all teachers, while some digital tools and portals and e-schools teaching scenarios are intended exclusively for science subjects and mathematics.
The course can be successfully completed at two levels, thus obtaining digital badges, considering the complexity of the activities for the participants:
- Basic Badge "Innovative Teacher: Knowledgeable": It is necessary to complete three simple knowledge checks related to the first three chapters.
- Advanced Badge ˝Innovative Teacher: Guru˝: In addition to three knowledge checks related to the first three chapters, it is necessary to complete a task of designing a lesson plan based on an e-Schools teaching scenario covered in the fourth chapter.
This course will also be held from April 14 to May 25, 2017.
The massive online course "Innovative Teachers" is based on online courses organized within the ISE project (Inspiring Science Education) titled ISE MOOC 2015 tea ISE MOOC 2016: Educational Trends and Digital Tools in Teaching. In these courses, the last chapter covered open educational resources and ISE learning scenarios, while the last chapter of the "Innovative Teachers" course focused on e-Schools teaching scenarios. Although the general goal of both courses is to facilitate the application of modern pedagogical methods and ICT in teaching, we note that there is a significant difference between ISE learning scenarios and e-Schools teaching scenarios. Therefore, all interested parties, especially natural sciences and mathematics teachers, are invited to participate in the "Innovative Teachers" course, regardless of previous participation in ISE courses.
Projekt je sufinancirala Europska unija iz europskih strukturnih i investicijskih fondova.