Towards an Open and e-Mature School
6-10 July 2020
The “Towards an Open and e-Mature School” Summer School aims to familiarize participants with the open schooling approach that provides a powerful framework for school heads and teachers to engage, discuss and explore: how schools need to evolve, transform and reinvent; how schools facilitate open, more effective and efficient co-design, co-creation, and use of educational content tools and services for personalized science learning and teaching; how schools can become innovation incubators and accelerators.
It has been designed to promote the use of self-reflection tools as a vehicle to support innovation and systemic change in schools. It proposes an innovation support framework and a roadmap to schools seeking to introduce a change culture that ensures a meaningful uptake of sustainable innovation.
It will focus on the use of self-reflection tools as a valid way to support innovation and systemic change in education. Participants will explore how schools may move from self-reflection to developing a comprehensive plan of action that utilises the results of a self-evaluation exercise, but, crucially, in combination with fundamental principles and mechanisms of European educational policy for schools.
Furthermore, the “Towards an Open and e-Mature School” Summer School will present the concept of Schools as Living Labs. Living labs are user-centred, open innovation ecosystems based on a systematic user co-creation approach integrating research and innovation processes in real life communities and settings. In the educational context, we engage the living lab methodology as a technique of crucial value in the heart of initiatives of open schools, which, in cooperation with other stakeholders, aspire to become agents of community well-being by creating new partnerships in their local communities.
Participants will look at how schools can be supported in using these tools to understand the current position of the organisation and build on the results to define and implement suitable action plans by applying a step by step support mechanism for school heads and teachers.
The “Towards an Open and e-Mature School” Summer School aims to familiarise participants with the open schooling approach that provides a powerful framework for school heads and teahcers to engage, discuss and explore: how schools need to evolve, transform and reinvent; how schools facilitate open, more effective and efficient co-design, co-creation, and use of educational content (both from formal and informal providers), tools and services for personalized science learning and teaching; how schools can become innovation incubators and accelerators. The main aim of this approach is to describe and implement at scale a process that facilitates the transformation of schools to innovative ecosystems, acting as shared sites of science learning for which leaders, teachers, students and the local community share responsibility, over which they share authority, and from which they all benefit through the increase of their communities’ science capital and the development of responsible citizenship.
It has been designed to promote the use of self-reflection tools as a vehicle to support innovation and systemic change in schools. It proposes an innovation support framework and a roadmap to schools seeking to introduce a change culture that ensures a meaningful uptake of sustainable innovation, with an emphasis on achieving improved learning outcomes as set by the Europe 2020 strategy.
We will focus on the use of self-reflection tools as a valid way to support innovation and systemic change in education. Participants will explore how schools may move from self-reflection to developing a comprehensive plan of action that utilises the results of a self-evaluation exercise, but, crucially, in combination with fundamental principles and mechanisms of European educational policy for schools.
Participants will look at how schools can be supported in using these tools to understand the current position of the organisation and build on the results to define and implement suitable action plans by applying a step by step support mechanism for school heads and teachers. The “Towards an Open and e-Mature School” Summer School will demonstrate the actual processes that translate the self-reflection results to concrete actions in the school as a learning ecosystem, in key areas such as Teacher CPD, school management, school openness, technology integration, innovation uptake, community engagement, social responsibility and others.
Furthermore, the “Towards an Open and e-Mature School” Summer School will present the concept of Schools as Living Labs. Living labs are user-centred, open innovation ecosystems based on a systematic user co-creation approach integrating research and innovation processes in real life communities and settings. In the educational context, we engage the living lab methodology as a technique of crucial value in the heart of initiatives of open schools, which, in cooperation with other stakeholders, aspire to become agents of community well-being by creating new partnerships in their local communities.
Participants will be introduced to an integrated framework fitting all the pieces together: providing mechanisms to monitor and assess the progress at different levels, introducing and helping to sustain a culture of change, supporting community and capacity building, providing tools and resources for innovative projects.
Post course social media will be used to support ongoing development of ideas and group support and feedback.
Target group
The target group are scools which have strategies or core aims of integrating innovative teaching methods in either primary or secondary education. School Directors and school counselors and teachers will largely benefit from the course.
Preparation
Participants will be expected to read the course program and pre-released reading material beforehand.
Methodology
The course is designed to be highly engaging and interactive. Participating teachers will work individually and in small groups and thus will be able to collaborate with teachers from other countries, discuss ideas and exchange experiences. Learning by doing is our leading principle.
All participants should be able to discuss and present in English language.
Learning Outcomes
- Creative Use of the Self-Reflection Process
- Vision and Leadership
- Partnerships and Capacity Building
- Innovative Learning Experiences
- Understand the concept of Schools as Living Labs
| Central European Time (CEST) | 06/07/2020 | 07/07/2020 | 08/07/2020 | 09/07/2020 | 10/07/2020 |
| 10.00 – 11.30 | Open Schooling
Digital Education Action Plan – Dr András Szűcs, European Distance and E-Learning Network Schools as Learning Organisations – Ferenc Tátrai, European Distance and E-Learning Network Open Schooling Roadmap – Dr Sofoklis Sotiriou, Ellinogermaniki Agogi |
Identifying the real needs of your school: The SELFIE Tool – Dr Nikoleta Giannoutsou, European Commission’s Joint Research Centre | Setting up a roadmap and an innovation strategy that transforms schools to innovative ecosystems – Nikos Zygouritsas, Ellinogermaniki Agogi | Building synergies around Europe with common projects – Dr Sofoklis Sotiriou, Ellinogermaniki Agogi | 10.00 – 11.00 Engaging different stakeholders in open schooling project: first fruits from the « School as living lab » and the « Siscode » EU projects – Matteo Merzagora
TRACES think-tank in Paris, Espace des Sciences Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, ESPCI Paris – PSL University
Participants’ Presentations |
| 11.45 – 13.00 | R4C Innovation Model – Dr Stephanos Cherouvis, Ellinogermaniki Agogi | Identifying the real needs of your school: The Open School Self-Reflection Tool – Menelaos Sotiriou, ScienceView | The R4C community and platform – Nikos Zygouritsas, Ellinogermaniki Agogi | Introducing RRI principles in innovative school projects– Nikos Zygouritsas, Ellinogermaniki Agogi | Participants’ Presentations |
| 15.00 – 16:30 | Community building and participatory engagements activities – Rosa Doran, NUCLIO – Núcleo Interactivo de Astronomia | Developing innovative school projects (Examples of good practices) | Examples of good practices from Italy – Rossella Parente, Città della Scienza
Exchanging ideas and working on projects |
Exchanging ideas and working on projects | Participants’ Presentations |
We would like to offer some ideas and guidelines for your preparation. The summer school will use the OSOS portal as a tool to develop innovative school projects that fit the needs of the society. We have prepared a series of webinars that include:
- The Open Schooling Roadmap
- The R4C School Innovation Model
- Identifying the real needs of your school
- Using self-reflection tools to set up a roadmap and an innovation strategy that transforms schools to innovative ecosystems
- Introducing RRI Principles in your school projects
- Schools as learning organisations
- Building synergies around Europe with common projects
- Schools as Living Labs
About the Summer School
Your mission for the course will be to develop innovative school projects that fit the needs of the society.
Using the OSOS portal, we would like you to develop and upload 5 school projects that apply the open schooling approach and the R4C school innovation model.
OSOS accelerators
Take ideas by consulting the OSOS accelerators. They help innovative schools to proceed more and develop their innovative ideas to new localised projects that could provide new solutions for the school and its community, for bringing the gap between formal and informal learning settings and creating new opportunities for personalisation at different levels (student, teacher, school). You can also look into the School projects that have already been uploaded on the OSOS portal, there are currently more than 1200.
Developing your project
Focusing on the process for the creation and publication of new Projects using the OSOS portal, the following diagram presents the steps from both the Teachers and the Students. Since a Project is initiated by a Teachers this is not a linear process, since there is continues interaction between the Teacher and the Students until the Project can be considered as final and be published to the OSOS greater community.
Through the OSOS portal the Students have the possibility of interacting with their Teachers during the editing of the Project ang get the necessary guidelines and feedback until the Project become published.
When editing a new Project, the Students add their material and build their idea following four phases, as designed in the OSOS Project. These are:
In each one of these phases, the Teacher provides special guidelines to the Students on what it is expected to be provided and on the methodology and/or tools they need to use to achieve a Project that is ready to be published and during the editing process by the Students, the Teacher has again the possibility of assessing the work that is already described in the phases and provide his/her feedback supporting the process with additional guidelines and comments.
During the days of the summer school, you will have a chance to further work on your projects, apply all the features and tools of the OSOS portal and uptake the role of your students in order to finalise the projects.
Sofoklis Sotiriou is the Head of R&D Department of Ellinogermaniki Agogi, where has been active in the co-ordination and development of research projects on implementation of advanced technologies (e.g. mobile applications, wearable computers, VR and AR applications, robotics) in science education and training. Since 2001 he is the Director of the Ellinogermaniki Agogi Center for Teachers Training. His main research field is the design, application, and evaluation of virtual and digital media environments that could bridge the gap between formal and informal science learning. He has been involved in a long series of EU joint research and technology funded projects. He has more than 100 publications and more than 600 references to his work. He is also author of the Science Textbooks that are used in all primary Greek schools since 2003.
Rosa Doran has a degree in Physics at Pontifícia Universidade Católica in São Paulo, Brazil.; an MSc in High Energies and Gravitation, at Faculty Of Science Of The University Of Lisbon: “Schwarzschild Black Holes and its Cosmological Applications” and PhD in Science Education at University of Coimbra in course (already submitted); is a certified trainer by the Scientific and Pedagogical Council of Continuous Training (University of Minho, Portugal) as a Teacher Trainer in the areas of Physics and Astronomy. She is presently the president of NUCLIO (Núcleo Interativo de Astronomia), a non-profit association devoted to public outreach and science education.
Ferenc Tatrai graduated as chemical engineer at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (TUB) and got MA diploma in applied mathematics at the University of Arts and Sciences Lóránt Eőtvös. He made postgraduate studies at the Ecole Politechnique Federal de Lausanne and got PhD from the TUB. In 2011 joined EDEN as Senior Advisor, and participated in various projects in the area of digital learning, from Open Education, application of Open Educational Resources (ODS project), to recognition of skills and knowledge of non-formal and informal learning outcomes (Recognition of Valid and Open Learning (ReOpen project), Open Educational Passport (OEPass project), Supporting future learning Exellence through Micro-Credentoialling in Higher Education (MicroHE project) as key researcher.
Nikos Zygouritsas graduated from the National University of Athens, Department of Education Sciences. He was awarded a MSc in Educational Technology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He has worked as a researcher in the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Faculty of Psychology and Education. He has also worked as an assistant for the on-line courses in Mons University (Educational Technology Unit). For three years he worked as an ICT teacher in the European School of Brussels III. In 2005, he was appointed by the UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa and the UNESCO Cluster Office in Addis Ababa as responsible for the teacher training workshop for ICT competencies. He has coordinated and participated in national and international projects in the field of training, education, new technologies and innovation for the application of new technologies in various educational settings. Since May 2014 he is a member of the Ellinogermaniki Agogi Research and Development team.
Open Schools for Open Societies. Our schools should be incubators of exploration and invention. They should be accelerators of innovation. They should promote Open Schooling. School leaders should set a vision for creating learning experiences that provide the right tools and supports for all learners to thrive. Teachers should be collaborators in learning, seeking new knowledge and constantly acquiring new skills alongside their students. A holistic approach to innovation is needed. We need to facilitate the process with a provision of the necessary catalyst: This is the foreseen role of the Open Schools for Open Societies project, to describe and implement at scale a process that facilitates the transformation of schools to innovative ecosystems, acting as shared sites of science learning for which leaders, teachers, students and the local community share responsibility, over which they share authority, and from which they all benefit through the increase of their communities’ science capital and the development of responsible citizenship. In this framework OSOS supports a large number of European schools to implement Open Schooling approaches by a) developing a model that promote such a culture, b) offering guidelines and advice on issues such as staff development, redesigning time, and partnerships with relevant organisations (local industries, research organisations, parents associations and policy makers), and c) suggesting a range of possible implementation processes from small-scale prototypes through to setting up an “open school within a school” or even designing a new school while it is testing and assessing them in more than 1,000 school environments in 11 European countries. The themes of the project activities developed in participating schools focus on areas of science linked with the Grand Societal Challenges as shaped by the EC, are related to RRI and are linked with regional and local issues of interest.
Reflecting for Change. Reflecting for Change (R4C) has been designed to promote the use of self-reflection tools to support innovation and systemic change in schools. It proposes an innovation support framework (School Innovation Academy) and a roadmap to schools towards the meaningful uptake of sustainable innovation, with an emphasis on improved learning outcomes (Europe 2020). R4C highlights the potential of the SELFIE tool to act as a starting point by interconnecting ICT-based innovation with school openness for the development of an integrated plan to innovation. By using an established self-reflection process, 300 schools in 3 countries will be guided to set up a roadmap and an innovation strategy that makes the best use of ERASMUS + opportunities and policy related initiatives (national and international) to become innovative ecosystems. The project is bringing together key stakeholders who know how to generate systemic impact and to transfer the project’s outcomes and findings at policy level.