Creating Organisational Structures for Meaningful science education through Open Schooling for all

Project Information

COSMOS

Grant agreement ID: 101005982

DOI 10.3030/101005982

EC signature date 19 July 2021

Start date 1 January 2022

End date 31 December 2024

Funded under

• Encourage citizens to engage in science through formal and informal science education, and promote the diffusion of science-based activities, namely in science centres and through other appropriate channels

Total cost € 1 506 187,50

EU contribution € 1 506 187,50

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COSMOS (Creating Organisational Structures for Meaningful science education through Open Schooling for all)

Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Young people’s low interest in science and science careers has long been a key challenge for science education. There is a lack of perceived relevance and a stereotypical view of STEM subjects as masculine and disconnected from society, which inhibits students’ science career aspirations (Osborne & Dillon, 2008; Struyf et al., 2017). This while todays’ society (still) faces many challenges such as climate change, energy crisis, pandemics, healthy lifestyles, which calls for scientifically literate citizens. Science education should equip young people with competences needed to deal with these socio-scientific issues (SSI) and to take socio-political action (Hodson,2003) by enabling youth to critically engage with local, global and intercultural issues; understand and appreciate different perspectives, interact respectfully with others, and take responsible action towards sustainability and well-being (OECD, 2018). The demand for scientifically literate citizens, who are critical consumers of scientific knowledge and agents-of-change, able to make decisions and take responsible action, is now more relevant and urgent than ever before.

COSMOS addresses these challenges by implementing a novel pedagogy in primary and secondary schools across Europe that combines socio-scientific issues (SSI), inquiry-based learning (IBL) and citizenship education: ‘SSIBL’ (Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning, Levinson et al., 2017). Teaching and learning science through SSI offer great opportunities to build science literacy. COSMOS builds on SSIBL’s strong foundations laid in the FP7 PARRISE project and extends its application as an effective pedagogical means that foster science education for all by opening schools to their communities and beyond through a transformation process. The goal is to encourage an ‘outwards’ mode of engagement between schools and communities, by a) co-creating with our school partners organizational routines (CORPOS) that support the gradual embeddedness of the open schooling approach; b) implementing SSIBL pedagogy and supporting the creation of Communities of Practice linked to the SSI; d) focusing on teacher professional development.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project’s timeline comprises a preparation stage, two implementation rounds and a finalization stage in which the results will be consolidated. A key dimension of the COSMOS work plan is the interconnected nature of the work packages, which focus on the development and implementation of COSMOS (WP2-5) via an iterative process across two rounds of implementation. Crucially, this work is facilitated through a collaborative process of mutual learning, exchange of experiences, and integration and synthesis of knowledge developed (WP6), monitored and evaluated through a coherent, comprehensive evaluation work plan (WP7), disseminated and communicated to public audiences throughout the lifecycle of the project (WP8) and expertly overseen and coordinated by WP1.

This reporting period (Month 1-18) comprises the preparation stage and the first initiation and implementation stage (Round 1).

Preparation stage (Month 1-6)
In WP2 work was started on the development of the conceptual framework to which all HEI partners contributed. Tools for assessing and discussing school openness attributes, and practical general guidelines for implementing COSMOS basic concepts (CORPOS, SSIBL-CoP) were developed, to be used in the activities of WP3 and WP4. WP7 provided a toolbox which contain instruments and guidelines for each WP3 and WP4 partner to perform impact and process evaluation during the two implementation rounds, on the levels of the student, CORPOS and CoP. WP5 developed a TPD program and conducted a TPD1- “train-the-trainer” (in CM2) which provided the input for designing the version one TPD handbook. Besides this we have been working on (WP1) the Data Management Plan and Data Sharing Agreements, (WP8) Overview of planned and organised Events (D8.1) the Exploitation and Dissemination of Results (PEDR) (D8.2) the project website, and (WP9) the ethical requirements D9.1 D9.2 and D9.3).

Initiation stage (Month 7-12) and Implementation stage (Month 13-18)
In WP3 and WP4 a start was made with establishing partnerships, CORPOSs and CoPs, and facilitating the implementation of SSIBL. This was supported by WP5 that facilitates and implements the teacher professional development in SSIBL pedagogy and open schooling approach. The version 1 TPD handbook was developed and submitted (D5.1).

In the implementation stage nine secondary schools in six different countries, and seven primary schools in 4 different countries were involved. For WP7 data was collected from all schools that participated in the first implementation round. This data was cleaned and analysed. The (WP5) TPD guidelines and activities that focus on the effective implementation of SSIBL and teaching and learning within CoPs, were applied on the local and national level, in TPD sessions organised by the HEI partners.

Experiences and lessons learned of round 1 were discussed at the Consortium Meeting in Lisbon in June 2023. This was input for the further development of the conceptual framework of WP2, the evaluative framework of WP7, adapting the TPD framework, guidelines and materials of WP5.
WP6 accommodates and supports exchange of experiences among the participants of the consortium, in particular between the different work package members and stakeholders to ensure mutual learning and to facilitate knowledge integration and synthesis for COSMOS across the initiation, preparation, implementation and finalisation stages. A concept for the roadmaps was developed, and a set of guidelines (regarding structure and content) for the development of case-studies was prepared and discussed with the partners.

The Exploitation and Dissemination of Results (PEDR) was implemented and and Updated Overview of Organised Events was submitted (D8.3).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Besides project activities in each of the WPs, the project has been presented at national and international dissemination events, such as at our COSMOS presentation at the European ‘Educate the Educators conference IV’ in the Netherlands, and on the ‘Innovating European Education’ event in Brussels. The number of dissemination events is expected to rise when we are further in the project with more insights and evaluation data available. E.g. at this stage we are preparing a COSMOS symposium proposal for the ERIDOB conference.

COSMOS has become a member of an European initiative Open Schooling Together lead by Ecsite and joining 9 projects focused on open schools in 2020. Since then, the initiative has been growing and set up a long-term channel for cooperation, especially in dissemination. For the COSMOS project the initiative is an opportunity to publish in a newsletter, use the social network, organize the sessions and access the target group.

cosmos-kick-off-online.png