WP6 Dissemination and R esearch in the Czech Republic: Annual Report University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Education Iva Stuchlíková, Jan Petr, Miroslav Papáček

(A)Implementation and dissemination

National workshop for biology teacher educators Biology didactics in the Czech Republic 2010 and inquiry based education (DiBi 2010) March 25-26, 2010; University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Education Outputs: 1. Start of cooperation with the Czech Individual national project ESF„Support of Technics and Sciences“ guaranted by the Czech Ministry of Education 2. On-line booklet – Papáček M. (Ed.) 2010:Didaktika biologie v České republice 2010 a badatelsky orientované vyučování (DiBi 2010). Sborník příspěvků semináře, 25. a 26. března 2010, Pedagogická fakulta Jihočeské Univerzity, České Budějovice. 165 s. (In Czech; English abstracts) ISBN

Outputs: 3.Agreement on organization of a national Summer school of inquiry based biology education Suggested scheme of IBSE implementation and dissemination in the Czech Republic: Summer school of IBBE 2010 for teacher educators, pre and in-service teachers ↓ Implementation of IBBE seminar to Implementation of IBBE to postgradual pre-service teacher curriculum courses of in-service teachers at universities in regions ↓ Implementation and dissemination of IBBE to pupil education in schools in regions ↓ Summer school of IBBE 2011 … ↓ etc. (by Papacek 2010; modified)

Summer school of inquiry based biology education 2010 August 30 – September 1, 2010; University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Education

Summer school of inqiury based biology education 2010 August 30 – September 1, 2010; University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Education National level Organized for: pre- and in-service teachers and biology teacher educators Content: majority: good examples - demonstrations and practices minority: some words about theory

Seminar for in-service teachers September 15, 2010; at primary school Horní Stropnice

Seminar for in-service teachers September 15, 2010; at primary school Horní Stropnice Regional level Organized for: in-service biology and other (e.g. elementary) teachers Content: water life in the region majority: demonstration and practices based on tasks from BiO minority: some words about theory

Conclusion for activity 6.3 of WP6 one day workshop is good form – this was verified during the Summer school and regional seminar design of the workshop: –2 hrs presentation of the data on competition power for enlargement of student motivation with discussion about students motivation for science/biology screening of willingness to participate in olympiads at the school level. interest development stories and motivation of successful olympionics in biology –2 hrs small group work on the competition tasks – optimally 1-2 task from different domains of biology –2 hrs discussion of prospective ways implementation of competition tasks in the regular education modification of tasks for school use difficulties of implementation of competition tasks (adaptation of tasks, obtaining of material and equipment, …) etc.

Ingrowth of IBSE problematic to the Annual Conference of Individual National Project „Support of Technics and Sciences“ organized by management of INP STS and supervised by the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic September 14 – 16, 2010; Palacký University, Olomouc Participants: teacher educators and scientists from different Czech universities and the Czech Academy of Sciences, journalists, public relations staff members, Ministry of Education representatives, … National level Most important points of the content: 1.Lecture on IBSE presented by Doris Jorde 2.Discussion to the IBSE 3.Information on Summer school of IBBE 4.Plan to arrange a series of pioneer regional IBSE projects (IPN STS and the Ministry of Education)

(B) Research

Pre- and in-service teacher positions to the IBSE implementation and dissemination in CR 50 teachers filled questionaire (South Bohemia) + 34 were interviewed (South and Central Bohemia) IBSE – yes or not? Basically YES – but: too difficult time consuming sometimes expensive lack of motivation – in some cases

Biology Olympiad – preliminary results - are there enough usable tasks? YES – but: tasks are designed for the competition and it is useful or necessary to adapt them for the school use (lessons, seminars, practices) there are some very interesting tasks on the higher competition level and it is frequently difficult to adapt them for lower education grade there are useful tasks on the school level as well

Motivation – preliminary results: Screening of willingness to participate in olympiads at the school level. 104 pupils/students interviewed 38 are not participating in any Olympiad or similar competition –lack of knowledge, skills, motivation; –some dislike competitive situations, –some miss more creativity and team work, –some missed the information. –stress When asked about prospective support, the students wanted more assistance of the teacher, some need to be assured that they are able to cope with the tasks, some would like to get the support from classmates and would like to have some continuous all year activities to prepare. 66 participated in one or more –previous interest, like competitive activities –willingness to learn more from the science or prepare for a career in science. –teacher’s stimulation or encouragement, sometimes even forcing. The personal gain is especially the opportunity to compare one’s knowledge and skills with others who are good in the subject; good feeling of mastering something new, learning more, and when successful, feeling of strong satisfaction. Some students mentioned, that they miss the opportunity to confront their current status (of subject knowledge) at school lessons.

Motivation – preliminary results: In depth investigation of the biology interest development We interviewed participants of BiO competition (N=39). Findings – learning goals orientation We measured student’s mastery and performance goals, as well as mastery and performance goals of their teachers and parents (as seen by the student). The students high mastery orientation, but also higher performance avoidance orientation (trying to avoid the situations, where the student’s performance is low in comparison to the others). very low performance orientation – they do not want to learn just for demonstrating their competence. The parents slightly higher (than normative sample) both – mastery and performance orientation (really caring about their child academic outcomes) mastery orientation was higher than the performance one, but the difference was not statistically significant. This refers to students’ perceptions that their parents want them to develop their competence. (e.g. My parents want me to spend time thinking about concepts.) The teachers high score on mastery goals – the students see their biology teachers as much more mastery oriented than the students from the normative sample. This refers to students’ perceptions that their teacher emphasizes engaging in academic work in order to develop competence. (e.g. „My teacher thinks mistakes are okay as long as we are learning.“, „My teacher gives us time to really explore and understand new ideas.“