Publish: 8.1.2020
Author: Pavel Vachalec
“The project aims to improve the quality of education and expert preparation, including strengthening their relevance to the labor market. The project is dedicated to support mutual learning between schools and teachers in the form of networking. Selected schools from all over the Czech Republic will create Centres of Collegiate Support (CKP) in their region and they will realize a network in natural science literacy topics and researcher oriented teaching/education.
On the horizon of 3 years, a total of 42 Centers of Collegiate Support will be set up, to transfer the experiences to other teachers from other nearby schools or other institutions, through regular project afternoons. The targeted groups to be supported by the project are: children and students, through their teachers, teachers, educational workers and the management of elementary and secondary schools, who will together share their experiences and thus they will create a nationwide network of Centers of Collegiate Support, workers and volunteers of organizations providing educational, assistance services and services of informal and special-interest education of children, youth and staff of Czech School Inspectorate.” (quoted from the website of the project)
The solution that is offered by the project, supports the transfer of experience between teachers through the network of cooperating schools. The focus of the project is on the collegial support of the teachers. Its main goal is mutual share of experiences in the form of in-person meetings, online webinars (in community network of European schools eTwinning), and participation in regular afternoon project meetings. In every region of The Czech Republic Centers of Collegiate Support were set up, where participating teachers meet regularly (at least once a month), share their experiences and present the examples of the research-oriented teaching of natural science and polytechnic education, innovative teachings and research-oriented STEAM teaching using ICT. Twice a year a nationwide conference is being held for project’s participants and every month, there is an online webinar, which serves as a source of inspiration for afternoon project meetings (webinars are recorded and stored on the website of the project). One type of outcome is short videos (“ťubíky”), showing the atmosphere of participants during the afternoon project meetings.
The scope of work in the Centers of Collegiate Support is also dependent on technical resources, which were provided to each center. Research-oriented education of natural science is being realized with the set of PASCO scientific sensors, participants can try the basics of engineering constructions with help of iTriangle kit, which combines structural assemblies, a set of sensors and actuators and controlling mechanics based on the Arduino platform. Considering the above-mentioned technologies in the project, the school welcomed cooperation with companies, that have experience with the implementation of those technologies. The companies (ITveSkole.cz, o.p.s., T-E-V Pardubice, s.r.o., BOXED, s.r.o.) welcome the opportunity to be helpful as technical and methodological support and to help the school with overcoming their initial fear of unknown and to fully use the didactic aids during both, afternoon meetings and everyday lessons. The experts from those companies support the project by presenting during the selected CKP meetings, leading some of the webinar sessions, and attending all the conferences to share the latest knowledge on the use of these technologies, that they either develop or that are imported to the Czech Republic.
(list of the participating school (you are warmly welcomed to visit the afternoon meetings), recordings of the afternoon meetings, inspirational webinars, and other information can be found at www.cenat.cz)
Project identifiers: Projekt “CENTRUM NATURA” registrační číslo projektu: CZ.02.3.68/0.0/0.0/16_010/0000556
Main contact: Ing. Marika Mencnerová, Vyšší odborná škola DAKOL a Střední škola DAKOL, o. p. s., mencnerova.marika@dakol-karvina.cz