Participatory model for identifying and measuring teacher competences for open and Inquiry-based learning in STEM – field experience

12 pages•Published: December 9, 2019

Eliza Stefanova, Nikolina Nikolova, Temenuzhka Zafirova-Malcheva, Pencho Mihnev, Albena Antonova and Atanas Georgiev

Abstract

Wider adoption of open educational practices and inquiry-based learning (IBL) methods in schools brings many challenges for teacher training especially in the field of STEM. Young teachers have to acquire a large number of competences – knowledge, skills, and attitudes, in order to be able to design and implement innovative and enriching open learning experiences in STEM. Besides STEM expertise, teachers have to demonstrate autonomy, creativity, mastery of innovative learning methods, team- working and leadership skills. This makes defining, teaching and measuring teachers’ competences for applying IBL training on practice a complex and demanding task. The present research aims to investigate and determine a relevant and practice-oriented STEM teacher competence framework. The participatory field experiment step on the previous outcomes of the IBL project ELITe (Enhancing Learning In Teaching via e-inquiries)* and brought together STEM teachers, teacher trainers and researchers. This way, authors succeeded to identify three main groups of practice-oriented competences, including two levels of 44 sub-competences. These competences have been addressed within a competence-based pilot course in Moodle referring to IBL activities that can measure and improve STEM teachers’ competence. The outcomes of this field experience demonstrate that participatory methods for teachers’ training bring additional understanding, motivation and clarification and readiness for adoption of innovative open learning practices in the classroom.

Keyphrases: competences for open learning, field experience, open learning, teacher training

In: Christian M. Stracke (editor). Proceedings of Learning Innovations and Quality (LINQ) 2019, vol 2, pages 28-39.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/hqkl
	https://doi.org/10.29007/8g8k

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{LINQ2019:Participatory_model_identifying_measuring,
  author    = {Eliza Stefanova and Nikolina Nikolova and Temenuzhka Zafirova-Malcheva and Pencho Mihnev and Albena Antonova and Atanas Georgiev},
  title     = {Participatory model for identifying and measuring teacher competences for open and Inquiry-based learning in STEM – field experience},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of Learning Innovations and Quality (LINQ) 2019},
  editor    = {Christian M. Stracke},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Education Science},
  volume    = {2},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2516-2306},
  url       = {/publications/paper/hqkl},
  doi       = {10.29007/8g8k},
  pages     = {28-39},
  year      = {2019}}

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