international report on implementation strategies and their · pdf file ·...

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The project mascil has received funding from the European Union

Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2013-2017) under grant agreement n° 320693.

International report on implementation

strategies and their effectiveness

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Project Information Project no. 320693 Project acronym: Mascil Start date of project: 01/01/2013 Duration: 48 months Project title:

Mathematics and science for life

Dissemination level Thematic Priority: Science in Society Funding scheme: FP7

Information about the deliverable Deliverable N° 8.2 Due date of deliverable: Month45 Actual submission date: 16/9/2016 Deliverable title:

International report on implementation strategies and their effectiveness

Contact Information Coordinator: University of Education Freiburg, Prof. Dr. Katja Maaß Lead partner for this deliverable: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Prof. Despina Potari Website: www.mascil-project.eu © 2016 mascil project (G.A. no. 320693)

The mascil consortium grants the permission to distribute the licensed materials under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license as described at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary ............................................................................................... 5

1 Main Report .................................................................................................. 10

1.1 Framework of implementation strategies and their effectiveness: Aims and

rationale .................................................................................................................. 11

1.2 Methodology .................................................................................................. 15

2 Implementation strategies and their effectiviness in each country ........ 20

2.1 Implementation strategies: Theme 1 – Participants ....................................... 20

2.2 Implementation strategies: Theme 2 - PD models and teachers’ communication

39

2.3 Implementation strategies: Theme 3 – Integrating IBL/WoW in PD and in

classroom activities and promoting teachers' reflections (spiral model) ................. 98

2.4 Implementation strategies: Theme 4 – Engaging the wider community in mascil

134

2.5 Implementation strategies: Theme 5 – Partners' reflections ........................ 138

3 Comparisons across the countries .......................................................... 145

3.1 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 1 – Participants ........................ 145

3.2 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 2 - PD models and the process of

implementation ..................................................................................................... 151

3.3 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 3 – Integrating IBL/WoW in PD/TE

and classrooms activities ...................................................................................... 159

3.4 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 4 – Enganging the wider community

in mascil ................................................................................................................ 169

3.5 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 5 – Partners’ reflections ........... 171

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4 (Summary) Conclusions ............................................................................ 172

5 Further Recommendations ....................................................................... 175

6 References .................................................................................................. 176

7 Appendix I: The framework of implementation ....................................... 178

8 Appendix II: Reviewer comments ............................................................. 183

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Executive Summary

Background

This document reports on the outcomes of the second deliverable of workpackage 8 (WP8) ‘Implementation’ of the mascil project. The overall objectives of this WP was to provide a wide picture of the planning and the implementation strategies adopted in the thirteen consortium countries. This report concerns the second objective that is to offer a systematic description of the implementation strategies adopted by each partner and their effectiveness. The report gives account of the professional development (PD) and teacher education (TE) activities the partners organized in the period from the 22nd to the 40th month since the implementation in most countries is almost ended.

Aims and purpose

This document serves multiple purposes in the project. At a first level, it aims to provide a systematic description of the implementation strategies adopted by each partner so as to address emerging issues, strenghtens and weaknesses. At a second level, it aims to provide an account of how the design and theoretical aspects of the project could be realistic in terms of actual practice. At a third level, it seeks to inform other WPs about the way that implementation was delivered at national levels.

Method

To achieve this purpose, we designed and distributed to the partners a framework of implementation (see Appendix I) based on mascil philosophy. This framework followed the same structure and philosophy of the one that had been developed for the first delivarable (D8.1). The partners used this framework to report their implementation of PD/TE. We analysed and compared these reports across different countries.

Structure and content of the framework: The aim for developing the implementation framework was to provide to the partner countries a structure to report their own planning of implementation. The selection of questions reflects the main features of the rationale of implementation that have been described above. The reporting framework is constructed around five themes:

Theme 1: Participants; Theme 2: PD models and teachers’ communication;

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Theme 3: Integrating IBL/WoW in PD and classrooms activities and implementing the spiral model;

Theme 4: Engaging the wider community in mascil; Theme 5: Partners' reflection.

Each of the above themes is specified through one or more questions addressed to the partners.

Data Analysis: We read initially the reports of each country to check if all the required information was provided. In cases of inconsistencies or lack of relevant information, we contacted the respective partners for clarifications. Then, we analyzed the data across the themes and the corresponding questions for each country. Next, we identified the emerging issues concerning each question and theme for every country. On the basis of the above issues we produced comparative tables across the countries. We identified commonalities and differences among the countries about the process of implementation. Finally, we made certain comparisons between partners planning (report D8.1) and actually implementation strategies with the aim to identify supporting and hindering factors that influence the mascil implementation activities.

Conclusions

Our analysis of the national reports for each country and the comparisons across the countries resulted in a set of issues related to the effectiveness or non effectiveness of the strategies adopted in the implementation phase of the project.

Theme 1: Participants: Almost all mascil partners managed to recruit more teachers than they had planned. Particurarly, the total number of planned participants in mascil was 2379 in-service and pre-service teachers and mascil partners managed to over double this number since in mascil activities 5163 (2731 pre-service and 2432 in-service) participants were involved. Some difficulties to recruit teachers in the program were mentioned only by the United Kingdom team, due to significant reform in their national professional development structures regarding pre-service and in-service teachers. This large number of participants is considered as a success of the project implementation. In terms of participants’ professional profiles, we had the following results: There were 3860 participants from secondary education (2153 pre-service and 1707 in-service teachers), 1262 from primary education (578 pre-service and 684 in service teachers) and 41 in-service kindergarten teachers. There were 1955 Mathematics teachers (820 pre-service and 1135 in-service), 2421 teachers in Science and Technology (1642 pre-service and 779 in- service) and 787 were in a non-specified discipline. From the 3860 secondary education teachers 509 were from vocational

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education (254 pre-service and 255 in service teachers). The representatives of vocational education amounted almost 10% of all participants of PD courses. Finally, there were 140 PD educators (60 were mascil team members, 58 were teachers and the rest were university professional, research assistants or school advisors).

Theme 2: PD models and teachers’ communication: Four countries adopted a blended model by combining face-to-face and e-communication (Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus and Spain). The rest used exclusivelyface-to-face communication in their PD activities such as workshops and meetings in groups. In most countries courses and lectures/seminars were used for educating pre-service teachers, and courses and meetings were used for educating in-service teachers and multipliers. All countries used parts of the toolkit, mascil tasks and PoMs in their national PD context. An emerging issue was how to balance the large number of participants with the participants’ active engagement in PD activities. Some countries adopted a short-term spiral model (Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey) by providing teachers mainly one cycle of implementation. Other countries adopted a long term spiral model (Germany, Greece, Norway and Romania) by applying more than one cycle. The rest of the countries were in between the two models. Moreover, in some countries PD meetings involved a rather large number of participants so teachers’ engagement couldn’t be very active. Moreover, in these cases it was very difficult to keep track of the implemented activities in the classrooms. Most countries implemented mascil activities in classroom while Bulgaria chose to implement them beyond classroom as it was difficult for the teachers to integrate them into the curriculum. The most popular mascil tasks mentioned by the partners were the Parking problem, the Solar cells, the Drug concentration, the GPS game, the Circular pave and the IQ game design. The most popular PoMs were the Counting people, the Bicycle insurance, the Brine, the Chocolate machine bar, the Hearing, the Parking garage entrance problem and the Building of a safe staircase. Teachers’ online national and international communication was rather limited in most countries. The main hindering factors were: teachers’ limited experiences with e-learning platforms; a long preparation period of the forums and platform and consequently late availability of those instruments; teachers’ unfamiliarity in communicating through discussion forums; technical difficulties; language barriers. Face-to-face communication at international and national level was developed through a wide range of events (conferences, workshops). It worths pointing out that teachers from different disciplines as well as general and vocational teachers collaborated in planning and implementing lessons.

Theme 3: Integrating IBL/WoW in PD and classrooms activities and implementing the spiral model: The main PD strategies that were adopted were the teachers’ engagement in exploring IBL and WoW classroom tasks, in designing and redesigning tasks. The

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WoW was integrated into PD activities by visiting workplace, inviting professionals or building collaborative networks among teachers, multipliers and WoW professionals. Parts and ideas from the toolkit were used in most countries. Bulgaria developed its own educational resources while Spain used materials mainly from the PRIMAS project to prioritize the IBL dimension. Overall, teachers preferred to develop new tasks by themselves than using the existing ones on the mascil website. The main reason was that they found difficult to adapt them to the school curriculum. All partners reported one case where they considered that the implementation in PD activities was challenging. These cases concerned: Teachers’ traditional ways of interpreting and implementing IBL; Difficulty in designing classroom tasks integrating IBL and the WoW; Non availability of appropriate resources in introducing the WoW into PD activities; The difficulty to sustain teacher collaboration beyond the PD context; Teachers' own expections of achieving a specific goal. The effective strategies adopted by mascil partners when implementing IBL in the classroom were: Enhancing the exploratory character of the designed tasks through optimization problems based on a realistic context (Greece), problems allowing multiple solution strategies (Netherlands) and creative thinking (Romania); Engaging students in working with rich resources including manipulatives, such as backgammon checkers (Greece), and/or digital tools (e.g., Austria, Bulgaria); Designing and managing the integration of inquiry approaches in the classroom through appropriate questioning (Germany) or discussion (Lithuania, United Kingdom); Working with teachers who had been familiar with IBL and open teaching approaches before mascil (Bulgaria, Spain). The effective strategies adopted by mascil partners when implementing connections with the WoW in the classroom activities were: Inviting professionals in the classroom(e.g., in Romania students worked together with a carpenter to design and construct different models of benches); Engaging students in original workplace practices (e.g., food preperation in Germany); facilitating students’ expression of creative ideas through designing and/or constructing concrete objects useful in the everyday life (familiar commercial products in Turkey).The challenging integration of WoW/IBL strategies in classroom activities reported by the partners were: Teachers’ emphasis on the content and IBL and limited (or no) connection to the WoW; The limited available time for implementation; Problematic task design and classroom management; and Teachers’ difficulty to design and implement IBL tasks.

Theme 4: Engaging the wider community in mascil: Engagement of the wider educational community was supported in many countries mainly through mascil website and teachers’ and researchers’ participation in national conferences.

Theme 5: Partners' reflection: Overall, mascil supported a large-scale implementation that was integrated in the national educational systems and involved teachers,

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researchers and policy makers in the process of introducing IBL and WoW in PD settings and in the actual classroom.

Further recommendations

Our analysis of the national reports for each country and the comparisons across the countries resulted in a set of issues related to the five themes underlying the planning of implementation in mascil. In this section, we present the main issues emerged and we provide some recommendations aiming to (i) facilitate improvements of similar projects in the future and (ii) expand current project’s dissemination opportunities.

One issue was what partners’ reported as weak examples of their implementation activities. Particularly, the difficulties partners faced when they were trying to establish teachers’ communication through the national and international platforms could be facilitated in the future by considering language issues (for the international communication) and by supporting teachers’ familiarization with the use of the platforms. The difficulties partners faced with integrating IBL and WoW in classroom activities could be facilitated in the future by: applying a larger number of reflection cycles with teachers; engaging teachers more actively in the whole process; developing supportive materials for teachers such as classroom examples where integration of IBL and WoW was successful; and incorporating teachers' experiences in the developed resources.

Another issue that emerged in partners’ implementation activities was how to keep a high quality of PD activities with a large number of participants. This could be facilitated in future projects by forming groups with a small number of participated teachers.

A final issue is how to expand the sustainability of mascil’s philosophy. This could be facilitated by (a) disseminating summaries and reports from the implementation to educational policy organizations; (b) supporting the availability of mascil sites for the wider educational community after the end of the program; (c) integrating in teacher education and professional development ideas and materials produced by mascil through the body of multipliers.

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1 Main Report

The present report serves multiple purposes in the project. In a first level, it aims to provide a systematic description of the implementation strategies adopted by each partner so as to address emerging issues, tendencies and weaknesses. In a second level, it aims to provide an account of how the design and theoretical aspects of the project could be realistic in terms of actual practice. In a third level, it seeks to inform other WPs about the way that implementation was delivered at national levels.

Implementation in mascil is related to activities of all the other workpackages since it draws on the work of these packages and at the same time intends to provide feedback to them. One the one hand, the work of WP2 describes systematically the educational system and policy contexts in all partner countries and it is expected to frame the way mascil has been implemented (as described in WP 8). On the other hand, the materials developed in WPs 3, 4 and 5 have an influence on implementation in PD and classroom levels and at the same time were transformed by the particularities of the implementation strategies adopted by the partner countries.The implementation of professional development as described in WP 8 is supported by dissemination activities as described in WP 6 and 7 and by the European teacher network (WP 9). The evaluation process (WP10) will be also framed by the implementation strategies and the access to schools and teachers in each country. In the present report we will address more systematically the interaction between WP 8 and the other workpackages.

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1.1 Framework of implementation strategies and their effectiveness: Aims and rationale

Main Objectives

The main objectives of the implementation activity in mascil are: The selection of the appropriate models for professional development (PD) and teacher education (TE) in cooperation with stakeholders; the implementation of PD and TE models; and the reflection on the effectiveness of the delivery models. In this report, we focus on the second and the third objective.

In the philosophy of mascil proposal, each country had to select the appropriate models of PD and TE, implement them and reflect on their effectiveness. This indicates the dynamic character of the implementation as the common international concept (based on a theoretical framework and on important pedagogical principles) will be transformed according to national and contextual features. The interaction among the contextual features and the mascil objectives is expected to shape the actual process of implementation and even the nature of the mascil objectives themselves.

Concerning the implementation of PD and TE different practical and contextual issues will be taken into account in every participant country. For example, the access to school classrooms, the nature of the curriculum, teachers’ constraints in the national didactic context are some of the issues that influence how the selected models are realized in practice.

In resonance with mascil’s philosophy, reflection constitutes a coherent part of implementation at all phases. This can be on the teachers’ level where the teachers reflect on their practice and transform it, but also on the designers’ level in relation to the effectiveness of the PD approaches in terms of the project’s philosophy. The latter approach to reflection requires the development of tools and methods for a systematic description and analysis of the participants’ activities both at the level of PD and at the level of school.Implementation has synergies with almost all workpackages (especially with WP10 – reflection on the effectiveness of the delivery models). However, the main goal of this report is to provide an overall picture of how the PD/TE models were delivered in each country and information related to its impact/effectiveness according to the aims of mascil. The evaluation report of WP10 is expected to provide a more detailed account of the specific aspects of the implementation through a case study approach.

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Central features of teaching and learning (IBL, WoW)

Mascil is a PD project that aims to the development of learning and teaching mathematics and science in the classroom. For this reason, PD is closely linked to the classroom teaching and learning, an approach that current research on teacher education considers an important feature of teacher and teaching development (Ball & Bass, 2003).

Inquiry based learning (IBL) is a vision for the development of teaching and learning since it prioritizes inquiry as a means for students’, teachers’ and teacher educators’ learning. Jaworski (2006) talks about three different levels of inquiry: inquiry in mathematics, in learning and teaching of mathematics and in teacher education. According to Maaß and Artique (2013) “IBL refers to a more student-centered perspective of learning mathematics and science that promotes a learning culture in which students are invited to work in ways similar to how mathematicians and scientists work” (p. 781). Mascil allows inquiry to the level of the classroom as the students will engage in inquiry tasks and to the level of PD in two ways: the teachers together with the educators will inquire mathematics teaching and its development; and the teacher educators in collaboration with teachers inquire their own role in the process of supporting teachers’ development (Potari et al., 2012).

Concerning the World of Work (WoW) a number of research studies indicate that the mathematical and scientific activity in the workplace is rich although it is not always realized by the participants (Hoyles et al., 2010; Triantafillou & Potari, 2012). This research indicates that mathematical and scientific activity goes beyond a list of content. It includes, processes such as problem solving strategies, different forms of representations and diverse conceptualizations of mathematics and scientific concepts.The contexts of WoW and of the school classroom are very different and the ways of integrating the WoW in school and teacher education requires systematic study (Nicol, 2002; Wake, 2015). However, by introducing WoW authentic situations into the school classrooms, we enrich the mathematical activity at school by providing challenging contexts for mathematics learning that motivate students to be engaged in purposeful mathematical and scientific activity through which they may recognize the power of mathematics and science and its relation to real life (Ainley et al., 2006). In this process, the connection between informal and formal knowledge, the modeling process, issues of teaching management come to the fore and provide an opportunity for development and research.

Overall, students by experiencing IBL and authentic practices involved in the WoW can develop a critical stance towards situations that occur in their life and see inquiry as a

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way of being (Scovsmose, 2005). Additionally, they will recognize the potential of mathematics and science in relation to their future professional lives.

Characteristics of PD (spiral model – learning communities – scaling up)

Professional development aimed to support teachers (both pre-service and practicing) to introduce IBL approaches into their teaching and make links to the WoW. The idea underlying the design of PD activities is the link to classroom teaching where teacher reflection is a central tool for PD. Reflection is both individual and collective that can take through the teachers’ and teacher educators’ collaboration in the context of learning communities. As far as the scaling up, the project adopts a pyramid model in which a group of teacher educators is going to be educated in the philosophy and in the activities of mascil so as to work with group of teachers around each participant country. The way that the above features of the PD are implemented depends on a number of contextual and educational dimensions that exist in different national and didactic cultures.

PD in mascil supported teacher reflection though a structure characterized by a spiral model in which teachers participate in cycles of planning-implementing-reflecting. This interaction can be seen from a design research perspective since it progresses in cycles where teachers and researchers work together and reflect jointly on teaching. Different models of design research have been developed in the research literature that document positive results as regards teacher professional development (Wood and Berry, 2003). Reflection can be recognized as a means for studying teaching as well as a transition mechanism that promotes teachers’ awareness of the instructional practice (Jansen and Spitzer, 2009).

Professional learning of teachers could be facilitated in collaborative contexts in different forms of interaction such as in teams, communities and networks (Krainer, 2003). Mascil emphasizes participation in learning communities where teachers negotiate goals and tasks and they form identities related to the community’s practice (Wenger, 1998). Different models of collaboration have been reported in the respective literature such as rather structured approaches to study teaching (e.g., Hart et al., 2011) or more exploratory ones (e.g., communities of inquiry, Jaworski, 2006). Teacher collaboration in networks through on-line platforms could support teacher communication in large-scale. Moreover, the pyramid model can help to have access to a large number of teachers at national level. Moreover, the pyramid model that is adopted as an approach for scaling up will facilitate interactions between multipliers and teachers.

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Implementation and contextual issues (WP2)

Research in mathematics and science education from a rather cognitive perspective where learning was studied at an individual level to sociocultural approaches, which consider learning in relation to participation in a practice (Wenger, 1998). Moreover, teaching is framed by a number of social, cultural, educational and institutional elements that determine teachers’ decisions and classroom interaction (Skott, 2013; Valero, 2009). In the mascil context, the fact that 13 countries participate makes the study of teaching and learning a rather complex process but a challenging research terrain. Mascil recognizes this complexity by addressing the systemic character of teaching in terms of involving different actors such as policy makers, researchers and practitioners in the project’s implementation. WP2 is responsible for reporting on the diversity of educational systems and the policy contexts in which mascil teams are called upon to develop PD activities that will support teachers to implement IBL and WoW in their classrooms (Deliverable 2.1). From this report it appears that IBL and WoW are new approaches in some countries but even in cases that IBL has influenced curriculum and resources there are still barriers in actual classroom implementation.

Implementation and resources (WPs 3, 4, 5, 9)

The resources that will be developed in mascil are classroom tasks, PD materials for face to face and online communication and teacher platforms. These materials will be used and transformed in the participant countries. In general, resources play an important role on the development of teaching and learning and mediate the teachers’ and students’ activity (Roth and Radford, 2011). Gueudet and Trouche (2009) indicate that the design, implementation and further transformation of resources support be studied in parallel with teachers’ professional development. At the same time research shows that teachers interact with resources in personal and idiosyncratic ways (Remillard, 2005).

Implementation and evaluation (WP10)

WP10 will develop tools for evaluating the effectiveness of the implementation at the national and European level. The evaluation will include both quantitative and qualitative approaches complementarily. The implementation strategies in each partner country will have to be taken into account to the development of the research tools.

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1.2 Methodology

In order to collect the reports from each country about their implementation strategies and their effectiveness, we designed and distributed a framework to the participant countries following the next steps:

Step 1: Developing the first draft of the framework for the implementation strategies and their effectiveness by making the appropriate changes to D8.1.

Step 2: Discussing overlapping issues with WP10, reframing and clarifying our objectives.

Step 3: Circulating the first draft to all countries before the 5th consortium meeting in Vilnius and collecting their feedback during the meeting.

Step 4: Producing the final framework.

Step 5: Distributing the final version to the participant countries (month 34).

Step 6: Clarifying further issues with the partners in the 6th consortium meeting in Sophia and reminding them the deadlines.

Step 7: Collecting the national reports (Dec. 15, 2015 or in the middle of month 36).

Step 1: Developing the first draft of the framework for the implementation strategies and their effectiveness by making the appropriate changes to D8.1.

Since in this report our focus is on the actual implementation strategies adopted by each country we omit two questions from our initial report (Q3 and Q4 in D8.1), the questions regarding ways of contacting and selecting teachers adopted by each partner since these issues concerned the planning of implementation. Questions regarding the type of the PD model, the spiral model and the PD activities (Q5, Q6 and Q7 in D.8.1) remained and enriched in the current report but now they refer to the implemented strategies. The rest of the questions in D8.1 remained except Q12 which was regarding the collection of data for reporting of the implementation.

Step 2: Discussing overlapping issues with WP10, reframing and clarifying our objectives.

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Collaboration between the leaders of WP8, WP10 and the projects’ coordinator help to clarify the different goals of WP8 implementation report and WP10 report on the evaluation. The discussion helped to make changes in parts of the WP8 framework.

Step 3: Circulating the first draft to all countries before the 5th consortium meeting in Vilnius and collecting their feedback during the meeting.

During the 5th consortium meeting (5-7 May 2015 in Vilnius, Lithuania) we had the chance to present the first draft of this report to the other partners and receive their feedback on certain questions. We tested some questions on the first draft since they had to respond to them before the meeting and during the meeting we presented their responses in a comparative manner (e. g., participant teachers or main resources used in PD courses). In this way we provided them an overall picture of the implementation strategies adopted by all partner members.

Step 4: Producing the final framework.

The developed framework incorporated the mascil philosophy in a number of questions that the participant countries had to answer regarding implementation strategies adopted at their national level. These questions asked for a description of the choices they had made, aspects and features of their PD/TE activities and qualitative and qualitative data of their implementation activities. Moreover, mascil partners were asked to evaluate their strategies and argue on their effectiveness.

Step 5: Distributing the final version to the participant countries (month 34).

The final version was sent to all participant countries on the 31st of Oct. 2015.

Step 6: Clarifying further issues with the partners in the 6th consortium meeting in Sophia.

During the 6th consortium meeting (1-3 December 2015 in Sofia, Bulgaria) we had the chance to clarify issues regarding the implementation and to remind partners about the deadline for reporting.

Step 7: Collecting the national reports

All reports were collected in the middle of the month 36 (Deadline was Dec., 15, 2015). This is the second milestone of WP8. The present report is based on these national reports.

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Structure and content of the framework

The aim for developing the implementation framework was to provide to the partner countries a structure to report their own planning of implementation. The selection of questions reflects the main features of the rationale of implementation that has been described above. The reporting framework was constructed around five themes:

Theme 1: Participants Theme 2: PD models and teachers’ communication Theme 3: Integrating IBL/WoW in PD and classrooms activities and

implementing the spiral model. Theme 4: Engaging the wider community in mascil. Theme 5: Partners' reflection

Each of the above themes is specified through one or more questions. A detailed description of the framework and its questions according to themes, as well as the rationale of its design is provided below. The framework is included in Appendix 1.

Theme1: Participants

Theme 1 consists of the questions 1-2 of the framework. Question 1 asks the partners to provide a number of the participant in-service and pre-service teachers and multipliers as regards the educational level they teach, the form of education (general/vocational) and the discipline (mathematics/ science-technology). Questions 2 addresses the number of persons that chose to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers as regards their professional status.

In this part of the framework, we seek to gain an understanding of the extent the mascil objectives are addressed in relation to the number of persons that were engaged in the implementation (teachers and multipliers) and PD educators’ professional profiles. For instance, these data are informative about the process of scaling up in different countries (use of multipliers or not; distribution of participants to different educational levels and disciplines; number of teachers, possibilities to access particular groups).

Theme 2: PD models and teachers’ communication

Theme 2 consists of the questions 3, 4, and 5. Question 3 asks the partners to describe the PD model they adopted in terms of communication (i.e. face-to-face interaction, e-learning, blended) and structure (e.g., courses, seminars, communities, self-education).

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Question 4 asks the partners to provide information as regards the PD activities they developed (e.g., duration and total number of PD activities, number of tasks implemented in classrooms) and the selection and/or development of teacher- supporting recourses and materials as well. Question 5 asks the partners to describe the quality of teacher communication and how this was supported in PD activities.

In this part, the aim is to address the actual process of implementation as regards to PD/TE programs and provide us the chance to make comparisons across partners. The answers to the questions of this theme will provide information useful to different WPs. For example, the type of resources and the structure of PD that the partner countries were used is related to the work carried out in WPs 3, 4 and 5. The means used for teacher communication is of interest to WP9. Furthermore, this theme is closely related to the qualitative aspects of evaluation that was developed in WP10.

Theme 3: Integrating IBL/WoW in PD models and in classrooms activities

Theme 3 consists of the questions 6-8 of the framework. Question 6 focuses on how and IBL and WoW was integrated in the PD/TE programs (e.g., discussion on exemplary IBL and WoW tasks; inviting professionals; visits to workplace). Question 7 refers specifically on how IBL and WoW was integrated in participant teachers’ classrooms.In Questions 6 and 7 besides the general description we ask the partners to provide one successful and one weak example in each case. Question 8 focuses on the how the spiral model was actually implemented in PD activities and how this model supported teachers’ reflection in relation to IBL and WoW.

In this part, the questions aim to shed light on the central goals of mascil, the integration of IBL and the WoW in the classroom. We concentrate on the means by which this integration was achieved, the supported and the hindering factors that affected the implementation.

Theme 4: Engaging the wider community in mascil

Theme 4 is addressed through question 9. It concerns how was the wider school and educational community engaged in mascil implementation. On the one hand, the aim of this question is to examine how the partners addressed mascil implementation at the systemic level involving different communities. On the other hand, the above communities was also played role in the process of dissemination as regards the IBL and WoW philosophy beyond the level of the classroom.

Theme 5: Partners' reflections

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Theme 5 is addressed through question 10. This question asks the partners to comment briefly on the impact that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in their country.This question will be helpful for WP10 as it is expected to provide information about the research questions and the adopted methodology in the design of case studies.

Data Analysis

We read initially the reports of each country to check if all the required information was provided. In cases of inconsistencies or lack of relevant information, we contacted the respective partners for clarifications. Then, we analyzed the data across the themes and the corresponding questions for each country. Next, we identified the emerging issues concerning each question and theme for every country. On the basis of the above issues we produced comparative tables across the countries. We identified commonalities and differences among the countries about the process of implementation. Finally, we made certain comparisons between partners planning (report D8.1) and actually implementation strategies with the aim to identify supporting and hindering factors that influence the mascil implementation activities.

In the sections 2.1-2.5 that follow, we present the results of our analysis of the reports we selected from the partner countries. The presentation is structured on the basis of the five themes underlying the design of the framework (each section presents the results of one theme). For each theme, we provide the relevant information as it is given in the national reports and we include a summary with the major points concerning this particular theme for each country. The national reports are presented in an alphabetical order. In the sections 3.1 – 3.5 we present our comparative analysis for each theme. In section 4 we present our concluding remarks. The framework is included in the Appendix I. Appentix II includes reviewer’s comments.

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2 Implementation strategies and their effectiviness in each country

2.1 Implementation strategies: Theme 1 – Participants

In this section we present the participants in the implementation framework. The participants are teachers and multipliers (as multipliers are considered teachers trained by the consortium to train other teachers).

AUSTRIA

Theme 1a: Participants (teachers and multipliers)

TABLE 1a_AU presents the number of teachers and multipliers Austria educated.

Table 1a_AU: Participants

Pre-service

(No) In-service

(No)

Teachers Teachers Multipliers*

Educational Level

Primary (Grade 1- 6) 0 0 5(4)Lower secondary (Grade 7- 9)

862 98 5(4) Upper secondary (Grade 10- 12)

Form of Education

General 862 96 10(9)Vocational 0 2 0

Discipline Mathematics 0 73 5(4)Science-Technology 862 25 5Not specified 0 0 0

Total number of teachers/multipliers 862 98 10(9)*The Number in the parenthesis indicates multiplies that are also participant teachers.

Theme 1b: PD/TE educators’ profile

Table 1b_AU presents the number of persons that were chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in the case of Austria.

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Table 1b_Au: Educators‘ profile

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team 2 2 teachers 3 3 other university colleagues (not being members of the mascil team)

5 5

research assistants 3 3 school advisors 0 0 Total number of educators 13 13

Theme 1 (AUSTRIA): Summary

Austria educated 960 (862 pre-service and 98 in-service) teachers and 10 multipliers.They educated participants only from secondary educational levels and mostly from General form of education. Austria educated 73 in-service mathematics teachers and 887 (862 pre-service and 25 in-service) teachers of science/technology. The multipliers were 10 in total 5 for mathematics and 5 for Science/technology. Nine multipliers were also participant teachers.Thirteen persons were responsible for educating the teachers and the multipliers in Austria. Two of them were the members of the mascil team.

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BULGARIA


TABLE 1a_BU presents the number of teachers and multipliers Bulgaria educated.

Table 1a_BU: Participants

In-service

(No)

Teachers* Multipliers

Educational Level Kindergarten 41(2) Primary (Grade1 -4) 92(3) Lower secondary (Grade 5 - 7) 125(21) 2 Upper secondary (Grade 8 – 12) 128(39) 6

Form of Education General 350(62) Vocational 36(3)

Discipline Mathematics About 240 Science-Technology About 140

Not specified About 6 Total number of teachers/multipliers 386 8

*The number in the parenthesis indicates the number of the participant teachers that are also multipliers.


Table 1b_BU presents the number of educators was chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in the case of Bulgaria and their professional profiles.

Table 1b_BU: PD/TE educators’ profile

PD/TE educators Teachers Multipliers members of the team 8 (5 researchers + 3 PhD students) 8 teachers 16 = 8 (team members) + 8 multipliers 8 Total 24 16

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Theme 1 (BULGARIA): Summary

Bulgaria educated 386 in-service teachers and 8 multipliers. They educated participants from all educational levels while most of them were serving in the General form of education (350 vs 36). Bulgaria educated about 240 in-service mathematics teachers and 140 in-service teachers of science/technology. Twenty-four persons were responsible for educating the teachers and 16 for educating the multipliers in Bulgaria. Sixteen of them were the members of the mascil team.

CYPRUS


TABLE 1a_CY presents the number of teachers and multipliers Cyprus educated.

Table 1a_CY: Participants

Preservice (No)

Inservice (No)

Teachers Teachers* Multipliers

Educational Level

Primary (age 6-12) 30 53 (3) 6 Secondary (age 12-17) 72 102 (4) 13

Form of Education

General 86 144 (4) 18 Vocational 10 11 (1) 1

Discipline Mathematics 37 95 (3) 12 Science-Technology 35 60 (1) 7 Not specified 30 0 0

Total number of teachers/multipliers 102 155 19 *In the case of multiplies that are also participant teachers please indicate the number in a parenthesis.


Table 1b_CY presents the number of persons that were chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in the case of Cyprus.

Table 1b_CY: Educators’ profile

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team 2 2 teachers 8 2

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other university colleagues (not being members of the team)

2 2

research assistants 2 2 school advisors 0 1 Total No 14 9

Theme 1 (CYPRUS): Summary

Cyprus educated 257 teachers (102 pre-service and 155 in-service) and 19 multipliers from all educational levels. Most teachers (230) were from the general form of education. The participants were 132 mathematics teachers and 95 teachers of science/technology, 12 multipliers for mathematics and 7 multipliers for science/technology. Cyprus used 14 persons for educating the teachers and 9 persons to educate the mupltipliers. Two of them were the mascil team members.

CZECH REPUBLIC


TABLE 1a_CZ presents the number of teachers and multipliers Czech Republic educated.

Table 1a_CZ: Participants

Pre-service (No)

In-service (No)

Teachers Teachers Multiplier

s

Educational Level

Primary (Grades 1 – 5)

42 11 2

Lower secondary (Grades 6 –9) 35 21 4 Upper secondary (Grades 10 – 13) 48 29 6

Form of Education General 119 59 10 Vocational 6 2 2

Discipline Mathematics 39 18 2 Science-Technology 86 43 10 Not specified 0 0 0

Total number of teachers/multipliers 125 61 12

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Table 1b_CZ presents the number of persons that were chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in the case of Czech Republic.

Table 1b_CZ: Educators’ profile

For Teachers For Multipliers members of the team 4 2 teachers 3 0 other university colleagues (not being members of the team) 3 3 Ph.D. students 2 0 Total Number of educators 12 5

Theme 1 (CZECH REPUBLIC): Summary

Czech Republic educated 186 teachers (125 pre-service and 61 in-service) and 12 multipliers from all educational levels. Most teachers were from the general form of education (178 pre-service and in-service teachers). The participants were 57 mathematics teachers and 129 teachers of science/technology, 2 multipliers for mathematics and 10 multipliers for science/technology. Czech Republic used 12 persons for educating the teachers while 5 of them were educating the multipliers.

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GERMANY


TABLE 1a_GE presents the number of teachers and multipliers Germany educated.

TABLE 1a_GE: Participants

Pre-service (No)

In-service (No)

Teachers Teachers Multipliers

Educational Level

Primary (Grades 1-4) 223 61 2

Lower secondary (Grades 5 - 10) 235 33 4

Upper secondary (Grades 11 - 13) - 48 4

Form of Education General 458 94 4

Vocational - 48

Discipline

Mathematics 458 142 4

Science-Technology - - 2

Not specified - - -

Total number of teachers/multipliers 458 142 4 *The Number in the parenthesis indicates multiplies that are also participant teachers.


Table 1b_GE presents the number of persons was chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in the case of Germany.

Table 1b_GE: PD/TE educators

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers Members of the team 4 3 Teachers 2 Total Number of educators 6 3

Theme 1 (GERMANY): Summary

Germany educated 600 (458 pre-service and 142 in-service) teachers and 4 multipliers from all educational levels.Most teachers came from general education (458 pre-service

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and 94 in-service teachers). The participant teachers were only from the mathematics discipline. Germany used 6 teachers’ educators while 3 of them educating the multipliers.

GREECE


TABLE 1a_GR presents the number of teachers and multipliers Greece educated.

Table 1a_GR: Participants

Pre-service

(No) In service

(No)


Educational Level

Primary (Grade1 -6)

- 15 1

Lower secondary (Grade 7 -9) 198

52 11(1)

Upper secondary (Grade 10 – 12) 69 Form of Education

General 58 125 11(1)

Vocational 140 11 Discipline Mathematics 58 58

10 Science-Technology 140 63 Not specified - 15 1

Total number of teachers/multipliers 198 136 11(1) *The Number in the parenthesis indicates multiplies that are also participant teachers.


Table 1b_GR presents educators’ profiles that were chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in the case of Greece.

Table 1b_GR: Educators’ profile

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team 5 5 teachers 3 other university colleagues (not being members of the team) 1 research assistants 1 school advisors 1 Total No of educators 11 5

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Theme 1 (GREECE): Summary

Greece educated 334 teachers from all educational levels (198 pre-service and 136 in-service) and 11 multipliers. 183 participant teachers were from general education while 151 pre-service and in-service teachers were from vocational education. The participants were: 116 mathematics teachers, 203 teachers of science/technology and 15 from primary education, Greece used 11 multipliers for both mathematics and science/technology disciplines while one of them was also participant teacher.Eleven teacher educators educated the participant teachers while the multipliers were educated by the 5 members the mascil team.

LITHUANIA


TABLE 1a_LI presents the number of teachers and multipliers Lithuania educated.

Table 1a_LI: Participants

In-service

(No)

Teachers Multipliers*

Educational Level Primary 39 - Lower secondary 69

17 Upper secondary 79

Form of Education General 183 16 Vocational 4 1

Discipline Mathematics 45 17

Science-Technology 70 Not specified 72

Total number of teachers/multipliers 187 17

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Theme 1b: PD/TE educators’ profiles

The Table 1b_LI presents the number of persons was chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers and their profile in the case of Lithuania.

Table 1b_LI: Educators’ profile

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team 2 teachers 17 Total no of educators 17 2

Theme 1 (LITHUANIA): Summary

Lithuania educated 187 in-service teachers from all educational levels. Most teachers (183) came from general education. The participants were: 45 mathematics teachers and 70 teachers of science/technology. Lithuania used 17 teachers as multipliers while only the 2 team members educating them.

THE NETHERLANDS

Theme 1a: Participants

TABLE 1a_NL presents the number of teachers and multipliers the Netherlands educated.

TABLE 1a_NL: Participants

Pre-service (No)

In-service (No)


Educational Level Primary Lower secondary & Upper secondary 264 263 5

Form of Education General 223 263 Vocational 41

Discipline Mathematics 69 207 Science-Technology 35 56 Not specified 160


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Table 1b_NL presents the number of persons was chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in the case of the Netherlands.

Table 1b_NL: PD/TE educators’ profile

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team 6 2 Teachers 0 0 other university colleagues (not being members of the team) 5 0 Total No of educators 11 2

Theme 1 (THE NETHERLANDS): Summary

The Netherlands educated 527 (264 pre-service and 263 in-service) teachers from lower and upper secondary schools. Most teachers will come from general education (486 pre-service and in-service teachers) and only 41 from vocational schools. The participants were 276 mathematics teachers, 91 teachers of science/technology and 160 pre-service teachers were in a non-specified discipline. The Netherlands used only 11 persons for educating the teachers while 4 of them educated the multipliers.

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NORWAY

Theme 1a: Participants teachers and multipliers

TABLE 1a_NO presents the number of teachers and multipliers Norway educated.

TABLE 1a_NO: Participants

Pre-service (No)

In-service (No)


Educational Level Primary (Grades 1-7) 40 143 14 Lower secondary (Grades 8–10) 52 8 Upper secondary (Grades 11-13) 0

Form of Education General 40 195 22 Vocational

Discipline (what they teach)

Mathematics 3 Science-Technology 1 Both MA and SCI Not yet 195 18

Total number of teachers/multipliers 40 195 22 *Most of our multipliers are also practicing teachers


Table 1b_NO presents the number of persons that were chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in the case of Norway.

Table 1b_NO: PD/TE educators

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team 19 4 teachers 1 school advisors 1 Representative from The Nysgjerrigper Science Knowledge Project 1 Total No of PD/TE eduvators 20 6

Theme 1 (NORWAY): Summary

Norway’ participants in mascil project were 235 teachers (40 pre-service and 195 in-service) and 22 multipliers from primary and lower secondary educational level. Almost all teachers came from general education and were teaching both mathematics and

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science/technology. Most of their multipliers were also practicing teachers. Norway used 20 PD/TE educators for educating the teachers while 4 members of the mascil team and 2 members of a Norwegian Institute were responsible for educating the multipliers.

ROMANIA


TABLE 1a_RO presents the number of teachers and multipliers Romania educated.

TABLE 1a_RO: Participants

Pre-service (No)

In-service (No)


Educational Level Primary (Grade 1 - 4) 40 40 3 Lower secondary (Grade 5 - 8) 35 60 5(2) Upper secondary (Grade 9- 12) 20 25 5(3)

Form of Education General 95 40 8 Vocational 85 5

Discipline Mathematics 55 85 10 Science-Technology 40 40 3

Total number of teachers/multipliers 95 125 13 *The Number in the parenthesis indicates multiplies that are also participant teachers.

Theme 1b: PD/TE educators

Table 1b_RO presents PD/TE educators’ profile in the case of Romania.

PD/TE educators For Teachers

members of the team 2 teachers 8 other university colleagues (not being members of the team) 1 Colleagues from other universities 2 Total No of PD/TE educators 13

Theme 1 (ROMANIA): Summary

Romania educated 220 teachers (95 pre-service and 125 in-service) and 13 multipliers from all educational levels. Most in-service teachers were serving in vocational

33



education. The participants were: 140 mathematics teachers and 80 teachers of science/technology. 5 multipliers were also participant teachers.Romania used 13 multipliers while 2 of them where the members of the mascil and 8 where in-service teachers.

SPAIN


TABLE 1a_SP presents the number of teachers and multipliers Spain educated.

TABLE 1a_SP: Participants

Pre-service (No)

In-service (No)


Educational Level Primary 180 230 - Secondary 81 227 -

Form of Education General 261 457 - Vocational 0 0 -

Discipline Mathematics 61 90 - Science-Technology 200 137 -

Both math & science 230

Total number of teachers/multipliers 261 457 -


Table 1b_SP presents the number of persons that were chosen to carry out PD/TE activities for teachers and multipliers in Spain.

Table 1b_SP: PD/TE educators

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team 4 -- teachers 4 -- Total No of PD/TE educators 8

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35



Theme 1 (SPAIN): Summary

Spain educated 718 teachers (261 pre-service and 457 in-service) from primary and upper secondary educational levels. All teachers trained came from general education. The participants were: 90 mathematics teachers, 137 teachers of science/technology and 230 teachers in a not specified discipline.Eight PD/TE educators educated the participant teachers were 4 of them were the mascil team members.

TURKEY


TABLE 1a_TU presents the number of teachers and multipliers Turkey educated.

Table 1a_TU: Participants

Pre-service (No)

In-service (No)


*

Educational Level Primary (Grade 1-4) Lower secondary (Grade 5 - 8) 159 42 2 Upper secondary (Grade 9 –12) 60 83 2

Form of Education General 219 117 Vocational 8

Discipline Mathematics Science-Technology 219 125 Not specified



Table 1b_TU presents PD/TE educators’ profiles in the case of Turkey.

Table 1b_TU: PD/TE educators

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team 2 2 teachers other university colleagues (not being members of the team) 2 research assistants 2

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Total No of PD/TE educators 4 4

Theme 1 (TURKEY): Summary

Turkey educated 344 (219 pre-service and 125 in-service) teachers from lower and upper secondary educational level. Almost all the teachers were in general education and were teaching science/technology. Four PD/TE educators were responsible for training the participant teachers and multipliers.

THE UNITED KINGDOM


TABLE 1a_UK presents the number of teachers and multipliers United Kingdom educated.

Table 1a_UK: Participants

Pre-service

(No)

In-service4 (No)

Teachers Teachers Multipliers2

Educational Level

Primary 23 - - 5Lower and upper secondary 27 54 (3) Upper secondary 57 58 (1)

Form of Education

General 50 54 (3) Vocational 57 48 (1)

Discipline Mathematics3 43 82 (2) Science-Technology 25 20 (2) Vocational or other specialisms1 39 - -

Total number of teachers/multipliers 107 102 (4) Notes: 1 These teachers, whose main subjects are vocational or other specialisms, are often expected to embed mathematics into their teaching in upper secondary education and therefore mascil was considered relevant to their PD needs. 2 Multipliers had responsibility for either leading one or more mascil PD sessions independently, or they worked with a team member to facilitate the PD sessions. 3 There were some mixed groups of mathematics and science teachers but individuals have been separated into their specialisms in this table.

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4 There are some blurred boundaries between pre-service and in-service teaching in the UK and so several participants in the in-service programs (approx. 6) were teaching but still in training. 5 Many mathematics teachers train to teach across the full range of both upper and lower secondary.

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Table 1b_UN presents PD/TE educators’ profiles in the case of United Kingdom.

Table 1b_UN: PD/TE educators PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers

members of the team 4 3 teachers 3 other university colleagues (not being members of the team)

research assistants

Total No of PD/TE educators 7

Theme 1 (UNITED KINGDOM): Summary

United Kingdom educated 209 teachers (107 pre-service and 102 in-service) from primary and upper secondary educational levels. 104 teachers came from general education and 105 from vocational education. The participants were: 90 mathematics teachers, 137 teachers of science/technology and 230 teachers in a not specified discipline. Eight PD/TE educators educated the participant teachers were 4 of them were the mascil team members.

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2.2 Implementation strategies: Theme 2 - PD models and teachers’ communication

In this section we present the national PD model that every country adopted and how this model supported teachers’ communication.

AUSTRIA

Theme 2a: The structure of the PD model

In the following excerpt Austria describes the PD model was implemented for their teachers and multipliers.

For teachers: We provided a two-stage PD model with one cycle for the teachers to implement the settings in their own classes. The first face-to-face meeting took place at the beginning of a semester (Oct 2014, Feb/Mar 2015, Oct 2015, Feb/Mar 2016). The second face-to-face meeting was then at the end of the semester, respectively (Dec. 2014/Jan 2015, Apr 2015, Dec. 2015/Jan 2016, Apr 2016. During the period between the meetings, the participants implemented at least one adapted task. In the implementation phase, we offered to contact us via e-mail or also to coach the participants, but the participants did not make use of it. We change from the planned three-stage PD-model to a two-stage model since the pedagogical colleges (PD centres), who advertised and organized the PD courses, favoured the shorter model.

For multipliers: The multipliers who were also members of the national team were briefed during the regular meetings of the Austrian team. The other multipliers attended the same PD course as the teachers so they could bring in an additional perspective in the PD course itself.

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Theme 2b: Quantitative and qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities

In Table 2b_AU Austria provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2b_AU: : Quantitative data regarding PD/TE activities

In-service teachers Pre-service teachers

Total duration of PD/TE programs (i.e., starting month – ending month, distribution)

Oct 2014 – Jan 2015 (2 meetings a 4 hours) Linz

Oct 2014 – Jan 2015 (2 meetings a 4 hours) IBK Feb 2015 – Apr 2015 (2 meetings a 4 hours)

Linz Feb 2015 (1 meetings a 4 hours) IBK

Oct 2015 – Dez 2015 (2 meetings a 4 hours) Linz

Oct 2015 – Dez 2015 (2 meetings a 4 hours) IBK

Oct 2015 – Jan 2016 (2 meetings a 4 hours)

Mar 2014 – Jun 2014 (5 meetings a 4 hours)

Mar 2015 – Jun 2015 (6 meetings a 4 hours)

Oct 2015 – Jan 2016 (6 meeting a 4 hour)

Oct 2015 – Jan 2016 (3 meetings a 2 hour)

Oct 2014 – Jan 2015 (3 meetings a 2 hour)

Total number of teacher groups / average number of teachers per group/educational level and discipline per group

7/14 5/172

Total number of PD/TE activities. Specify the number of PD/TE activities per type (e.g., meetings, seminars, workshops)

2 workshops 26workshops and 6

lectures

Quantitative data on implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks 6 84 Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)

2 48

Number of PoM implemented (possibly after transformation)

1 4

Number of other tasks (e.g., developed by the teachers, provided in the curriculum)

3 32

Total number of classroom implementations

18 105

Total number of teaching hours 36 402

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In the following excerpt Austria describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM: In the PD course for mathematics teacher, the most dominant mascil task was the Chocolate bar machine scheduling task. It was used in all PD courses in order experience a mascil task from the perspective of a student. The task fulfils all requirements of the mascil ideas and was always completely unknown to the teachers.In the PD course for biology the task Hearing was used and discussed in detail.

Resources that you used in your PD activities: We planned our PD courses based on different tools from the toolkit of WP4. Some of them were used without changes, especially the tools ID 1 to ID 4. Some of the tools were slightly modified to better match the national requirements (e.g. WA-1). We presented the guidelines from WP3 in order to prepare the teachers for their own adaptation of a task and discussed many tasks from repository in the face-to-face meetings and also some PoM. In some PD courses, we introduced the teacher communication platform, but it was not accepted by the participants.

Possible obstacles in using the above resources:The e-PD toolkit was not used so far. Due to the ongoing translation and revision of the e-PD toolkit, a full functionality could not be guaranteed.We argue that the teacher communication platform was not used since there was no need and/or will for additional exchange during the meetings or afterwards.

Theme 2c: Teachers’ communication

In the following excerpt Austria describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: During the PD courses, we presented the mascil homepage and offered the possibility to communicate with the facilitators via e-mail or between the participants. Some participants contacted the facilitator for further information or to exchange their ideas about their adapted tasks. We did not use the forum on the teacher communication platform since the toolkit on the platform was not yet finished.

Between different PD groups at the national level: The only exchange of ideas or tasks between different PD groups at the national level was provided by the facilitators. They presented and discussed the material of the different PD groups. A further exchange between the participants was not planned.

Between teachers at the international level: With regard to a problem of the month, we could encourage a teacher to exchange his ideas with a teacher from another country (Bulgaria). In form of a small virtual meeting, supported by the Norwegian team, they discussed together with their students different approaches to the bicycle insurance task. Then the communication between the teachers continued and they exchanged in the following months some more challenging approaches to the problem using higher mathematical models to simulate data for a deeper understanding of the problem. These results were then partly discussed with the students.

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Theme 2 (AUSTRIA): Summary

PD model: The adopted PD model for in-service and pre-service teachers and multipliers by Austria was face-to-face communication. The main PD activities were meetings in groups, workshops and lectures.

Data on PD activities for in-service teachers: For the time period of Oct. 2014 to Jan. 2016 they implemented 13 meetings by forming 7 teacher groups with an average of 14 teachers per group (4x7=98). Total duration for this PD activity was 52 hours. Additionally there were also 2 workshops.

Data on PD activities for pre-service teachers: For the time period Mar. 2014 to Jan. 2016 they implemented 23 meetings in 5 courses with an average of 172 pre-service teachers per group/course (172x5 ~ 862). Total duration of this activity was 80 hours. They implemented also 26 workshops and 6 lectures.

Implemented tasks:They implemented 90 tasks (84 by pre-service and 6 by in-service teachers) while 50 were mascil tasks, 5 were PoMs and 35 were other tasks developed by the teachers in 123 classroom implementations which lasted for 438 hours.

Most prominent mascil tasks: The most prominent mascil tasks in PD activities and classroom implementations were the Chocolate Bar machine and the Hearing tasks.

The resources used in PD meetings were the material developed by the mascil partners (WPs 3, 4 & 5) (i.e. toolkit ID1 to ID4) with the appropriate transformations. They did not make any use of the e-PD toolkit.

Teachers’ communication models:Teachers’ communication with multipliers took place through f2f interaction in PD meetings and via email communication. There was not any communication between teachers on a national level. Austria participated in one virtual conference with Bulgaria were teachers of the two countries discussed together with their students different approaches to the bicycle insurance task. This communication repeated mostly between the teachers in the two countries.

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BULGARIA


In the following excerpt Bulgaria describes the PD model was implemented.

We have been working mainly with in-service teachers using a “blended model” (where the word “blended” is used in several contexts):

Two-phase (128-hour) PD courses for IBL for multipliers-to-be, organized jointly by IMI-BAS and the Ministry of Education and Science (MES): In the first phase (3-4 days in the beginning of the summer) the teachers are acquainted with software educational environments (e.g. GEOGEBRA, GEONExT, ELICA) as well as with examples how to use them in IBL style. The participants of the courses are being assigned projects as a “home-work”. In the second “follow-up” phase (with duration 1-2 days at the end of the summer) the participants present the advancement in their work on the projects in front of the other participants in the course and in the presence of mascil team members. (As of December 2015 three such courses were conducted). The results of the conduction of these three courses were very encouraging and the participants got certificates that they can serve as multipliers for IBME.

PD courses for teachers with RAABE – (http://www.raabebg.com/): Members of Sofia mascil team were invited by this well known international firm to serve as lecturers at these courses and to propose the content of the courses. In this way, the courses were used to test (both as content and didactics) scenarios and guidelines developed in the framework of mascil project. The participating teachers got introduced into Inquiry based teaching and learning. Since the teachers were from different places in the country, these courses had a good dissemination effect as well.

Courses provided jointly by members of the team and multipliers: These courses were mainly conducted by the multipliers, the team members taking the floor to put the activities in a more general mascil context.

Courses provided by multipliers: Such courses are being led by multipliers with good knowledge and experience in implementing IBL in math education (5 courses so far).

Conducting workshops for IBL each year as part of national and international events in the field of mathematics education.These events usually comprise researchers, teachers, and representatives of educational authorities and attracts the attention of a significant number of teachers and policy makers thus providing an opportunity to discuss IBL from nationwide and international perspective:

o The Annual Conference of the Union of Bulgarian Mathematicians organized in the beginning of April attracting about 400 participants (about 300 teachers, educational policy makers, university lecturers and more than 100 school students participating in the „High-school students’ section“ of the Conference).. o The National Seminar for Education in Mathematics and Informatics, organized annually by IMI-BAS in the second half of December.

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o National conferences/seminars/workshops related with other projects (e.g. Scientix national conference, UNESCO International Workshop QED)

Conducting PD courses (3 – 5 days) and follow-up activities for teachers who want to use IBL: Seminar for work at the 4th level of IBL, .i.e. for teachers who are mentors of students’ research projects within the High School Students’ Institute (HSSI) of Mathematics and Informatics. A three-week Summer School is organized for the involved teachers and the best achieving students. The Seminar for teachers takes place during this Summer School. For the time being (December 2015) three such seminars have been conducted.

Work directly with students at the 4th level of IBL in the frames of HSSI: The HSSI is a special type of “Inquiry Based Learning Beyond Classroom” (IBLBC) where secondary school students work (under the supervision of a mentor) on their own projects focused on the study of a given problem from mathematics, informatics and/or IT. The students deliver their results and findings, in written and oral form, in front of a jury and peers at two sessions - in January and April. This kind of IBLBC has been practiced in Bulgaria for a number of years (since 2000) and gives very encouraging results. Some of the students’ findings were on such a high level that they were published and even quoted in mathematics research journals. Among the students’ projects in the field of IT there are many interesting results related to the WoW. Some of them are ready to be used in practice. HSSI plays an important role with respect to the dissemination of IBL because the students involved (and their mentors) are coming from all over the country.

Developing and producing teacher-supporting resources which enhance and facilitate IBL, especially with respect to WoW. Most of them are also suitable for e-learning (with emphasis on dynamic mathematics and interactivity);

Designing and maintaining an internet site with materials for IBL;

The current version of the local mascil website can be seen at: http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/mascil/ In addition to the Bulgarian version an English one is maintained which contains not only translations but also variations of some of the scenarios

Publication of educational materials in the form of articles in journals and hand-books related to IBL authored by team members, multipliers and teachers including in one of the leading and well spread Bulgarian educational journal “Matematika”. Because the journal is widely circulated, this serves the dissemination as well (with an advertisement of the mascil resources on its cover).

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In Table 2b_BU Bulgaria provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2b_BU: Quantitative data regarding PD/TE activities In-service teachers Total duration of PD/TE programs (i.e., starting month – ending month, distribution)

November 30th, 2013, On-going


Joint PD Courses MES and IMI-BAS: 3 courses – (22+20+20) secondary school teachers in mathematics, informatics and IT; Courses with RAABE 14 courses (about 26 teachers in average) – primary and secondary school. Courses provided jointly by members of the team and multipliers Three courses (21 teachers in average)- secondary school Courses provided by multipliers Five courses (32 teachers in average) Secondary school


11 workshops and seminars (see the detailed description below)

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks 16 Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)

12 (from the National website)


All PoMs have been translated and published on the national website, 4 of which being implemented in several workshops

and then - in schools. Number of other tasks (e.g developed by the teachers, provided in the curriculum)

4 resources developed by teachers and approved for general use


Not known but The Virtual Math Lab containing over 900 e-resources (at IMI-BAS) has been attended more than 80 000

times per year and 36 000 downloads were carried out. Total number of teaching hours

Further explanations about the PD activities Bulgaria implemented.

PD courses organized jointly by IMI-BAS and MES

A 128-hour PD course “Inquiry approach in Mathematics education” was delivered by Petar Kenderov, Toni Chehlarova, Evgenia Sendova, Georgi Gachev, Monka Koceva. The participants were 22 mathematics and IT teachers who are going to serve as multipliers. The course was organized by IMI-BAS and MES in the town of Sofia, July 4th – August 15th, 2014.

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Two consecutive 128-hour PD courses on “Inquiry approach in Mathematics education” were delivered by Petar Kenderov, Toni Chehlarova, Evgenia Sendova, Georgi Gachev, Monka Koceva. The participants were two separate groups of 20 teachers each who are going to serve as multipliers. The course was organized by IMI-BAS and MES (Ministry of Education and Science) in the town of Sofia, June 22nd – August 15th, 2015.

PD courses organized by RAABE

Eight-hour PD course for 23 teachers on “Contemporary Educational Technologies for the Development of Mathematics Lessons”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova and Evgenia Sendova in the town of Sofia, November 30th, 2013

Eight-hour PD course for 24 teachers on “Learning mathematics by dynamic constructions”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Montana on March 15th, 2014.

Eight-hour Professional Development course for 25 teachers on “Building modelling competences through Project Based Learning”, delivered by E. Sendova in the town of Targovishte, March 15th, 2014

Two-days PD course for 26 teachers on “Learning mathematics by dynamic constructions”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Pleven, March 21-22nd, 2014.

Eight-hour PD course for 27 teachers on “Learning mathematics by dynamic constructions”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Varna, April 4th, 2014

Eight-hour PD course for 22 teachers on “Learning mathematics by dynamic constructions”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Veliko Tarnovo, April 26th, 2014

Eight-hour PD course for 36 primary school teachers on “Game approach for building mathematical literacy”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Silistra, October 11th, 2014

Eight-hour PD course for 25 mathematics and IT teachers on “Practical problems suitable for building key competence in mathematics”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Gotse Delchev, October 18th, 2014

Eight-hour PD course for 26 mathematics and IT teachers on “Practical problems suitable for building key competence in mathematics”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Montana, October 31st, 2014

Eight-hour PD course for 26 mathematics and IT teachers on “Practical problems suitable for building key competence in mathematics”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Sandanski, November 8th, 2014

Eight-hour PD course for 25 mathematics and IT teachers on “Building key competence in mathematics education by means of dynamic constructions”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Stara Zagora, January 28th, 2015

Eight-hour PD course for 30 teachers on “Learning mathematics by dynamic constructions”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Silistra, March 23th, 2015

Eight-hour PD course for 30 preschool teachers on “Developing digital competences in preschool age”, delivered by Toni Chehlarova in the town of Troyan, November 27 – 28, 2015

Courses provided jointly by members of the team and multipliers

One-day course for 16 teachers on “Inquiry Approach to Mathematics Education with the Use of Dynamical Resources” was delivered on October 31st, 2015, by Eli Stefanova (mascil multiplier) and Toni Chehlarova. The course was based on the Manual for Teachers (with the same title) prepared and published by T. Chehlarova in 2015. It is in the form of a 43 pages booklet written in Bulgarian (Publisher Makros (www.makros.net), ISBN 978-954-561-373-9)

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Obe-day PD course for teachers in mathematics, IT and computer science on IBME by means of dynamic learning environments was delivered by Stella Kokinova (a mascil multiplier) and Evgenia Sendova on November 7th, 2015, in the First English Language School in Sofia. Stella Kokinova shared her good practices inspired by mascil ideas and demonstrated how she has used some of the mascil resources in a class setting. An interesting demonstration on how to investigate graphs of functions by means of dynamic geometry software was delivered by a student of hers based on a project he had presented in an international forum in Spain.

One-day PD course for was delivered by Toni Chehlarova and Daniela Kuncheva to 31 teachers in mathematics and IT on 28 February, 2015, in the town of Vratsa. 31 persons participated.

Courses provided by multipliers

Workshop occupying two slots of 40 min each was conducted for 103 teachers (in mathematics, informatics and IT) by six mascil multipliers (Stella Kokinova, Galya Pencheva, Boryana Kuyumdzhieva, Diana Vassileva, Darinka Valkova and Roumiana Angelova) who delivered examples of their practicing IBME in (and beyond) classroom setting in the frames of the 44th Spring Conference of the Union of Bulgarian Mathematicians (2-6 April, 2015, Kamchia, Bulgaria.

Eight hour Face-to-Face basic course for teachers on IBME was delivered by the multiplier Maria Brauchle delivered in Bansko. The two-hour sessions took place on March 10th, 11th, 17th and 18th 2015. The face-to-face phase of the course was followed by a work by the participants on a project of their own. Then these projects were presented and defended in separate sessions of the group. The total course was designed as a 32-hour course. 16 teachers took part, out of whom 13 got a certificate. The course was organized in collaboration with the Regional Academic Center (a subdivision of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) in Blagoevgrad.

Three one-day courses on IBME with 10 teachers, delivered by Daniela Kuncheva, mascil multiplier, organized from the region of Selanovci (6 teachers) and from the village of Ostrov (4 teachers). The courses took place on 7/11/2014, 12/11/2014 г. и 19/11/2014г

One-day course with teachers from Dobrich was delivered to 8 teachers by Nelly Stoyanova and Radoslav Radanov, mascil multipliers, on September 24, 2014. The course was organized in collaboration with the Regional Academic Center (a subdivision of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) in Dobrich.

A PD course for 24 teachers on “Inquiry approach in mathematics education by means of dynamic mathematics environments” was delivered by the multipliers Neli Stoyanova and Radoslav Radanov on November 28th, 2015, in the Science and Mathematics Gymnasium “Acad. N. Obreshkov” in Razgrad.

Workshops and seminars within national events and international events delivered by IMI-BAS mascil team members

„How to make a snowflake“ was the topic of the first mascil Workshop for teachers (prospective mascil multipliers) in Bulgaria. It was held in IMI-BAS on 16.12.2013 as an accompanying event to the National Seminar for Education in Mathematics and Informatics.

A two-day mascil Workshop was conducted in the frames of the 43d Annual Conference of the Union of the Bulgarian Mathematicians, 2-6 April, 2014, in Borovetz , Bulgaria.

A workshop “The digits lurk around the Corner” was led by P. Kenderov and the mascil multiplier D. Cviatkov in the frames of the Scientix National Conference (Sofia, 7-8 December, 2014).

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A workshop “Symmetry – Investigations and Applications” was conducted by Toni Chehlarova, Evgenia Sendova and Neda Chehlarova in the frames of the Scientix National Conference (Sofia, 7-8 December, 2014).

A workshop was conducted by Albena Vasileva for multipliers and multipliers to be. Presentation on the mascil Toolkit in action was delivered and the problem of the Month (January 2015), was reconsidered. The workshop was on December 5th, 2015, in the frame of the National Seminar for Education in Mathematics and Informatics, held in IMI-BAS

A half a day seminar for teachers "Dissemination of Inquiry Based style of Education " was delivered by E. Sendova and P. Kenderov in the frames of the UNESCO International Workshop Quality of Education and Challenges in a Digitally Networked World QED’14 (Sofia, October 30 -31, 2014). A good description of the events is available at http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/mascil/docs/QED_Mascil_site_new.pdf . Some participants in the conference and 20 teachers (mascil multipliers) from 10 places in Bulgaria took part in the events. The two events were also a part of the professional development of mascil multipliers. The mascil Problem of the Month (“Bicycle Insurance”) was thoroughly tried, elaborated and discussed. Presentation of the Bulgarian translation of mascil Toolkit delivered by Albena Vasileva to the mascil multipliers having participated upon invitation, in the National Scientix Conference – Sofia, 7-8 December, 2014.

The Dynamic Mathematics in Education conference (Sofia, 14 February, 2015) (http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/dmo/) was used for PD of teachers interested in IBME by means of Dynamic resources. Here an interesting phenomenon was that 4 of the mascil multipliers participated with their students. The authors of the best 5 presentations (all of them mascil multipliers) were invited to share their experience as speakers in the 2-hour workshop in the frames of the 44th Spring Conference of the Union of Bulgarian Mathematicians (2-6 April, 2015, Kamchia, Bulgaria)

A seminar on doing scientific research at school age was organized for teachers–mentors of high school students by E. Sendova, followed by a Round-table discussion on the 4th-level of Inquiry Based Education in Uzana, near Gabrovo on August 21 -23, 2013. (About 20 teachers in mathematics and informatics).

A seminar on doing research at school age in the context of two summer schools (RSI and HSSI) was organised by E. Sendova and R. Angelova (a mascil multiplier) for teachers-mentors of high school students, in August 2014, Usana.

The third seminar for teachers working at the 4th level of IBL was conducted in the campus of the American University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, from 14 to 19 of August 2015. Some of the seminar sessions were also attended by students of HSSI. The seminar was led by E. Sendova and two teachers - Susan Feimova, teacher in IT from “Baba Tonka” Math High school in Rousse, and Eleonora Pavlova, (mascil multiplier from “Petar Beron” Math High School in Varna) who presented her experience with a team work on the mascil problem of Bicycles’ insurance.

In the following excerpt Bulgaria describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

What is a very interesting phenomenon in Bulgaria concerning the PoM initiative is that a "good problem" (integrating several subjects and broad enough in terms of the age range) is rarely used within the specific month only. For instance, the problems about the bicycle insurance, about counting a crowd of people, and about the construction of a parking entrance have enjoyed an increasing popularity and have

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been discussed at various occasions (mascil workshops, a summer school for high school students in math and CS with a session for their teachers, at the National conference on Math Education held at IMI-BAS, etc.) The PoM “Bicycle insurance” was presented to teachers (mascil muptiliers) at a specialized mascil seminar within the UNESCO International Workshop “Quality of Education and Challenges in a Digitally Networked World” and described in an article by E. Sendova in the Proceedings of the event: “The mascil seminar and the poster session in the frames of QED’14 – a forum of innovative educational ideas”. The full text of the article (in Bulgarian) could be found at: http://unesco.unibit.bg/en/QED14, p. 203 As result several teachers reported on the way they have implemented this problem in their further activities. Here are some examples: The Math High School "Baba Tonka" in Rousse represented by students of Boriana Kuyumdzhieva (teacher in math and CS and mascil multiplier) established a virtual meeting with a school in Austria thanks to Florian Stampler. The meeting was coordinated by E. Sendova and moderated by Boriana and Florian. Each class had discussed preliminary the results of the other class and had prepared some questions. During the virtual meeting, the Austrian and Bulgarian students asked their question and provided constructive critics to some of the assumptions and findings of their opponents. This meeting turned out to be very fruitful in terms of further development. Here is a fragment from an e-mail of Florian Stampler to B. Kuyumdzhieva after the virtual meeting: "In the attachment you find some pdf-files with plots from different functions from your students’ slides. I implemented all the mathematical ideas of your students in R (this you and your students can find in the R-file); The most interesting file is "Bulgaria-Company-Development.pdf" this is the result of a simulation of 5 years with randomly stolen bicycles. I hope you (or your) can deduce it from the code." Other Bulgarian teachers who shared their experience in the context of this problem were Neli Stoyanova from the Math High School in Razgrad, and EleonoraPavlova, from the Math and Science High School in Varna. These collaborations culminated in face-to-face meeting of the supervising teachers in Sofia during a poster session in the frames of a National seminar on Inquiry Based Mathematics Education held at IMI-BAS. Although the posts on the national mascil forum so far are modest in number, there are some impressive pictures of car-constructions inspired by the Problem of November: http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/mascil/forum.html. Following the suggestion of the teacher Darinka Valkova, it might be a good idea to organise a competition within the next mascil conference among the young car constructors. In addition, the problem on constructing a parking entrance was also met with enthusiasm and as reported by Eleonora Pavlova, her 12-grade students worked on it as a homework and came up with a number of creative ideas. As the teacher reported later the original reaction of the parents was if not completely negative, at least one of a puzzlement – how would she evaluate the products of the students”? But her reward was that gradually the parents felt involved in stimulating discussions with their children who came up with novel extensions of the problem going beyond its original formulation, e.g. constructing several levels (one of them under the ground). In a nut shell, the activities around the PoM have been an essential stimulus contributing to the establishment of a national and international community of mascil teachers. Resources that you used in your PD activities: To ensure the wide dissemination in Bulgaria of IBL of Mathematics and its connection with WoW, the Sofia team developed (and will keep doing so) new educational environments and/or adapted existing such environments for the needs of mascil project. A notable recent development in this direction, which already enjoys popularity among teachers and students, is the Virtual Mathematics Laboratory developed by mascil team (see

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http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/cabinet/index.php?appletid=23 ). As of December 2015 it contains over 950 software units (mainly Geogebra files) that can be used “ freely to enhance teaching and learning mathematics in school and beyond classroom in inquiry based style. For a year after the site has been opened there were more than 80 000 visits and more than 36 000 downloads of resources. Within the framework of the project it is intended also to publish new books and brochures, to make clips and films with good IBL practices in school, to produce different manipulatives for “hands-on” activities, etc. Mascil Project is referred to at the IMI-BAS website of: http://www.math.bas.bg/new/site/?call=USE~projects; The local mascil website has been developed and is currently maintained by the Sofia team. It was released for public use in December 2013. The current version of the local mascil website can be seen at: http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/mascil/ In addition to the Bulgarian version an English one is maintained which contains not only translations but also variations of some of the scenarios (e.g. the tessellation scenario).At the moment the above mentioned (in the description of activities related to WP3) Didactic dynamic scenarios developed by the Sofia team are present and fully operational on the site. Several Mathematics scenarios from the official site of mascil Project have been selected and are translated in Bulgarian including all Problems of the Month posted after November 2014. Some of them have been “upgraded” by adding “dynamics functionality” which increases their appeal and extends the range of the potential users. http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/mascil/. http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/projectsEN.php Possible obstacles in using the above resources A typical problem pointed out by the teachers is the limited time in class which is intended to cover specific topics of the curriculum, the acquired knowledge then being assessed by standardized tests. There is still a big gap between IBL style requiring sufficient time for explorations (in- and out of class), hopefully leading to a student’s product which could be presented and shared, and the traditional assessment by means of tests. This is the reason many of the IBL activities were implemented as beyond class activities.


In the following excerpt Bulgaria describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

The feeling of support within the community of teachers, multipliers and the IMI-BAS team is crucial for the further success of the project achievements. The e-resources developed within VirMathLab and those on the mascil website, are a rich platform for ongoing development of teachers and students alike.

Some of the participants in the PD courses for multipliers shared that before the PD course they had used IBL mainly at intuitive level, but after that they gained confidence – now they have access to a lot of resources, model lessons and supportive community. When talking to their directorate they are convinced that their employers see the applicability of this approach and its international recognition.

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Theme 2 (BULGARIA): Summary

PD model: The adopted PD model for in-service teachers and multipliers by Bulgaria was face-to-face communication. The main PD activities were courses, workshops and seminars.

Data on PD activities for in-service teachers: For the time period of Nov. 2013 to now they implemented 25 PD courses (3-5 days), 11 workshops and 3 seminars. 3 courses had on average 21 secondary school teachers in mathematics, informatics and IT; 14 courses (about 26 teachers on average) of primary and secondary school; 3 courses had 21 secondary school teachers on average; and 5 courses with 32 secondary school teachers on average. In totally, the average No of participants in each course was 31 teachers. Total duration for this PD activity was about 290 hours. Additionally there were also 18 days workshops.

Implemented tasks: They implemented 16 tasks while 8 of them were mascil tasks and 4 were PoMs and 4 developed by the teachers themselves and approved by the mascil team.

Most prominent PoMs: Bulgaria argues why the ‘bicycle insurance’, the ‘counting of people’, and the ‘construction of a parking entrance’ have enjoyed an increasing popularity and have been discussed at various PD occasions. To ensure the wide dissemination in Bulgaria of IBL of Mathematics and its connection with WoW, the Sofia team developed new educational environments and/or adapted existing such environments for the needs of mascil Project.

Obstacles in implementation activities: Bulgaria implemented mascil tasks beyond class activities. Bulgaria argues on this decision as follows: A typical problem pointed out by the teachers is the limited time in class which is intended to cover specific topics of the curriculum, the acquired knowledge then being assessed by standardized tests, IBL style requiring more time for explorations (in- and out of class) than the traditional assessment by means of tests. This is the reason many of the IBL activities were implemented as beyond class activities.

Teachers’ communication models: Teachers’ communication with multipliers took place through f2f interaction in PD activities. The e-resources developed within VirMathLab and those on the mascil website were the forms of communication with teachers and students at a national level.

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CYPRUS


In the following excerpt Cyprus describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers: The PD/TE for the teachers depended on the population every time – for example all the pre-service teacher training activities were performed on-line (e-learning) through various on-line courses as part of the Master’s degree at the University of Nicosia. The in-service activities were performed with face to face interactions through seminars and workshops.

For multipliers: The training activities for the multipliers were provided through face to face interaction during seminars and workshops. This model of delivery was considered more appropriate for the multipliers due to the fact that most of the multipliers were linked to our research group and had personal contact with us already.


In Table 2b_CY Cyprus data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_CY: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities

In-service teachers Pre-service teachers Total duration of PD/TE programs October 2014 – April

2015 March 2014 – November 2015


12/15/all levels and disciplines

5/15/all levels and disciplines

Total number of PD/TE activities. Specify the number of PD/TE activities per type

Average 3 types of activities

Average 3 types of activities

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks 5 7 Number of mascil tasks implemented 3 1 Number of PoM implemented 1 3 Number of other tasks ( 1 3 Total number of classroom implementations 12 5 Total number of teaching hours 149 42

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In the following excerpt Cyprus describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and resourses used in PD activities.

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM: Sports physiology and statistics; piggiFlu is coming; solar cells; House insulation

Resources that you used in your PD activities: For the in-service teachers we used: the toolkit, mascil tasks and PoM based on the discipline of the teachers attending the workshops and seminars. For the pre-service teachers we used: toolkit, mascil tasks and PoM based on the discipline of the teachers attending the workshops and seminars and a teacher communication platform that was embedded within the on-line platform that they were already using for the course.

Possible obstacles in using the above resources: The tasks and PoM had to be adjusted to fit the local curriculum.


In the following excerpt Cyprus describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: Group work during the workshops and seminars, group assignments and group presentations; between different PD groups at the national level; Communication through our University platform on assigned tasks for the pre-service teachers and through participation and presentations at national teacher seminars.

Between teachers at the international level: By using the teacher communication platform.

Theme 2 (CYPRUS): Summary

PD model: The adopted PD model by Cyprus was different for in-service (f2f PD activities) and for pre-service teachers (e-learning).

PD activities for in-service teachers: For the time period of Oct. 2014 to Apr. 2015 they implemented 3 activities by forming 12 mixed (in terms of discipline and level of education) teacher groups with an average of 15 in-service teachers’ members.

PD activities for pre-service teachers For the time period Mar. 2014 to Nov. 2015 they implemented 3 PD activities by forming 5 teacher groups with an average of 15 pre-service teachers.

Implemented tasks: They implemented 12 tasks (7 by pre-service and 5 by in-service teachers) while 4 were PoMs and 4 were other mascil tasks and 4 developed by the

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teachers which resulted in 17 number of classroom implementations which lasted for 191 hours.

Most prominent mascil tasks: The most prominent mascil tasks in PD activities and classroom implementations were the tasks: Sports Phycology,Solar Cells and House insulation.

The resources used in PD meetings were the materials developed by the mascil partners (WPs 3, 4 & 5) (i.e. toolkit ID1 to ID4, e-communication platform and e-PD toolkit).

Teachers’ communication model: Teachers’ communication in group work was through workshops and seminars, group assignments and group presentations. Between different PD groups at the national level was through communication on the University platform on assigned tasks for the pre-service teachers and through participation and presentations at national teacher seminars.

Between teachers at the international level: By using the teacher communication platform.

Obstacles in implementation activities: The tasks and PoM had to be adjusted to fit the local curriculum.

CZECH REPUBLIC


In the following excerpt Czech Republic describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers: 2 face to face meetings by 4 hours each (entrance and final); entrance meeting: introduction, theory, work with sources; self-activity between f2f meetings, preparation and application of selected task(s) in classroom; final meeting: presentation of implemented tasks (one was compulsory).

For multipliers: Workshops and consultations on the platform of the faculty research team “Subjects Didactics of Mathematics and Natural Sciences” and NAB meetings.

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In Table 2b_CZ Czech Republic provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_CZ: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities

In-service teachers Pre-service teachers Total duration of PD/TE programs (i.e., starting month – ending month, distribution)

11 months (11/2014 – 09/2015) 12 months (10/2014 – 06/2015 -it means the whole Academic

year 2014 – 15) Total number of teacher groups / average number of teachers per group/educational level and discipline per group

6 groups/10 teachers as average number of teachers per group;

one half of upper secondary and one half of lower secondary and

primary; one third of mathematics and two thirds of science and

technology teachers

6 groups/20 teachers as average number of teachers per

group; future teachers for primary education (42), for

mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and

informatics on lower or upper secondary education (83)


3 activities for each group (start and final face to face

meetings/workshops and self-activity connected with own

classroom)

1 lecture and 2 – 4 seminars for students/future teachers

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks About 20 About 10 Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)

10 8


4 4

Number of other tasks (e.g. developed by the teachers, provided in the curriculum)

10 2


61 12

Total number of teaching hours 48 42

In the following excerpt Czech Republic describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM: For Mathematics teachers “Parking problem”, for Science teachers “Brine” and task related to “Acidity and Alcality”.

Resources that you used in your PD activities: Mascil tasks from Web-repository, PoM, Guidelines for teachers, Toolkit in multipliers hands.

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Possible obstacles in using the above resources: Problems were identified with e-PD toolkit, reasons were small experience of teachers with e-learning platforms, they preferred face-to-face approach.


In the following excerpt Czech Republic describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: We detected very good and frequent communication among teachers and pre-service teachers during face to face courses. E-communication between entrance and final meetings was low. Recommendation was to use e-mail, one course for primary teachers used e-platform (MOODLE) but frequency of communication was also low.

Between different PD groups at the national level: Not detected.

Between teachers at the international level: Only a few attempts made by informatics teachers.

Theme 2 (CZECH REPUBLIC): Summary

PD model: The adopted PD model for in-service and pre-service teachers and multipliers by Chech Republic was face-to-face interaction in meetings, workshops, seminars and consultations on the e-learning platform.

PD activities for in-service teachers: For the time period of Nov. 2014 to Sept. 2015 they implemented 3 activities by forming 6 mixed (in terms of discipline and level of education) teacher groups with an average of 10 in-service teachers’ members (6x10~61).

PD activities for pre-service teachers: For the time period Oct. 2014 to Jun. 2015 they implemented 5 PD activities by forming 6 teacher groups with an average of 20 pre-service teachers members (6x20~125).

Implemented tasks: They implemented about 30 tasks (10 pre-service and 20 in-service teachers) while 8 were PoMs and 10 were other mascil tasks and 12 developed by the teachers which resulted in 83 number of classroom implementations which lasted for 90 hours.

Most prominent mascil tasks: The most prominent mascil tasks in PD activities and classroom implementations were the tasks: Parking problem for mathematics teachers and Brine for science teachers.

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The resources used in PD meetings were the material developed by the mascil partners (WPs 3, 4 & 5) (i.e. toolkit ID1 to ID4, e-communication platform and e-PD toolkit).

Teachers; communication model: Teachers’ communication with multipliers took place through mostly f2f interaction in PD meetings while e-communication was low.

Obstacles in implementation activities: Problems identified in the e-PD toolkit (e.g. small teachers’ experiences with e-learning platforms. There was only a limited number of communications between teachers on the national and the international level.

GERMANY


In the following excerpt Germany describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers: We had face to face PD courses with teachers from different school types (vocational and general). Between the meetings the teachers from different types of schools prepared their lessons together, visited each other in class and reflected their teaching together. We had PD courses inside a company, so that the theoretical and practical parts of the PD course were melted. All PD courses followed a spiral model with phases of planning – implementing – reflecting. Teachers actively experienced inquiry learning and the connection to the WoW with new “open” tasks themselves, subsequently implemented the tasks in their classes and reflected on their experiences.

For multipliers: Face to face, via mail, via phone

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In Table 2b_GE Germany provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_GE: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities

In-service teachers Pre-service teachers Total duration of PD/TE programs

07/2013 – 12/2013 (3x4 hours) 02/2014 – 10/2014 (3x1 day) 06/2014 (3 days) 07/ 2014 – 11/2014 (2x2 days) 09/2014 (1x4 hours) 10/2014 – 06/2015 (3x1 day) 06/2015 – 07/2015 (2x1 day) 10/2015 – 04/2016 (3x1 day)

3 - 4 months (i.e. one semester 2x2 hours weekly) Oct – Feb 2013/2014/2015 Apr – Jul 2013/2014/2015


Total number of teacher groups: 8 average number of teachers per group: ca. 18 educational level: In-service discipline: mathematics

Total number of teacher groups: 12 average number of teachers per group: ca. 38 educational level: Bachelor students discipline per group: Mathematics


7 longterm PD courses and 1 half-day workshop, i.e. 18 whole-day & 4 half-day sessions. Besides, we had the following dissemination activities with teachers participating (not included into the numbers above). Workshops at conferences: 6 (from 1 to 4 hours) Exhibitions: 2 Exhibition and workshops for students at a science fair: two whole days

6 lectures/seminars, approx. 72 seminar sessions (2 hours each)

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks

77 numerous

Number of mascil tasks implemented

10 5

Number of PoM implemented 4 1 Number of other tasks 63 numerous Total number of classroom implementations

No number available, since it is an ongoing process Approximately five per week

Total number of teaching hours No number available, since it is an ongoing process Approximately five per week

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In the following excerpt Germany describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

Counting people, parking garage, chocolate bar machine’s schedule, chocolate truffles, Bicycle insurance, GPS Puzzle, measuring apps, inventing a pipe clamp, peeling losses, traffic jam

Resources that you used in your PD activities: ascil tasks, PoM, parts of the toolkit

Possible obstacles in using the above resources: PoM: No specified target group


In the following excerpt Germany describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: During the meetings we provided various settings for group work, discussions, exchange of opinions and collective reflection of experiences. Between meetings we communicated with teachers via email and an internal part of the national mascil website we used for the exchange of materials. Teachers used to communicate via phone, via email, face-to-face (visiting each other) and in some cases via the international mascil teacher platform.One example: The PD course “Applying and understanding mathematics” for vocational and general school teachers was comprised of three whole day PD sessions over the course of several months. Between sessions, vocational school teachers teamed up with general secondary school teachers in ‘tandems.’ They went on to implement new teaching approaches and new tasks in their classrooms, plan lessons together, visit and observe each other’s lessons and jointly evaluate their experiences. As an effect of their cooperation, teachers learnt to better connect mathematics teaching and learning at the different educational levels.

Teachers’ feedback on this PD course shows that they especially appreciated the tandem collaboration across school types, which was a novelty for most of them. According to participants, the dialogue between teachers of different school types seemed to be straightforward, with many enlightening insights on both sides and with benefit for their respective classroom practices. An additional outcome of this PD course was the development of inquiry-based math tasks with rich vocational contexts (in this case from the crafts of bakers, butchers, pastry cooks and salespersons) for use in both vocational and general schools.

Between different PD groups at the national level: We organised a “mascil afternoon”, i.e. a half-day workshop with interesting presentations and an exhibition of materials from different international projects. We specially invited participants from all our different mascil PD courses to this event. Every few months we send out a national mascil newsletter to (former) participants of our PD courses and to a large number of interested teachers, more than 200 in total.

Between teachers at the international level: Some teachers from our PD courses participated in the “Educating the Educators” Conference in December 2014 in Essen.

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Theme 2 (GERMANY): Summary

PD model: The adopted PD model for in-service and pre-service teachers and multipliers by Germany was face-to-face interaction with participants during long term courses, half-day workshops, exhibitions and lectures/seminars. Especially For multipliers there were communications via mail and via phone.

PD activities for in-service teachers: For the time period of Jul. 2013 to Apr. 2016 they implemented (will implement) 8 PD activities (7 long term PD courses and 1 half day work shop which correspond to 18 whole-day and 4 half day sessions). In these PD activities there were participated 8 mathematics teachers’ groups with an average of 18 in-service teachers per group (8x18~142).

PD activities for pre-service teachers: For the time period Oct. 2013 to Jul. 2015 they implemented 6 lectures/seminars and approx.72 seminar sessions by forming 12 mathematics teachers’ groups with an average of 38 pre-service teachers per group (38x12~458).

Implemented tasks: In-service teachers implemented 77 tasks while 4 were PoMs, 10 were other mascil tasks and 63 were tasks developed by the teachers. The classroom implementations were numerous in the case of pre-service teachers while the classroom implementations were in an ongoing process.

Most prominent mascil tasks: Some of the most prominent mascil tasks or PoMs in PD activities and classroom implementations were: Counting people, parking garage, chocolate bar machine’s schedule, chocolate truffles, Bicycle insurance and GPS Puzzle.

The resources used in PD activities were the material developed by the mascil partners (i.e. mascil tasks, PoM, parts of the toolkit)

Teachers’ communication model: Communication between teachers consisted of discussions and exchange of ideas during PD courses or via email between meetings. A special case of communication between general and vocational teachers was the case of the tandem collaboration across the different school types which was a novelty for most of teachers and most appreciated by them. Communication between teachers at a national level occurred at organized events (e.g., a ‘mascil afternoon’) and by circulating a national mascil newsletter. Communication between teachers at an international level occurred at the ‘Educating the Educators’ Conference in Essen, Germany.

Obstacles in implementation activities: The PoMs were not in a specified target group.

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GREECE


In the following excerpt Greece describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers: In Greece, PD has been implemented through courses provided to groups of teachers that worked collaboratively with the support of multipliers. We formed thirteen face-to-face groups of teachers (10 groups in Athens with secondary school teachers of mathematics and science, 2 groups in Patras with secondary school teachers, 1 group in Alexandroupolis with primary school teachers) and one e-learning group. The duration of PD activities for the face-to-face groups was about seven months (October 2014 – April 2015). PD activities for the e-learning group have been taking place in the current school year (2015-2016). Each f2f group of teachers had 5-6 meetings on average with its multiplier. These meetings mostly lasted for about 2 hours.

For multipliers: The PD Greek team organized five (f2f &/or on skype) two hours meetings with the multipliers. The aim of the 1st meeting was to inform multipliers of the aims and the ways we planned the implementation, mascil philosophy and its main activities. In this meeting we provided to multipliers the already developed tools (tasks and toolkit) and some theoretical papers to study on IBL and on issues related the WoW with mathematics and science. In the 2nd meeting multipliers were asked to prepare their first PD meeting with their group (e.g., select mascil tasks to present to their group and prepare their introduction to mascil philosophy). In the subsequent meetings multipliers expressed their concern on practical issues and reflected on their experiences in their group PD meetings. Multipliers also invited in the NAB meetings where they share their experiences with the NAB members.

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In Table 2b_GR Greece provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_GR: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities


Total duration of PD/TE programs 10/2014 - 6/2015 10/2014 - 6/2015


Total number of teacher groups: 14 (13 face to face, 1 e-learning) The average number of teachers per group is 10 Educational level: 13 secondary (12 general schools, 1 vocational) , 1 elementary. The PD program of the e-learning group is in progress. The secondary school groups were mixed from mathematics and science teachers.

6/33

Total number of PD/TE activities. 79 face to face meetings lasting for about 166 hours, 4 skype and video-conference meetings with the e-learning group

4 courses

Data on PD activities and/or classroom implementations

Total number of implemented tasks 122 10 Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)

8 8


6 2

Number of other tasks (e.g developed by the teachers, provided in the curriculum)

108

Total number of classroom implementations 167 50 Total number of teaching hours 366 100

In the following excerpt Greece describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM: The most dominant mascil tasks were the “Circular pve-stones backyard”, the “Solar cells” and the “Parking entrance”.

Resources that you used in your PD activities: The PD activities that we used were mainly guidelines for teachers, mascil tasks and toolkite. The teacher communication platform and the e-PD toolkite not too used

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Possible obstacles in using the above resources: The teachers are more familiar to work and to communicate face to face. So it was an obstacle for the use of e-PD toolkit and to communication through platform.


In the following excerpt Greece describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

Teacher communication at the national level was carried out through the use of the following communication forums. For each forum, we provide also information about the participants’ activities until month 38.

e-mail: Communication via e-mail was one main way of communication between the members of the Greek mascil team, the group of multipliers and the groups of the participating teachers during their PD activities.

Skype: Skype communication was chosen by some teachers during their collaborative work on the same task (e.g., preparation of common worksheets). Also, some multipliers who do not live in Athens joined the multipliers’ meetings via skype (5 meetings in total). Finally, three skype meetings have been organized by the facilitator of the e-learning group in the initial phase of the group’s activities.

Dropbox: A number of dropbox folders have been created as a means for organizing implementation of mascil. Particularly: One main folder called ‘mascil’ is shared by the members of the national team. This folder includes all materials and resources of the project related to issues such as administration, deliverables, project meetings, activities within all workpackages. (In total, 1060 files in 160 folders): One main folder (entitled ‘WP8-Multipliers’) is shared by the multipliers. It has been created to organize the communication between them including materials and resources related to the PD courses such as materials for teaching, research papers, data from PD activities (e.g., PD meetings, classroom implementations, tasks) as well as data from the multipliers’ meetings that took place before, during and after the PD courses. (In total 422 files in 155 folders). At the beginning of the PD courses each multiplier created a folder that has been shared by the teachers participating in his/her team. These folders include materials and resources for the PD courses and data emerging from the teachers’ activities (e.g., teachers’ designs, teachers’ activity reports). Sharing of folders in the groups of teachers facilitated exchange of materials in all phases of the PD activities. One supporting factor for teachers’ use of dropbox was the need to design common tasks and generally the need to build on others’ ideas (e.g., by further modifying previously designed activities for a new implementation).

Forums in the national teacher communication platform: 13 forums have been created (one forum for each one of the face-to-face groups of teachers established in the context of PD implementation). Although communication through the forums was expected to be complementary to the groups’ communication in the meetings, the actual use of these forums has been rather limited.

E-learning platform: One e-learning group has been established with 10 secondary school teachers (5 teachers of mathematics and 5 teachers of physics) and the multiplier. One main forum has been created

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in the platform by the multiplier. The forum is being actively used by the members of the group (187 posts in total until month 38) since the PD activities will finish in month 41. The main topics of discussion concern task design, features of IBL, connections to workplace, task implementation in the classroom (e.g., classroom management, connections to the curriculum, available time).

In PD courses/meetings: As regards the face-to-face groups, the main part of teachers’ communication took place during the PD courses. E-mail and/or skype communication helped teachers’ cooperation in designing common activities and implementing them in their classes. Teachers’ working in different schools appeared to choose mainly communication via e-mail and/or skype for their communication outside the PD meetings. Face-to-face communication was the main way communication of teachers working in the same school. Also, skype meetings helped ‘break the ice’ at the beginning of the e-learning group’s PD activities and further engage the participating teachers in communicating their ideas. After these meetings communication of teachers through messages in the platform improved (i.e. the number of messages was increased).

Communication via the national teacher communication platform has been rather limited. Although teachers in our educational context are not used to communicate through discussion forums, the fact that the platform was available late in the project (i.e. after the beginning of the PD activities) seemed to have constrained further its use by the teachers. Communication through the platform is the only way of the e-learning group members and the facilitator to communicate. The use of the forum created by the facilitator in the platform was increased during the design phase of the teachers’ activity and it was facilitated by some skype meetings organized earlier.

Between different PD groups at the national level: As mentioned above, communication via the national teacher communication platform has been rather limited. Also, face-to-face groups did not communicate during their PD activities. In very few cases, particular multipliers who happened to know the work of other groups (e.g. through the multipliers’ communication) introduced specific teachers’ work to other groups. In some cases, these teachers were invited to present their ideas/rational/implementation to other PD groups.

Between teachers at the international level: Teachers in our country did not participate in any discussions on the international discussion forum. Although teachers in our educational context are not used to communicate through discussion forums but one teacher was participated in a virtual conference organized by the Norwegian mascil team. There were two other hindrances for them to join international discussions forums: (a) the forums were available for use after the beginning of the PD activities; and (b) many teachers are not able to communicate in English (or they are not fluent in this).

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Theme 2 (GREECE): Summary

PD model: The adopted PD model for in-service and pre-service teachers by Greece was blended (face-to-face communication and e-learning). For in-service teachers there were 14 groups (13 f2f and 1 e-learning). The main activities for in-service teachers were meetings. The main PD activities for pre-service teachers were courses (4 courses).The PD Greek team organized five (f2f &/or on skype) meetings with the multipliers.

Data on PD activities for in-service teachers: For the time period of Oct. 2014 to Jun. 2015 they implemented PD meetings by forming 14 teacher groups with an average of 10 teachers per group. Total duration for this PD activity was 166 hours for the f2f groups and 4 skype and video-conference meetings for the e-learning group.

Data on PD activities for pre-service teachers: For the time period of Oct. 2014 to Jun. 2015 they implemented face to face meetings by forming 6 teacher groups with an average of 33 teachers per group.

Implemented tasks: They implemented 132 tasks (10 by pre-service and 122 by in-service teachers) 8 were PoMs, 16 were other mascil tasks and 108 were tasks developed by the teachers. There 217 implementations in school classrooms that lasted for about 466 teaching hours.

Most prominent mascil tasks: The most prominent mascil tasks in PD activities and classroom implementations were the Circular pave-stones backyard, the solar cells and the parking entrance.

The resources used in PD meetings were the material developed by the mascil partners (WPs 3, 4 & 5) (i.e. toolkit ID1 to ID4) with the appropriate transformations. There was limited use of teachers’ communication platform and e-PD toolkit.

Teachers’ communication models: Teacher communication at the national level was carried out through the use of the following communication forums: email, skype, forums in the national communication platform, e-learning platform, in PD meetings. Communication between PD groups was rather limited. Teachers in Greece did not participate in any discussions on the international discussion forum but one teacher was participated in a virtual conference organized by the Norwegian mascil team.

Obstacles in implementation activities: The hindrances for teachers to join international discussions forums were: (a) the forums were available for use after the beginning of

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the PD activities; and (b) many teachers are not able to communicate in English (or they are not fluent in this). Teachers in our educational context are not used to communicate through discussion forums. Besides, the fact that the platform was available late in the project (i.e. after the beginning of the PD activities) seemed to have constrained further its use by the teachers.

LITHUANIA


In the following excerpt Lithuania describes the implemented PD model.

For multipliers: The detailed overview of the mascil courses was presented to multipliers by the members of Lithuanian mascil team (lecturers). One of the conditions for each multiplier was to be a teacher and have practical lessons at school at least 5 years. The multipliers were taught by two face-to-face sessions and then had a 4-6 weeks break between them to implement IBL tasks and WoW in their teaching. The lecturers observed experimental class works of multipliers. The multiplier has to know practically how to implement IBL and WoW. Therefore we chose multipliers from teachers.

For teachers: The teachers were taught by two face-to-face sessions and then had a 4-6 weeks break between them to implement IBL tasks and WoW in their teaching. During the experimental work multipliers observed lessons of their teachers and fill observation templates. Then observed lesson was discussed with teacher. In the second face to face seminar teachers had to present their implementations and discuss with other teachers.

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In Table 2b_LI Lithouania provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_LI: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities

Pre-service teachers Total duration of PD/TE programs (i.e., starting month – ending month, distribution)

For multipliers from 6th December, 2014 till 10th January, 2015. For teacher groups: from the 12th February, 2015 until the 9th April, 2015; from the 5th March, 2015 until the 20th April, 2015; from the 26th February, 2015 until the 19th March, 2015; from the 18th February, 2015 until the 2nd April, 2015; from the 18th February, 2015 until the 18th March, 2015; from the 18th February, 2015 until the 30th March, 2015; from the 26th February, 2015 until the 26th March, 2015; from the 17th February, 2015 until the 15th April, 2015; from the 19th February, 2015 until the 29th April, 2015; from the 2nd February, 2015 until the 31th March, 2015; from the 2nd February, 2015 until the 30th April, 2015; from the 17th February, 2015 until the 2nd April, 2015.


11 teacher groups (11-33 teachers of science, mathematics, technology, information technology) of primary, secondary and vocational education.

Total number of PD/TE activities.

The model of each PD was the same: two workshops and experimental work with students in the class. In the workshops the short presentations, group works in pairs and of 4-5 teachers, discussions were used.

Implemented tasks by teachers Total number of implemented tasks

18 translated mascil tasks + about 100 original tasks developed by teachers themselves =118 implemented tasks

Number of mascil tasks implemented

6 translated tasks (don’t include PoM)

Number of PoM implemented

All 12 PoM tasks were translated and all of them were implemented of different teachers (not only the participants of PD). The conversations in Lithuanian mascil facebook and discussions in meeting of related projects show these tasks implementation. The PD participants often use their own tasks because the mascil tasks didn’t suit at the moment to topic what is taught to students.

Number of other tasks Often teacher provide their own tasks what are not open inquiry, but use inquiry activities. The participants of PD used approximately 100 their own tasks in total.


187 teachers and 17 multipliers implements IBL and WoW in the classes at least one task each (more than one 45 min lesson).

Total number of teaching hours At least (187 + 17) x 2=408 teaching hours.

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In the following excerpt Lithouania describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities and in classroom implementations.

The primary teachers liked PoM task “Counting people“, and “Circular pave-stones backyard“, because it was easier to adapt these tasks for younger students. For alder students teachers implement “Solar cells“, “Forest and Timber management“.

For PD courses these tools of Toolkit were used: Characterizing an IBL classroom (IA-1); Observation IBL lesson (IA-2); Exploring benefits of IBL (IB-1); Mathematics in WoW (WA-1); Science in the WoW (WB-1); Connecting tasks with WoW (WC-1); Comparing structured and unstructured problems (IE-1).

Most of them were adapted to the target group. For example, multipliers used particular translated classroom material for mathematics and science teachers: “Circular pave-stones backyard“, “Solar cells“, “Horticulture“, “Design your own non standard bookshelf“. Teachers had discussions in groups how to introduce WoW with tasks. The module was shortened a bit because of short time of session.

The module IE – 1 was changed too. The multipliers took 4 tasks from Lithuanian textbooks of science and mathematics and asked teachers in groups to redo them to IBL tasks following the examples that they yet had. The communication was mostly by email or short meetings after lesson observation during the experimental teachers work with class.

Small number of translated tasks and for teachers is difficult to find suitable task to particular topic. Teachers try to create their own tasks but in these first phases they create not open IBL tasks and rarely implements WoW in the tasks for alder students.


In the following excerpt Lithuania describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

The PD were organized in such way that teachers could communicate face to face. Most of the group teachers of PD were from the same or nearby schools. Therefore they have opportunity to communicate face to face. The multiplier was from the same school. He or she could support teachers and their communication.

The multipliers observe lessons and always discussed about them after observations, he or she reminded to implement PoM and write their opinion about tasks in Lithuanian mascil face book.

The communication between groups was very pure. Some of teachers involved into discussions in the mascil facebook on national level. But there were only few teachers from different Lithuanian schools.

Most of Lithuanian teachers didn’t speak English or Germany and it was difficult for them to involve into international discussions. They were passive in this case. But one teacher involves very well. She with her students participates in online discussions with other countries.

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Theme 2 (LITHUANIA): Summary

PD model:The adopted PD model for in-service teachers and multipliers by Lithuania was face-to-face interaction in meetings and workshops. Multipliers were only in-service teachers.

PD activities for in-service teachers:For the time period of Feb. 2014 to Apr. 2015 they implemented PD activities (two workshops and experimental work with students in the class) by forming 11 mixed (in terms of discipline and level of education) teacher groups with an average of 17 in-service teachers’ members (11x17~187).

Implemented tasks: They implemented 118 tasks while 12 were PoMs and 6 were other mascil tasks resulted in at least 204 number of classroom implementations which lasted for 408 hours.

Most prominent mascil tasks:The most prominent mascil tasks in PD activities and classroom implementations were for primary teachers the PoM task “Counting people“, and the “Circular pave-stones backyard“ and for secondary teachers were “Solar cells“, “Forest and Timber management“. The resources used in PD meetings were the material developed by the mascil partners (WPs 3, 4 & 5) (e.g., IA-1; IB1;WA-1;WB-1; IE1) by making the appropriate adaptations.

Teachers’ communication model: There were only a limited number of communications between teachers on the national and the international level. A hindering factor was Lithuanian teachers’ resistance to communicate in other languages than their native.Small number of translated tasks and for teachers is difficult to find suitable task to particular topic. Teachers try to create their own tasks but in these first phases they create not open IBL tasks and rarely implements WoW in the tasks for alder students.

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THE NETHERLANDS


In the following excerpt Netherlands describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers: We provide courses for teachers with 4 to 6 sessions during an academic year. We work with the participating teachers in face-to-face sessions and make decisions for (design and) try-outs in between the sessions. We keep e-mail contact between the sessions and provide feedback upon their reflections on try-outs/experiments. This approach fits the national customs for in-service teacher training. Teachers don’t have much time during the year for professional development. And we think it is important to try-out new ideas in daily practice, to reflect on it and to get feedback from us.

For multipliers: We professionalize multipliers by co-teaching during one course and hand over responsibilities for other courses.

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In Table 2b_NLNetherlands provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_NL: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities


Total duration of a PD program is on average 6 months with 4 workshops (20 hour on average face-to-face). A workshop’s duration is on average 1,5 hour. So, in total we have approximately 130 hours of face-to-face meetings with teachers.

Total duration of courses related to mascil is on average 30 hours.


8 teacher groups with on average 25 teachers per group (secondary education; mostly mathematics teachers)

6 groups of teachers both at Utrecht University and at a teacher college in Rotterdam.


5 workshops 6 courses

4 times 2 hours per semester (course on subject didactics). 2 times a course on designing science education (two hours). Two implementations in an educational minor on IBL and WoW (ca 10 hours).

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks 30 Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)

8


2


20


Open ended (continuing)

Total number of teaching hours Open ended (continuing)

In the following excerpt, Netherlands describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities and in classroom implementations.

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The most frequently usedmascil tasks or PoM’s are: Drug level. Rationale: Existing problem with good experiences, easy to design a structured alternative and discuss IBL characteristics of the task. Nice mathematics involved. Average connection to WoW (strong product-characteristic). Connects mathematics and science/chemistry. Brines. Rationale: As a good science alternative for our math-tasks we could use this task to discuss the difference between cook book assignments in science and IBL and the world of work (producing salt). Parking lot. Rationale: easy to understand for students (not much content knowledge needed), lower secondary, includes technology and mathematics, leaves a lot of room for creativity.

The resources that we used in our PD activities are: Some tools from the face-to-face toolkit (in particular WE-1, WD-1, WC-1, WC-2, WC-3, ID-3, IA1 and IA-2) some of the mascil tasks (see above) and the guidelines for (re)design mascil tasks for teachers.

Obstacles we experienced in using the above resources are:In some cases it was difficult to convince teachers that these resources can also be used to address the content knowledge that they needed to cover during the lessons.


In the following excerpt the Netherlands describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: In the PD course we organized for schools in the region of Utrecht (the bedrijfsDOT), teachers appreciated the exchange of experiences with mascil tasks. Between the sessions the teachers had to try-out tasks. At follow-up sessions the presented experience to each other and discussed successes and pitfalls. Especially the focus on IBL, the role of the teacher and the serious use of workplace contexts was appreciated.

Between different PD groups at the national level: We were not able to support the communication between teachers in PD groups at a national level. The communication that we were able to foster was during workshops at national teacher conferences. This communication focused on the feasibility and implementation of mascil tasks and to what extent they can create time for such activities in their daily practice. For some teachers their textbook seems to have an obligatory character without leaving time for extracurricular topics. It was good for them to hear the voices of other teachers and the possibility to skip some tasks from the book in order to create space for alternative activities.

Between teachers at the international level: At the international level we tried to organize communication events with mascil partner countries. Some Dutch teachers were willing to join such an event. However, we were not successful yet due to technical problems (e.g. at one school e-mails from Norway bounced) and planning problems (e.g. the age group of participating foreign countries did not fit the grade level of the Dutch teacher).

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Theme 2 (NETHERLANDS): Summary

PD model: The adopted PD model for in-service and pre-service teachers and multipliers by the Netherlands was face-to-face interaction in meetings, workshops and courses.

PD activities for in-service teachers: The Netherlands implemented 5 workshops activities by forming 8 teacher groups with an average of 25 in-service teachers’ members (8x25~200). Total hours of implementation activities were almost 82 hours.

PD activities for pre-service teachers: They implemented 30 hours PD activities by forming 6 teacher groups with an average of 46 pre-service teachers per group activity.

Classroom implementations: They implemented about 30 tasks while 2 of them were PoMs and 8 were other mascil tasks. This activity is open-ended.

Most prominent mascil tasks: The most prominent mascil tasks in PD activities and classroom implementations were the tasks: Drug level, Brines and the Parking lot.

The resources used in PD meetings were the material developed by the mascil partners (WPs 3, 4 & 5) i.e. WE-1, WD-1, WC-1, WC-2, WC-3, ID-3, IA1 and IA-2) some of the mascil tasks (see above) and the guidelines for (re)design mascil tasks for teachers.Obstacles they experienced in using the above resources were: In some cases it was difficult to convince teachers that these resources can also be used to address the content knowledge that they needed to cover during the lessons.

Teachers’ communication model: Teachers’ communication with multipliers took place through mostly f2f interaction in PD meetings. Netherland mentions that they were not able to support the communication between teachers in PD groups at a national level. The communication that they were able to foster was during workshops at national teacher conferences. At the international level they tried to organize communication events with mascil partner countries. Some Dutch teachers were willing to join such an event. However, we they were not so successful due to technical problems (e.g. at one school e-mails from Norway bounced).

Obstacles in implementation activities: Teachers don’t have much time during the year for professional development. And we think it is important to try-out new ideas in daily practice, to reflect on it and to get feedback from us. Obstacles we experienced in using the above resources are: In some cases it was difficult to convince teachers that these

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resources can also be used to address the content knowledge that they needed to cover during the lessons.

NORWAY


In the following excerpt Norway describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers (in-service): Classroom implementations started in most schools in spring 2015 and lasts until summer 2016. Multipliers are in total working with about 140 – 180 teachers (9 x 15-20). The exact number of participants varies from session to session. PD sessions for teachers are mostly based on mascil tasks, implementation of those and exchange of reflections afterwards. Per today we don’t know the exact number of classroom implementations for all 180 teachers in total, but each multiplier has agreed to run at least 5 - 8 workshops of minimum 1.5 hour with their colleagues (minimum 5 colleagues each). The schools get payment according to the multiplier’s number of workshops. All workshops are face-to-face interactions, because teachers are not ready to get involved in e-learning courses. We have trouble getting teachers to reply to emails, so we can’t see that they will be able to engage in e-learning platforms. Then we eventually had to find a way to give/introduce credits for courses. Good experiences from the Primas project with this multiplier approach were the reason for our choice of PD model.

For teachers (pre-service): 40 pre-service teachers (about 20 each autumn, starting in 2014) have been introduced to the mascil concept during 1-2 lessons and have worked with IBL and Wow-related tasks in their practicum, partly research based. Their mentoring teachers have also been involved.

For multipliers: Structure of our PD for multipliers: September 2014 – April 2015, 8 sessions (combination of seminar and workshop), 1 per month, duration 4 hours/session. The 8 sessions included 2 lesson studies per school level (2 for primary school and 2 for lower secondary school). Only face-to-face learning. Contents of PD of multipliers: About IBL in general, IBL in science, concept of WOW (with regard to tasks, resources, Role models, cooperation with industry etc), mascil toolkit (demonstrations, workshops, design of own modules based on toolkit), work with mascil tasks (tried out themselves, redesign of own tasks, experiences chared), communication platform (discussions on possibilities, workshops, discussion topics on own experiences, students work, the idea of IBL), use of resources in math and science lessons, PoM, lesson studies (collaborative planning, observations and reflections), planning PD sessions for own colleagues. Reasons for using only face-to-face interactions are given above (see For teachers, 15 of our multipliers are general teachers).

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In Table 2b_NO Norway provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_NO Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities


For multipliers: September 2014 – April 2015 For teachers: Spring 2015 – Spring 2016 For teachers (in further education): 3 weeks

Each autumn, duration approximately 1 month all together (lessons, preparation, practicum, reflections)


3 teacher groups in lower secondary schools (average number per group: 15, general teachers, teach both science and math) 5 teacher groups in primary school (average number per group: 19, general teachers, teach both science and math) 1 teacher group from primary school (27 teachers, general teachers, teach both science and math?, participants in a further education course) 1 teacher group of mentoring teachers from primary school (14 teachers)

2 pre-service teacher groups so far (1 each autumn) (average number per group: 20, general teachers, no teaching yet)


Based on multipliers reports up to 10th December 2015, we have the following number of workshops: 39 (total number from 9 schools + HiST) (implementation in schools will continue until minimum June 2016, hopefully longer)

Number of seminars for pre-service teachers in total: 10

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks

29+ 13

Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)

15 1


7 1


7 + an unknown number of PRIMAS-tasks 11


Not available 11

Total number of teaching hours Not available

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In the following excerpt Norway describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

The most used PoMs: Brine, Counting people, Bicycle insurance, IQ-game design, Other commonly used tasks: Parking problem, Border problem, Bottles in Honduras, Designing a parking house/car park, several Primas-tasks and own designed tasks.

Resources that you used in your PD activities: The following resources were used in our workshops for multipliers: PD face-to-face toolkit, mascil tasks, PoMs, guidelines for teachers, teacher communication platform. What we did during PD sessions:-Referred to/tried out several tools from toolkit -Several mascil tasks were used, including PoMs (e.g. bicycle insurance, counting people, brine, hearing, building a school with bottles)-Multipliers decided upon tasks themselves for use in their own classes and with their colleagues during PD sessions-Communication on platform: mostly during sessions. About IBL, PoMs, experiences from own PD sessions, responses to pupils work. In addition, pre-service teachers have implemented mascil tasks in grades 1-7 in their practicum with good results and experiences (pupils were all eager to do practical work, expressed that this was new for them).

Possible obstacles in using the above resources: Toolkit: Difficult for us and the multipliers to get an overall picture of the existing content of the toolkit, difficult to navigate due to long paths to the final tool, good to have a search option. Only few multipliers spent enough time on this, and found it useful during their own sessions.

Teacher communication platform: log in trouble for multipliers, navigation trouble, language barrier for posting questions and answering, fear of being seen, fear of not being good enough, teachers see no need of discussion on internet since they discuss in corridors at school and during meetings.e-PD toolkit: teachers don’t get credits for the mascil course, and thus they don’t see the need of a e-learning toolkit. In Norway, we need credits to get such systems to work out.


In the following excerpt Norway describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: At all PD course meetings and seminars teachers have shown great interest and engagement. Teachers have been interested in learning about IBL pedagogies and how to implement them in their day to day teaching. Teachers have also been engaged in learning about and trying to implement themes from the world of work to try to motivate and engage their students in the mathematics and natural science topics. In addition to the engagement at the seminars, several lesson studies activities have been conducted. In the planning, teaching and observation and post lesson reflections, teachers have shown great engagement and eagerness to discuss and reflect upon their own and colleagues teaching.

Between different PD groups at the national level: Teacher communication has mostly taken place at the seminars face to face. Between seminars some communication was conducted at the teacher communication moodle platform, but it seems difficult to engage many teachers to take part in

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discussions over a long period of time. The best discussions have been at the seminars, where teachers have shown great engagement.

Between teachers at the international level: Teachers have taken part in virtual conferences. In the first virtual conference pilot one of our partner teachers set up a group from her grade 6 classes and took part in the online virtual conference discussing a mathematics problem, the January 2015 problem of the month: Counting people, using the Lync system. Participants in this conference were Greece, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Norway (April 2015). For a second virtual conference, a lower secondary class was engaged with their multiplier teacher in a virtual conference on the theme of electricity consumption as part of their natural science teaching. Participants of this virtual conference were Germany and Norway. Further virtual conferences have been held with Bulgaria and Lithuania as participants and also with Austria and Bulgaria as participants. Follow-up meetings are planned.

Theme 2 (NORWAY): Summary

PD model: The PD activities started for multipliers from Sept. 2014 to April 2015 (8 seminars and workshops).The adopted PD model -service and pre-service teachers by Norway was face-to-face interaction in sessions, seminars and workshops.

PD activities for in-service teachers: Classroom implementations started in most schools in spring 2015 and lasts until summer 2016. Norway implemented 39 workshops activities by forming 10 teacher groups with an average of 20 in-service teachers’ members (10x20~195). Total hours of implementation activities: non available data.

PD activities for pre-service teachers: They implemented 1month PD activities by forming 2 teacher groups with an average of 20 pre-service teachers per group activity.

Implemented tasks: They implemented about 42 tasks while 8 of them were PoMs, 16 were other mascil tasks and 18 were tasks developed by pre-service and in-service teachers. This activity is open-ended so there are no more available data.

Most prominent mascil tasks: The most used PoMs were Brine, Counting people, Bicycle insurance and IQ-game design.

The resources used in PD meetings the PD face-to-face toolkit, mascil tasks, PoMs, guidelines for teachers and teachers’ communication platform.

Teachers’ communication model: Teachers’ communication with multipliers took place through mostly f2f interaction in PD meetings during the seminars. Between seminars some communication was conducted at the teacher communication moodle platform,

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but it seems difficult to engage many teachers to take part in discussions over a long period of time. Communication between teachers at the international level has taken place through virtual conferences with teachers from other mascil partners.

Obstacles in implementation activities: Possible obstacles in using all the mascil resources were about the toolkit (since it was difficult for them to get an overall picture of the existing content and difficult to navigate due to long paths to the final tool) and teachers’ communication platform (log in troubles for multipliers, navigation troubles, language barrier for posting questions and answering, fear of being seen).

ROMANIA


In the following excerpt Romania describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers: We tried to used a multilevel strategy with face-to-face activities in the beginning and increasing the role of using e-learning, but as we planned the e-learning sessions and online group meetings we noticed a fast decrease in interest (and also in the quality of work). For this reason we had to keep the face-to-face interactions. At the beginning we had several longer (3-4 full days) training periods with larger groups (15-20 teachers) and these became shorter as they got involved in experiencing with mascil materials and they also split into several smaller groups (2-5 teachers). These smaller groups were in contact with the multipliers.

Rationale: We partially anticipated this problem (most teachers are not familiar with e-learning, so using only e-learning is almost impossible and with a low efficiency) but we our focus was to keep the quality of the work on a high standard and to emphasize the uniqueness of the mascil PD. For this reason we accepted to work even with very small groups on.

For multipliers: For multipliers the structure was more or less the same, at the beginning we had some face to face seminars and a self education and experimenting phase before starting the training sessions. It was a requirement for multipliers to experiment IBL materials and to share their experience to the other multipliers.

Rationale: Multipliers from Primas have a good experience in using IBL but we needed to clarify some specific aspects of the project mascil. These aspects (connecting the WoW) had to be experienced before starting to train other teachers. Most of our teachers have a very strong background in mathematics and science and they are strictly performance oriented, so it was a hard task for our multipliers to present relevant cases both from the viewpoint of scientific content (especially in upper secondary) and from the perspective of IBL teaching.

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In Table 2b_RO Romania provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_RO: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities


1 year programs with 2-3 longer (3-4 full days) and several (4-5) shorter (1/2-1 day) training sessions

1 semester programs with 2-3 hours/week


8 groups/15 teacher/primary (2) lower (4) and upper (2) secondary teachers

9 groups/10 teacher/2nd and 3rd year university students in mathematics (6) and 2nd, 3rd year students in general teacher training (3)


20 meetings/40 seminars/144 workshop

126 meetings/36 seminars/90 workshops

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks 67 44


26 20


9 9


32 15

Total number of classroom implementations Non available data Non available data Total number of teaching hours 1250 30

In the following excerpt Romania describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM: IQ-game design, parking problem, counting people, renovating a flat, drug concentration, tessellations, play with puzzles, kitchen floor design, design your own bookshelf, epidemics.

Resources that you used in your PD activities (e.g. toolkit, mascil tasks, PoM, guidelines for teachers, e-PD toolkit, teacher communication platform)mascil tasks, modules for teacher training (both for inservice

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and preservice), guidelines for teachers and other reports (cross national policy paper), POM, parts of the toolkit

Possible obstacles in using the above resources: We did not use, or we did use only in a little amount the resources that our teachers were not willing to use (like the platform, e-PD toolkit). The resources we used were very helpful, the only obstacle we faced was during classroom implementation. Most of the materials are not linked to specific content in the curriculum (like the Pythagorean Theorem or finding common divisors, etc.) and teachers in Romania are used with traditional materials that are strictly linked with the curriculum. This is because they had to make a plan at the beginning of the year about what they will teach (no. of lessons for each content from the curriculum) and they do not have many options.


In the following excerpt Romania describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: Teachers (and small groups) prepared presentations (with photos, handouts, short comments) about their lessons in order to start discussions in the group. At the beginning the longer training sessions were quite fruitful in this sense because teachers had time to discuss both in organized groups and informally their experiences. After the first 1-2 sessions the multipliers used the materials that were experienced by several teachers, so they had their own personal perspective based on a classroom experience.

Between different PD groups at the national level: Some activities were presented on the local mascil website and some teachers were involved also in formal degree qualification procedures with mascil tasks, so they prepared longer papers about their activities. These were also posted on the website. The final products (video, photos from expositions, etc.) were also distributed among groups. In some cases (e.g. parking problem) the outcome of a group was the starting point for other groups. Moreover photos from several activities (when it was possible) were posted on Facebook and linked to teachers and students. This allowed a quite fast change of ideas among members of different groups.

Between teachers at the international level: There was no desire for international collaboration without face-to-face working and most teachers did not want to use other language in front of their students. We are still working on it.

Theme 2 (ROMANIA): Summary

PD model: The adopted PD model -service and pre-service teachers and multipliers by Romania was face-to-face training sessions, group meetings and workshops.

PD activities for in-service teachers: Romania implemented 20 meetings by forming 8 teacher groups with an average of 15 in-service teachers per group (8x15~125). There were one year training session and several shorter sessions. Additionally there were 40 seminars and 144 workshops.

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PD activities for pre-service teachers: They implemented 126 meetings by forming 9 teacher groups with an average of 10 pre-service teachers per group. Additionally there were 36 seminars and 90 workshops.

Implemented tasks: They implemented about 119 tasks while 18 of them were PoMs, 46 were other mascil tasks and 47 were tasks developed by pre-service and in-service teachers. This activity is open-ended so there are no more available data.

Most prominent mascil tasks: The most used PoMs were IQ-game design, parking problem, counting people, renovating a flat, drug concentration, and tessellations.

The resources used in PD meetings were mascil tasks, modules for teacher training guidelines for teachers and other reports (cross national policy paper), POM, parts of the toolkit.

Teachers’ communication model: Teachers (and small groups) prepared presentations (with photos, handouts, short comments) in their PD meetings. Some of these materials were used by the multipliers for other teachers, or these activities were presented on the local mascil website with additional material (video, photos from expositions, etc.). or were posted on Facebook and linked to teachers and students. This allowed a quite fast change of ideas among members of different groups. Teachers in Romania were reluctant to share their experiences with other teachers from other countries

Obstacles in implementation activities:Romania mentions that they used only in a little amount the resources that our teachers were not willing to use (like the platform, e-PD toolkit) because most of the materials are not linked to specific content in the curriculum and teachers in Romania are used with traditional materials that are strictly linked with the curriculum.

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SPAIN


In the following excerpt Spain describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers: Different models have been used. Most of the courses have been face to face, organized as a collection of workshops with some weeks in between for teachers to implement IBL in school. Besides, two courses have followed a blended learning approach, with a face to face intervention first, followed by an online phase. Finally, one course have been just online, although it was a kind of continuation of courses delivered some months before.In most of the cases, face to face sessions have been organised as workshops, in order to engage teachers in discussion and collaboration. In one case, some seminars were also included. All the courses have included periods for teachers to implement IBL in school. In f2f courses, leaving some weeks free between sessions. In online courses, as a part of the whole concept.These choices are based mainly on the philosophy underpinning the design of mascil PD materials (toolkit), which, in turn, is based on research. According to it, PD is more effective when teachers engage in collaborative activities, where they find opportunities to challenge their knowledge and create new one through discussion. Also when they have the opportunity to try new teaching approaches in their classrooms, analyse these interventions, reflect and communicate. That is why implementation of IBL tasks has been promoted in all the courses.

For multipliers: No specific actions for multipliers have been implemented. The reason is that most of the PD interventions have been done by the mascil team, or by multipliers already educated (in PRIMAS).

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In Table 2b_SP Spain provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_SP: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities

Total duration of PD/TE programs

This information has been included right after this table

This information has been included right after this table


16 groups Average: 28 teachers per group 12 mixed groups (primary and secondary) 3 groups in maths (mainly) 13 mixed groups (maths and science)

6 groups Average : 77 teachers per group 2 groups primary 4 secondary 3 groups in science education 3 groups in maths education


58 activities: 52 workshops 3 seminars 3 online phases & 20 courses

8 activities (workshops) & 5 Courses

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks 72 7 Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)

1 1


1 1


aprox. 70 5


148 (probably more than this, but we do not have this

information)

--

Total number of teaching hours 300 h (considering that, In most cases, teachers reported

2 or more hours per task implemented)

--

Prospective primary school teachers

1. Course/Topic: Science Education I and II. University of Jaén. No. of pre-service teachers in course: 180. Date/Timeslot: February 2014, November 2014 .Duration (e.g. xh/week, two days): 16 hours (8 sessions x 2 h).

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Prospective secondary school teachers

1. Course/Topic: Master program for prospective secondary school teachers. Pablo de Olavide University (Seville). No. of pre-service teachers in course: 6 Date/Timeslot: February 2013. Duration (e.g. xh/week, two days): 8 hours (2 sessions x 4 h).

2. Course/Topic: Master program for prospective secondary school teachers. University of Jaén. No. of pre-service teachers in course: 20. Date/Timeslot: February 2014. Duration (e.g. xh/week, two days): 6 hours (2 sessions x 3 h).

3. Course/Topic: Master program for prospective secondary school teachers. Pablo de Olavide University (Seville). No. of pre-service teachers in course: 19. Date/Timeslot: March 2014Duration (e.g. xh/week, two days): 8 hours (2 sessions x 4 h).

4. Course/Topic: Master program for prospective secondary school teachers. Pablo de Olavide University (Seville). No. of pre-service teachers in course: 36. Date/Timeslot: March 2015.Duration (e.g. xh/week, two days): 8 hours (2 sessions x 4 h).

In-service teachers:

1. Course/Topic: Summer Course, INTEF & UIMP, Ministry of Education. No. of in-service teachers in course: 50. Date/Timeslot: Face-to-face from June 30th to July 4th, 2014. Online from September 15th to November 15th, 2014. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 4.5 days + 20 h (online)

2. Course/Topic: PD course in the Teachers’ Centre in Jaén. No. of in-service teachers in course: 35. Date/Timeslot: From November 5th 2014 to March 11th 2015.Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 5 face-to-face sessions (3h each), working in school in between.

3. Course/Topic: PD course in the Teachers’ Centre in Alcalá de Guadaira (1). No. of in-service teachers in course: 30. Date/Timeslot: From January 21st to March 11th 2015.Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 4 face-to-face sessions (3h each), working in school in between.

4. Course/Topic: PD course in the Teachers’ Centre in Alcalá de Guadaira (2). No. of in-service teachers in course: 30. Date/Timeslot: January 22nd to March 11th 2015.Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 4 face-to-face sessions (3h each), working in school in between.

5. Course/Topic: PD intensive course with SAFA foundation (1). No. of in-service teachers in course: 25

6. Date/Timeslot: November 10th, 2014.Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 3 sessions (2h each) / 1 day. 7. Course/Topic: PD intensive course with SAFA foundation (2). No. of in-service teachers in

course: 25 8. Date/Timeslot: November 17th, 2014. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 3 sessions (2h each) / 1 day. 9. Course/Topic: PD intensive course with SAFA foundation (3). No. of in-service teachers in

course: 25 10. Date/Timeslot: November 26th, 2014. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 3 sessions (2h each) / 1 day 11. Course/Topic: PD intensive course with SAFA foundation (4). No. of in-service teachers in

course: 25 12. Date/Timeslot: November 27th, 2014. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 3 sessions (2h each) / 1 day 13. Course/Topic: PD intensive course with SAFA foundation (5). No. of in-service teachers in

course: 25. Date/Timeslot: March 9th, 2015. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 3 sessions (2h each) / 1 day

14. Course/Topic: PD intensive course with SAFA foundation (6). No. of in-service teachers in course: 25. Date/Timeslot: March 10th, 2015. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 3 sessions (2h each) / 1 day.

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15. Course/Topic: PD intensive course with SAFA foundation (7). No. of in-service teachers in course: 25. Date/Timeslot: April 8th, 2015. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 3 sessions (2h each) / 1 day.



18. Course/Topic: PD intensive course with SAFA foundation (10). No. of in-service teachers in course: 25Date/Timeslot: April 28th, 2015. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 3 sessions (2h each) / 1 day.

19. Course/Topic: Teacher professional development through the design of tasks that promote inquiry. SAFA foundation.No. of in-service teachers in course: 27. Date/Timeslot: November and December, 2015. Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 20h (online).

20. Course/Topic: Summer Course ¡Explota la ciencia!, INTEF & UIMP, Ministry of Education. No. of in-service teachers in course: 54 (face to face workshop), 35 (online phase). Date/Timeslot: Face-to-face workshop, June 30th. Online phase, from September 15th to November 15th, 2015.Duration (e.g. xh/week, days): 1.5 h (workshop) + 20 h (online)

In the following excerpt Spain describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM: Our PD interventions have been based in a set of IBL tasks that we’ve been using with teachers for a long time. These tasks come mainly from the PRIMAS project, the MAP project and the Nrich website. Some of them are from our own, and even some of them have been provided by other teachers. The most dominant ones are:

1. Crossing paper strips (from PRIMAS). 2. Decorating muffins (from PRIMAS). 3. The pastry chef box (our own). 4. Investigating consecutive sums (MAP project). 5. Rolling cups (from mascil and PRIMAS PD modules) 6. Factors and multiples puzzle (from Nrich)

In relation with the PoM, the ‘counting people’ problem was used in the implementation phase in one of the courses with in-service teachers. In the courses with pre-service primary teachers at the University of Jaén, the ‘House insulation’ task was used.

Resources that you used in your PD activities: Our PD activities have been based mainly on the PD toolkit, although sometimes PRIMAS versions of the tools have been used. Besides, some own resources have been used, mainly when we had to connect IBL with the national/regional curriculum, which is quite focused on the development of the mathematical competency. As said before, the collection of IBL tasks has been enriched with tasks from PRIMAS, MAP and Nrich projects. Few mascil tasks have been used since the WoW has not been prioritised in our course (according to our analysis of the context, we couldn’t identify this as a priority in our educational system). In the online interventions, the ePD toolkit

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has been used. But also own resources created on purpose, derived from existing tools within the ePD toolkit. In some of the courses the mascil platform has been used while, in others, courses have taken place in external Moodle platforms (from the Regional or the National Ministry of Education, or from SAFA foundation).Finally, in two courses that were completely implemented by teachers (multipliers), parts of the toolkit where combined with their own PD materials.

Possible obstacles in using the above resources: Since we’ve been involved in the design of the toolkits, no major obstacles have been found. Nevertheless, it is relevant to say that we were quite familiar with the PRIMAS materials. This cannot be seen as an obstacle, but it is a factor that explains that in many cases the PRIMAS version of the tools has been used, instead of the mascil one.


In the following excerpt Spain describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: In face-to-face courses, communication and collaboration between teachers is an essential feature of the PD materials used (mascil and Primas ones). As a consequence, intensive and interesting debates have taken place in the different sessions, both when teachers were working in small groups and in plenary discussions. Some of our face-to-face PD courses have been supported by a Moodle-like platform. Although forums were activated in these platforms, teachers scarcely used them, probably because forums were opened to general discussion, but without a specific purpose. In the case of on-line courses, or courses with an on-line phase, communication has been supported by forums within the Moodle platform. Several forums have been activated, serving to different purposes. In the case of forums associated to specific tools, being thus their purpose clear, communication among teachers has been appropriate to reach the aim of the tool, but not intensive. For instance, when teachers were working on tool IA-2 (observing an IBL lesson), they had to upload a document (about essential features of IBL according to their initial understanding) and post a comment about it, once they had watched a video of an IBL lesson. In most of the cases, teachers just uploaded their document and posted some comments. But in a few cases, a short conversation took place, in which teachers spontaneously expressed if they agreed or not with the ideas posted by other colleagues. Probably, the activity was rich, no matter if the communication was more or less intense, because it is more than likely that teachers visited other participants’ posts and read them. But, in most cases, they didn’t react to these posts.

Between different PD groups at the national level: There has been no communication between teachers from different PD groups at a national level.

Between teachers at the international level: Spanish teachers have not contributed to the discussion internationally.

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Theme 2 (SPAIN): Summary

PD model: Spain adopted a blended learning approach (f2f and on line courses) but most of the courses have been face to face. No specific actions for multipliers have been implemented since the PD interventions have been done by the mascil team, or by multipliers already educated (in PRIMAS).

PD activities for in-service teachers: Spain implemented 58 PD activities (52 workshops; 3 seminars; 3 online phases) and 20 courses. They were formed 16 mostly mixed groups (math and science) with an average of 28 in-service teachers per group (16x28~457).

PD activities for pre-service teachers: Spain implemented 8 PD activities and 5 courses. They were formed 6 groups (some only math and some only science) with an average of 77 pre-service teachers per group.

Implemented tasks: They implemented about 79 tasks while only 2 of them were PoMs, 2 were other mascil tasks and 75 were tasks developed by pre-service and in-service teachers. There were 148 classroom implementations (maybe more) covering almost 200 teaching hours.

The most used PoMs were‘Counting people’ and the ‘House insulation.

The resources used in PD meetings were mostly PRIMAS material or PRIMAS versions of the toolkit. The collection of IBL tasks has been enriched with tasks from PRIMAS, MAP and Nrich projects. Few mascil tasks have been used since the WoW has not been prioritised in our course (according to our analysis of the context, we couldn’t identify this as a priority in our educational system). In the online interventions, the e-PD toolkit has been used.

Teachers’ communication model:In face-to-face courses, communication and collaboration between teachers took place with intensive and interesting debates. Some of their face-to-face PD courses have been supported by a Moodle-like platform. In the case of on-line courses, or courses with an on-line phase, communication has been supported by forums within the Moodle There has been no communication between teachers from different PD groups at a national level while Spanish teachers have not contributed to the discussion internationally.

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Obstacles in implementation activities: Although forums were activated in teachers’ these platforms, teachers scarcely used them, probably because forums were opened to general discussion, but without a specific purpose.

TURKEY


In the following excerpt Turkey describes the implemented PD model.

For teachers

Face-to face teacher workshops were held. Participants took 2 days workshop and afterwards they were asked to implement mascil materials in their classrooms. Same participants have attended another two-day workshop after a few months. In total, after completing 26 hours of workshops and implementation sessions, they were given a certificate.They were asked to write a short report and very short presentation on this implementation and present it to their peers in the next mascil workshop.

For multipliers

The multipliers attended previous EU projects and national projects related to IBSE; therefore, they were familiar with the nature of PD. They were also attended previous mascil workshops. They were introduced the toolkit and mascil materials. In total there were 4 multipliers.

mascil Cohort ‐1 Ankara

Cohort ‐2 Ankara

Cohort ‐3 Ankara

Cohort ‐4 Cappadocia

TOTAL

2 days workshop

38 (January 10‐11, 2015)

32 (9 ‐10 May

2015)

27 (28‐29

November 2015)

32 (21‐22

November 2015)

129

2 days workshop

26 (9 ‐10 May

2015)

19 (28‐29

November 2015)

XX

March 2016

XX

March 2016

45

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In Table 2b_TU Turkey provides data on the PD/TE activities they implemented.

Table 2_TU: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities

In service teachers Pre-service teachers



50 Physics 50 Science teachers


2 two-day workshop(174 hours in Ankara and Cappadocia)

2-10 hours course

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks 13 11 Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)

5 5


3 3


5 3

Total number of classroom implementations Total number of teaching hours 2-4 hours 1 hour

In the following excerpt Turkey describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and recourses used in PD activities.

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM: PoM-November 2015 - Design and build your own vacuum cleaner, hair dryer or toy car; PoM-December 2014 - Problem of hearing, Design a simple hearing test

Resources that you used in your PD activities: mascil toolkit, PoMs (PoM-November 2015 - Design and build your own vacuum cleaner, hair dryer or toy car, PoM-December 2014 - Problem of hearing, Design a simple hearing test), Activities from other EU projects, e.g. SAILS, FIBONACCI.

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In the following excerpt Turkey describes types of teachers’ communication at national in PD activities and at international level.

In PD courses/meetings: Face-to-face PD training workshops: More than 100 in-service teachers have involved in mascil workshops in Ankara and Nevsehir. Two 2-day mascil teacher workshops were held in Ankara and Nevsehir. Participants of the workshops were Grades 6-12 science teachers. The workshops mainly focused on inquiry-based learning (IBL) and world of work (WoW). Selected teachers who participated in previous mascil workshops shared their experiences and challenges while implementing mascil activities in their classrooms. After the first workshop, teachers implemented mascil units in their classrooms. After the implementation, second 2-day workshop was organized to get their experience on the implementation phase. Based on teachers’ reflective reports and responses, mascil resources were modified. A case study was written based on the implementation phase.

Between different PD groups at the national level: During the mascil PDs, a teacher who attended previous mascil PDs shared their experiences and challenges while implementing mascil activities in their classrooms

Between teachers at the international level: Teachers were encouraged to visit mascil international website. No online PD courses were held.

Theme 2 (TURKEY): Summary

PD model: Turkey adopted face-to-face PD/TE activities. The multipliers also attended mascil workshops were they were introduced the toolkit and mascil materials.

PD activities for in-service teachers:Turkey implemented 2 PD activities i.e. 2 two-day workshops (174 hours of sessions). If a teacher had completing at least 26 hours of workshops and classroom implementations they were given a certificate.

PD activities for pre-service teachers: Turkey implemented 1 PD activity (2-10 hours course for pre-service teachers).

Implemented tasks: They implemented about 24 tasks while 6 of them were PoMs, 10 were other mascil tasks and 8 were tasks developed by pre-service and in-service teachers. No available data on total No of classroom implementations.

The most used PoMs were ‘Design your own vacuum cleaner and the hearing test.

The resources used in PD meetings were mascil toolkit, PoMs and activities from other EU projects, (e.g. SAILS, FIBONACCI).

Teachers’ communication model: In face-to-face workshops selected teachers shared their experiences and challenges while implementing mascil activities in their classrooms with their colleagues. At International level teachers were encouraged to visit mascil international website.

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THE UNITED KINGDOM


In the following excerpt United Kingdom describes aspects of their implemented PD model.

General background: In England there have been significant changes to national structures regarding courses for pre-service teachers (ITE) and the way in which professional development is provided for in-service teachers. These changes have presented multiple obstacles for the implementation of mascilPD in the UK and these are summarized briefly below.

The growth of academies and academy groups with independence from the Local Education Authority (LEA) means that the local authority has little influence and fragmented control over schools in their geographical area. Previously, such as in the case of PRIMAS implementation, a strong strategic approach could have been developed through liaison with LEA’s but this is no longer a viable route.

LEA advisors for mathematics and science, who previously would have been key strategic partners for the implementation phase, with well-established networks of schools, no longer exist in the new system. These advisors would have been ideally placed to publicise, recommend and recruit clusters of schools to work with mascil and act as multipliers but were removed from their positions before mascil implementation was due to commence. Without them there has been a temporary void whilst new structures and roles are being developed. Therefore, in the case of mascil we were unable to develop any implementation through these routes. Universities are no longer the main providers of ITE and there are multiple routes into teaching. School-based ITE is now widely available through various schemes but these changes have added to the complexity of ITE provision in the UK. Significantly a pre-service maths teacher may be the only individual undertaking initial teacher education (ITE) within a school and reaching a number of participants would require separate negotiation with each individual school. These changes have had a significant effect and during the changes a strategic approach has been difficult to achieve. Since these changes have all taken place during the lifetime of the project it has been particularly difficult to develop an effective strategic approach or identify key influential people (within a changing system). It has also been difficult to utilise local or national networks since old networks have been dismantled or new ones are in a very early stage of development. There is also reluctance on the part of schools to release in-service teachers for PD. This is due to problems finding finances to cover for teachers and sometimes a preference for attending PDthat is focused on achieving higher scores in national assessmentsrather than the aspects of classroom practice promoted by mascil.

For (potential) multipliers: Courses for mathematics teachers, who could be potential multipliers, were particularly difficult to implement, mainly due to problems with recruitment. Firstly, two strategic national partners for mathematics were identified and provisionally agreed to work with the mascil team. The first partner, NRICH, with whom we worked extensively during the PRIMAS project, was eventually unable to participate due to internal changes, notably the change of Director (and indeed a lack of Director at the crucial time for mascil). Previously this organisation had taken a major role in recruiting schools for PRIMAS since they are well positioned, with an effective network of schools who regularly attended PD that they provided.

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The second national partner, MEI, had a shared interest in WoW, had successfully delivered a PD course with a similar theme the year before and expected to be able to recruit again for a joint course. Together a 3 day course was developed and dates agreed across the year. This was based on mascil PD tools and planned for a central venue (Birmingham). Despite being advertised on national websites, publicised by through nearby Maths Hubs and circulated via email to over 100 teachers in local schools directly by the university the course did not recruit. The course was then revised and re-branded to align the emphasis of the PD more closely to current issues for teachers, such as the need for students to develop problem-solving skills in preparation for the specifications for newly revised national mathematics qualifications for 16-year olds. Two separate, but linked, days in Nottingham were advertised so teachers only had to commit to one day, although they were encouraged to attend both. Recruitment was very low so the first of these days actually took the form of a meeting with a single participant who was a Maths Hub lead and interested in using mascil with schools in his area (Shropshire). The final one day course recruited only three teachers but was delivered and was well-received by the delegates. All three showed interest in using the classroom materials and PD tools and becoming multipliers. One of these teachers has acted as a ‘multiplier’ in their school but does not wish to be officially recognised as a mascil multiplier. It became apparent that PD courses delivered by the university outside schools and on set dates were not going to be an effective way to proceed. During 2014/15 the mascil team also worked at developing more strategic links with the newly appointed Maths Hubs leads. Mascil representatives were invited to a national meeting of the Maths Hub leads to ‘advertise’ the project. Several maths Hub leads showed interest and were supported by the mascil team as they planned this into their budgets for 2015/16 (these had to be submitted and nationally approved). In September 2015 Maths Hub leads (and two other key players) who had shown interest in mascil and had started to recruit schools for the project, were invited to meet with the research team. As a result, two launch events were held for interested schools in different geographical areas (Nottingham and Lincolnshire) at which the mascil toolkit and project were presented. Eight schools sent representatives to these events, some sending more than one representative. The co-ordinator of a Core Maths group (a new mathematics qualification for post-16 students) in a local Hub area also attended with a view to using mascil with a group of schools who were already meeting regularly for PD related to Core Maths. These launch events were aimed at recruiting multipliers who could work within their own school and possibly across schools. The events were well received and all the schools agreed to take part on mascil. Of these eight schools only one has actually hosted a mascil PD course and this was, on request, led by a member of the mascil team. Two others are working with the mascil team to develop tasks and IBL approaches but without any formal PD as yet. Funding to release teachers to attend PD was a problem for one school but otherwise the reasons for schools not following through on their initial commitment appear to be mainly due to time pressure and other priorities within a performance-driven culture where IBL is not a strong feature of the mathematics or science curriculum. During 2014/15 workdid commence for science with a group of teachers in one local school (Toot Hill). This has led to on-going mascilPD facilitated by two teachers that have both acted as multipliers. Further work within their academy group of schools has been delayed but they are well placed to extend mascil activity across the academy group since this has grown from a single school at the start of the mascil project to seven schools (which also gives some indication of the rapidly changing environment in England). Science in some ways is in an even more difficult position than mathematics as there is no initiative to replace the local authority teacher support network. Therefore our approach has been one of looking to develop the involvement of new and experienced teachers through local partnerships of schools. This approach has taken into account the fragmented nature of teacher education and professional development opportunities.

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An additional approach has been to link into the new Science Learning Networks. There are 50 of these nationally. At a local level contact has been made and work with mascil may still be developed through this network but is not yet established.

For teachers: In view of the difficulties in developing a more strategic approach for mathematics and in recruiting multipliers, an alternative approach was then taken of approaching individual schools, colleges and providers of pre-service training. This has involved short PD courses with a minimum of two sessions led by a member of the mascil team. In betweenthe two sessions, teachers explore an agreed question through their classroom practice as an essential part of the PD model. This approach has seemed popular for three main reasons:

Teachers value the external input; There is a reluctance from heads of department (or other staff) to act as the multiplier until one or two sessions have been taken by a member of the mascil team The PD is free. Following this activity schools and colleges make their own decisions about whether they will continue with further mascil PD sessions and classroom activity, with or without further input from the mascil team. This seems to be an attractive structure because schools can include mascil into their short term planning and not be expected to make a longer-term commitment until they are convinced of the benefits. The opportunity to experience and evaluate the benefits and relevance of a short course before proceeding further is also a factor that has led to more success with recruitment. Where a school has invited the mascil team to lead a session there is a commitment from the school, attendance is generally compulsory for the department (or for a specified group of teachers) and there are often shared aims. The emphasis on teacher inquiry within the PD approach has been welcomed since it encourages habits of reflection on practice but the short courses have the disadvantage of being less effective as a means of establishing sustainable professional learning communities. For science, the use of local partnerships of schools has led to significant teacher involvement but without delivering a formal PD course. The University of Nottingham has some strong partnerships with schools that have been used to develop approaches in a number of ways. One has been to organise meetings in the region to which practising teachers are invited. A series of five one and a half hour meetings have taken place with a focus on inquiry, with mascil at the centre of one of them and a component of others. In running these sessions, the links to our pre-service (ITE) approach has been stressed to the teachers from schools in the region. Thus, at the heart of the science ITE courses is the development of teachers who both inquire into their own practice and use IBL approaches in their science teaching. For pre-service teachers the approach for both science and mathematics has been to embed a series of mascil sessions into the existing training course or offer these as additional optional sessions. This model has met with mixed success. Pre-service teacher education courses are planned well in advance and have a tight timetable to cover the necessary content so unless mascil is seen to add value in line with the course aims then there is sometimesa reluctance to include mascil in the compulsory sessions. Where optional additional sessions have been timetabled for mascil then attendance has been lower, although the majority of pre-service teachers have seemed keen to take such opportunities for further learning.

The different models used are summarised in the table below.

Model Mode

Courses in partnership with national organisations Face to face

Courses in partnership with national networks Face to face

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Mascil sessions for local partnership networks Face to face

Mascil sessions embedded into existing pre-service or in-service meetings or courses Face to face

Short courses or events to recruit multipliers Face to face

Short courses for groups of teachers in their own school or college Face to face

Theme 2b: Quantitative and qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities and resources used

In Table 2b_UK United Kingdom provides data on the PD/TE activities.

Table 2b_UK: Qualitative data regarding PD/TE activities


June 2015: 1 day course. Feb –June 2016 Short PD courses (2 sessions x 2hrs) with an interval of 2-6 weeks between sessions:

Dec 2015 –May 2016 Mascil PD sessions embedded into training courses (typically 2 sessions x 2hrswith an interval of 2-6 weeks between sessions, but some variation).


No of groups = 10 5 Secondary (upper/lower) maths 1 Secondary science 2 Upper secondary vocational college maths only 2 Upper secondary vocational college maths, with some science teachers. Average size = 11.3

No of groups = 5 1 Primary science 1 Secondary (upper/lower) maths 3 Upper secondary mixed – some maths, some vocational or other specialisms. Average group size = 21.4

Total number of PD/TE activities.

1 One day course 9 Short courses (+2 Launch meetings)

5 Short embedded courses.

Implemented tasks Total number of implemented tasks 4 specific mascil tasks (plus others

from alternative sources) 0


4 0


0 0


2 0

Total number of classroom implementations (Data not available) 0

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Total number of teaching hours (Data not available) 0

In the following excerpt United Kingdom provides further information related to PD/TE activities and describes the most prominent mascil or PoM tasks and the recourses used in their PD activities.

Further information related to PD/TE activities: The model for the short courses and embedded mascil sessions for in-service teachers involved using the sessions in conjunction with the exploration of an agreed research question (which varied for each group) in between the PD sessions. Exploring this question was the focus of their classroom activity and actual task used was not aways an important factor. In some courses teachers wanted to use a particular mascil task and it was agreed to do this whilst and in others they used a variety of tasks. Data on the number and nature of all the tasks used was not gathered from the teachers. For the pre-service teachers opportunities for the use of materials were limited because not all the teachers were undertaking teaching practice at the time of the mascil sessions. In order to explore their research question these teachers were asked to observe practice rather than try out and reflect on their own practice.

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM: The most commonly used classroom task was the table tennis tournament, which is used within the PD toolkit as a PD resource rather than as a mascil classroom activity. Teachers also used (with adaptations) the tasks: Building a Safe Staircase, Designing a Car Park and a Problem of Hearing. Classroom tasks were also selected from alternative sources by teachers for use in their classrooms whilst working towards mascil aims.

Resources used in PD activities: Various parts of the PD toolkit (in-service and pre-service versions) were selected, adapted and used to suit the needs and interests of different teacher groups. The tools used most often, sometimes in an adapted form, were: IA1 Characterising an IBL classroom; IE2 Structured and unstructured problems; IF3 Advice for teaching problem solving; ID1 Classroom questioning discussion; ID3 Planning for effective questioning; IF1 Planning for IBL in mathematics; WC1 Connecting tasks with the world of work; WC2 Using tasks that make connections to the world of work; WC3 Designing tasks; In addition, some new tools have been designed and trialled with certain teacher groups to assess their suitability for inclusion in the final toolkit. The need to respond to teacher needs and the short timescales for the courses meant that it was difficult to incorporate the PoM. This was not always relevant to the groups undertaking PD at the time it was released.

Possible obstacles in using the above resources: Many of the tools were adapted to make them more closely related to the needs of teachers who were working in different contexts. This involved some pre-course liaison and additional work to make the appropriate adaptations.

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In the following extract UK presents their activities about teachers' communication at a national level.

In PD courses/meetings: In the schools teachers were already in a mathematics department and communicated verbally on a daily basis. In the larger colleges, however, the PD sessions brought together practitioners from across the college and in several cases these teachers rarely met together as a group. In two colleges the PD involved both mathematics and science teachers together for the first time. The teachers valued these opportunities and felt they benefitted from meeting together and discussing their classroom practice. Some schools and colleges had designated time slots for team meetings or PD and the mascilPD was slotted into these. In some of these cases teachers commented on the quality and value of spending the time on discussions about teaching, indicating that they would normally be more occupied with administration and systems in these meeting slots.

Between different PD groups at the national level: The original intention was to establish clusters of schools who would work together but, as explained earlier, this proved difficult to achieve in a changing PD structure where key individuals who could have facilitated these clusters were no longer in post. The new Maths Hubs were also too new to be effective in facilitating clusters. Two clusters in different geographical areas were initiated at the launch events but it became clear over time that schools preferred to work individually and others were unable to follow through on their commitment to mascil. During this time of trying to establish these two clusters, email contact was maintained with the primary contact in each school by the research team but there was little communication between the schools.

Between teachers at the international level: Due to the delays with the implementation phase it was not possible to engage as intended with this aspect of the project, although one multiplier will be attending the final conference.

Theme 2 Summary (UNITED KINGDOM)

PD model: The adopted PD model for in-service and pre-service teachers and multipliers by UK was face-to-face communication. The main PD activities were all day or short courses and embedded mascil sessions.

Data on PD activities for in-service teachers: On June 2015 one course was implemented while for the time period of Feb. to June 2016 they implemented 2 meetings by forming 10 teacher groups with an average of 11.3 teachers per group.

Data on PD activities for pre-service teachers: For the time period Dec. 2015 to May. 2016 they implemented five short embedded courses by forming 5 groups with an average of 21.4 pre-service teachers per group.

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Implemented tasks: They implemented 6 mascil tasks in their PD meetings while there are no available data on total number of classroom implementations and the total number of teaching hours for the case of in-service teachers.

Most prominent mascil tasks: The most prominent mascil task in PD activities was the table tennis tournament while teachers in their classroom implementations they used the tasks: Building a Safe Staircase, Designing a Car Park and a Problem of Hearing by making some adaptations.

The resources used in PD meetings were the material developed by the mascil partners (WPs 3, 4 & 5) (i.e. toolkit IA1, IE2, IF3, ID1, ID3, IF1 and WC1 to WC4) by making the appropriate transformations.

Teachers’ communication models: Teachers’ communication with multipliers took place through f2f interaction in PD meetings. There was some communication between teachers on a national level by forming two clusters in different geographical areas. There was no communication between teachers at an international level.

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2.3 Implementation strategies: Theme 3 – Integrating IBL/WoW in PD and in classroom activities and promoting teachers' reflections (spiral model)

In the following texts each country presents how IBL and WoW were integrated in PD and classroom activities and how the spiral model was realized in their PD programs.

AUSTRIA

Theme 3a: Linking IBL and WoW in PD/TE activities

In the following excerpt Austria describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in their PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs: We presented in each PD course the main ideas of IBL and WoW within mascil and discussed in detail the mascil diagram. In order to stress on the main components of an IBL task, we discussed the guidelines from WP3. Tasks from the repository, from the pool of the PoM and also some from the PRIMAS material were used to focus on the IBL part of the mascil ideas. We used some PoMs but merely new created or adapted examples to demonstrate the mascil unique connection to the WoW. The creation of new tasks sometimes involved an interview with representatives from the WoW, but we did not invite them directly into the PD courses.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful example: A very successful task in our PD courses was the Chocolate bar machine scheduling. It was developed together with members of the Institute of the Department of Information Systems, Production and Logistics Managemen, University of Innsbruck. The task fulfils all requirements of the WoW criteria of the mascil diagram and gave al lot of opportunities for the participants to investigate the problem. In addition, the task was completely unknown to all participants so there were really in the same situation as a student in an IBL and WoW lesson. The facilitator was then exactly in the position of a scaffolding teacher and could demonstrate many strategies to support the participants.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak: In order to discuss the IBL characteristics of a mascil task, we used some tools from the toolkit which were strongly related to PRIMAS. The examples therein were not connected to the WoW and where therefore hindering in the argumentation for an implementation of an mascil task in the phase between the two face-to-face meetings. It would have been better to have only mascil task in the toolkit.

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Theme 3b: Integrating IBL and WoW in classroom activities

In the following excerpt Austria describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom:

The teachers implemented mainly adapted task whereas they focused on the IBL aspect of a mascil task. They organized the lesson in form of group work and the product at the end was mainly a short report containing a summary of the results. Only a few teacher designed or adapted a task which fulfilled as the IBL as the WoW aspect of a mascil task. They introduced the workplace and then they student investigated, with support of the teacher, the task. At the end the students presented their findings in form of a slides or posters. Teachers from the New Middle School in Austria had nearly no chance to test a task due to an overall planning of the mathematics in lesson in each grade. In the lower and upper secondary of the academic high schools and in the technical high schools the teachers could much more easily implement a task.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: The teacher designed a mascil task starting from an exercise in his text book. The task is about designing an economical packaging of a drug. The teacher opened the questions and adapted the task to address the needs of the WoW characteristics of a mascil task. As context, he introduced the workplace of a drug company. The final product was a beamer presentation in a board meeting. The activity of the students was to redesign a fold grid. At the beginning of this lesson, the students had to bring in some empty drug packagings and compare this packagings with the given standard grid. Then they worked in small groups and tried to minimize the surface for a given volume. They used some heuristic approaches using a spreadsheet program or GeoGebra. At the end, the students created short beamer presentations to communicate their results. The teacher reported that he had to support the students continuously to keep them focused. In some groups, only a few students worked concentrated and the other were quite easily distracted. The students made very different approaches to the problem, so the IBL character was fully given. The connection to the WoW was very clear to them and one group presented very promising results. Some groups got stuck in very narrow discussions such that a sphere would minimise best the surface for a given volume.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak: The teacher designed a task to explore different applications of the integral calculus. The task was interesting because it connected different branches of mathematics with integration. The task was structured into single sub-questions in order to guide the students. Unfortunately, the students, who were split into large groups, decided that each group member works only on one sub-question. Since some of the sub-questions were correlated, it was very confusing for some students. Therefore, the teacher had to intervene several times in order to give the needed instructions. In this lesson, the students needed a lot of support and did not really communicate or collaborate within their group. Most of the questions were directed to the teacher and not to other group members. Therefore, many aspect of an IBL lesson were not met.Also the WoW character was not given although some relations to real life or to some applications from engineerings were made.

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Theme 3c: Promoting teachers’ reflections (spiral model)

In the following excerpt Austria describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. Specify how you promoted teacher reflection by providing examples; Our two-stage PD model consisted of a first and a second face-to-face meeting with an implementation phase in-between. We presented some good example and not so good examples in the first meeting to sensitize the participants for the mascil ideas. The facilitator discussed also how a documentation of the process adaptation-implementation-revision could be look like. In the second meeting all participants and the facilitator reported on their experience of adapting an implementing a task in their class.It was very encouraging for the participants to see that also the facilitator adapted and implemented a task. Therefore, they could reflect in common upon their positive and negative experiences.

BULGARIA


In the following excerpt Bulgaria describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD programs: The promotion with IBL in connection with WoW turned out to be very appealing to the teachers involved since motivation of learning mathematics was found to be mainly in the context of getting good grades, points at competitions, passing exams. Unlike in natural sciences, experiments and IBL do not have established tradition in the context of mathematics, especially in the school mathematics. That is why our approach was based on implementing computer environments supporting the explorations, observations of patterns, formulating of hypotheses – something Bulgaria had pioneered 30 years ago in the context of an educational experiment lead by a research group of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Education. With the experience gained in working with students and teachers, and with the ideas of mascil project to connect IBL closely with WoW, a rich collection of dynamic scenarios (more than 950, in harmony with the local curriculum) was created by the IMI-BAS, which could be used at three levels – as ready product, as a transparent devise, which could be adapted to new situations, and as a model to be reconstructed from scratch and then modified. Some of these scenarios were included in the mascil site according to the structure proposed by the project and in accordance with its philosophy.Visits to the museum in Stara Zagora, to a professional high school for ceramics and one for furniture and wood carving were related to the scenarios for plate restoration, modelling and designing of ornaments of ceramics and wood carved works. These scenarios were then implemented in the creation of artefacts (wood carved boxes, book markers, magnets, key holders, etc.)Also, some of the mascil scenarios, proposed by the partners (e.g. pavement with circular tiles) were modified accordingly, with adding dynamic files for explorations. The problem of the month was very appealing to the teachers as an additional motivation for the students and as a source for joint activities in an international context.

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Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: On 22 March 2014 the representatives of the Bulgarian mascil team from IMI-BAS, Toni Chehlarova and Evgenia Sendova, payed a visit to the Woodworking Professional School “Sava Mladenov” in Teteven, about 100 km East from Sofia. The school gives exposure in a variety of paths in the woodworking industry including furniture-making techniques and wood carving. This day the school was celebrating its 105th birthday and there were representatives of similar schools from Macedonia, Serbia, Check Republic, Slovakia, Hungary. The teacher in mathematics, Diana Vassileva-Yosheva, had invited students from 8th and 9th grade and the regional expert in mathematics, informatics and IT, Tanya Icheva, to participate in a mascil workshop during which the IMI-BAS researchers introduced to the participants GeoGebra dynamic constructions (based on rotational symmetry) for producing artistic designs for wood carved artefacts. The students learned fast how to use and modify the dynamic models specially prepared by Toni Chehlarova and invited us in their craftsmen laboratory to see if it is easy to implement the designs in practice. The master craftsman, Mr. Raykov, challenged us and the mathematics teachers present to identify mathematically the point he put by pencil directly in a triangle on the wood describing it as “the most esthetic one and such that the wood would not let the chisel go further”. After a hot discussion the mathematicians agreed that this was not one of the well known centers in a triangle in the plane but rather a vertex of a “pyramid” with a non-planar basis. It is still a matter of inquiry in 3D to see if the point is known by another name in mathematics. However the connections between the beauty of the wooden artefacts carved by the students and the dynamic geometric models seem promising in generating creative ideas. An illustrated report on the event has been delivered by E. Sendova under the title:Does Raykov’s point coincide with some of the well known mathematical points - a visit to the Woodworking Professional School in Teteven, Bulgaria. It was published at:http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/mascil/docs/Teteven_reportage.pdf

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: The second phase of the courses organized jointly by IMI-BAS and the Ministry of Education and Science the participants were given assignments to develop scenarios in IBL style. There were cases when the scenarios were still following the “preaching style” which showed that acquiring IBL need on-going efforts and support in terms of recourses, professional guidance and promotion by the key players in the educational policy. A non-negligible part of the teachers participating in PD courses have been skeptic about the applicability of IBL in a class setting due to the relatively small number of math classes in the syllabus and the heavy curriculum combined with assessment not-relevant to IBL. During a PD course with experts in mathematics and informatics mascil resources making use of dynamic software were demonstrated. Together with a very positive feedback reflecting the hope for a more stimulating atmosphere in the math classes, there were comments showing that the real potential of the dynamic software (for making observations, looking for patterns, generating hypotheses, in short – facilitating the IBL in math classes) was reduced by some experts to a tool for making good drawings…


In the following excerpt Bulgaria describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

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Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom:

The relative skepticism of some participants in the mascil PD courses is the problem of relating mathematics to WoW in the primary school.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: As expected most of the teachers we have educated as multipliers were able to modify the proposed scenarios according to the specific need of their students, to encourage students to pose questions, to formulate their hypotheses, to verify them using various means (including dynamic geometry software) and to work in teams. A great example in these lines is Elisaveta Stefanova (interviewed in the case study in the frames of WP10). Her views on the role of IBL in her math classes are expressed also in a video in several versions (one of them lasting 15 min is supplemented with subtitles in English).A lesson observed by T. Chehlarova (as educator of multipliers) has been described in WP10 following the structure proposed there:The lesson was in the 73. Sofia school “Vladislav Gramatik” with 5 graders (28 students, 11-12 years old).The topic was addition and subtraction of segments. The lesson was organized in inquiry-based style. The didactical means included straws with known lengths.The teacher gave students tasks dealing with various experiments with the straws. The students formulated their conjectures, dealing with the length of the result of a specific operation of lengths of the segments. The analogy between different operations was used. The topic was posed by means of a real-life situation (dealing with path and movements).The students were very excited when performing the experiments and very happy when achieving the results proving their conjectures. There was team work (in two and four students). Practical methods for achieving division in equal parts were considered. The team work was then followed by individual activities. The students were drawing by means of the traditional instruments when performing operations important from axiomati point of view. Furthermore, propedeuthics of the axiomatic approach (introduced more rigorously in 7th grade) was done.The manipulatives were very apporpiate for introducing the math concepts such as segments and number axis. The teacher had preliminary prepared working sheets fascilitating the work with a problem dealing with the number axis. The teacher discussed different measuring units – a digit, a step, a straw – encouraging the discussion.The basic topic dealt with the measurements in practice. Specific segments on the board had to be divided in 2, 3, 4 equal parts and various approaches were discussed (using a thread, a straw, etc.)The main goal was accomplished but the typical problem with implementing IBL in a 40 min lesson is to leave sufficient time for investigations and reach solving of a challenge from the real-life situation.The teacher was using the traditional manipulatives so that the students could “feel” the abstract mathematics objects. For further work though she envisaged using the dynamic files of the VirMathLab as seen from her conversation at the end of the lesson identifying the students who already had visited the site.As mentioned above the time for solving a practical inquiry problem dealing with movements was not sufficient and it was left fort he next math classes.The results of her students at the classical tests are very good. Of course, the attitude towards mathematics should not be measured with the achievements at tests only! There is a significant increase in the creative tasks to the students given as a homework or extra-class activities. Especially interesting is an algorithm for metamorphoses in the style of Escher developed by her students (12-13 years of age) and published as part of a mascil resource of the National site: http://www.math.bas.bg/omi/mascil/docs/task-TessSquare-BG.pdf. The beyond class activities of the students were supported by the community of their parents and culminated in participation in a number of art contests and production of artistic artefacts – key-holders, calendars, designs of T-shirts, magnets, etc.It is worth mentioning that the teacher has used IBL prior to her participation in mascil but ideas of tasks used before (such as escherization – tessellating the plane in the

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style of Escher, were implemented in a new setting thanks to her involvement in the mascil PD courses (e.g. generalization of Pythagoras theorem).What is interesting in the case of this teacher is that she herself evaluates her learning process as “life-long”, not reduced to a couple of PD courses. This was seen not only from her interview (see above) but also from her most recent course as a multiplier when she was teaching 14 teachers (in partnership with the multiplier who was in this way additionally passing the torch of how to combing IBL with WoW).

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; It is difficult to give a specific example but the main impediments are still the limited time for compulsory math classes and the lack of appropriate assessment tools.


In the following excerpt Bulgaria describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. Specify how you promoted teacher reflection by providing examples: The IMI-BAS team works with the multipliers, then supervise them at their first courses, and then leave them to work on their own.

CYPRUS


In the following excerpt Cyprus describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs: For some of the workshops that were longer in duration (e.g. all pre-service workshops) there was explicit reference to theory on IBL, and how by presenting WoW we can help the students appreciate the nature of science and mathematics. Some of the tasks (e.g. house insulation) was used to show the IBL aspect of mascil and then make the connection to the WoW.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; House insulation: This task was designed to be an inquiry-based task. The teachers, during the workshops engaged in setting up the experiment, measuring the temperature for various materials and then identifying the material that was more suitable for house insulation. Then, the teachers reflected on the nature of the task, and the characteristics that made this task an IBL one. The connection to WoW was made through a video showing practitioners discussing insulation practices for a house (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ9u3pDQeM4) and then reflecting the WoW aspect and how this could be implemented in the class

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Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: PiggiFlu is coming: the teachers found this task to be irrelevant to students’ lives, and reported that it was not easy to integrate IBL in this example.


In the following excerpt Cyprus describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom: Most of the teachers followed examples from the seminar – they designed tasks in which the students has to investigate a problem and provide a solution, and then tried to make the connection to WoW through examples of how they could use their practice in a profession, or by inviting professionals (usually parents) to talk about their work and skills.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: One of the teachers implemented the House Insulation tasks in her class and at the end of the activity the students were asked to design houses with good insulation, and explain their reasoning for their choice of materials. The model houses were designed in groups of 4. Then a parent was invited to school (an architect) to evaluate the outcomes of the project, and explain practices that are used when insulating houses in practice. The architect was interviewed by the students at the end of the process.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: The main problem with weak integration had to do with teachers not realizing and not integrating IBL aspects in their teaching and focusing on transmission of knowledge.

Theme 3c: Promoting teachers’ reflections/implementing the spiral model

In the following excerpt Cyprus describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

The workshops and seminars were interactive and were based firstly on engaging the teachers in IBL and WoW through actually practicing the mascil tasks and then reflecting on the aspects of the tasks that were helpful or should be restructured based on their experience. Reflection was part of the process for each one of the tasks that was implemented.

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CHECH REPUBLIC


In the following excerpt Czech Republic describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs: During pre-service teacher education oriented to IBL following WoW-connected activities were integrated: excursion in the nuclear power plant, workshop in the science education center Techmania and excursion in the pharmaceutical museum. In one PD course an integrated excursion to chemical company (sulfuric acid production) was organized.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; Participants are to propose a water treatment process from natural resources so as to achieve/approach to achieving the limits of drinking water following the standards of the Czech Republic. They had a Vernier sensors - pH meter, conductivity meter and turbidity meter, and the internet access was available for them. They worked on a task in pairs. The source of water was flowing near the river Elbe. After analyzing the sample of water three factors - pH, conductivity and turbidity were monitored. Afterwards, the Internet was used for searching for valid standards of specified limits which were compared with measured values. Then the discussion in pairs was held which suggested possible methods of water treatment, e.g. sedimentation, filtration through different materials, boiling, pH adjustment using chemicals etc. At the time of discussions the appropriate sequence using the proposed methods was applied. Water treatment was subsequently performed, and each method was used to measure the monitored factors. In conclusion, participants elaborated protocol, which evaluated the success of the water treatment process. After finishing the pair work, there followed the presentation of results and public debate on the topic of “Water quality and treatment of drinking water”, followed by the topic “Proposal for using the task at the elementary and secondary education and its modifications”.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: In our PD and TE activities the tested tasks were used for several times. It means that we do not have experience with weak integration of IBL and WoW. Several issues brought science teachers´ tendency to apply the “kitchen approach” to prepared or modified tasks. It means many prepared examples connected very well with WoW were of the first level of IBL, i.e. “Guided inquiry”.


In the following excerpt Czech Republic describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

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Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom: Between the entrance and final sessions of PD the teachers worked with their students and tested selected IBL a WoW tasks. Many times they modified them to their own practice or used those from textbooks. More success was detected in the WoW part compared to the IBL.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Task “Parking problems” from mascil Web repository was very successful. Teachers used the group organizational form and also competition on the best proposal/solution.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion) As mentioned above, problems were detected more in the field of IBL than in the WoW, e.g. as happened in the “Acidity/Alcality” task which was oriented only to measuring the pH of different samples. More learners´ solutions were missing, as well as freedom for creativity in searching for solutions.


In the following excerpt Czech Republic describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. The entrance meeting of PD stated bases and objectives for next activities connected with classroom practice. Continuous reflection was realized through e-mail communication with the multiplier and the final reflection in final meeting of PD during the discussion in the participants´ group.

GERMANY


In the following excerpt Germany describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs: In the beginning of each course, we defined IBL and WoW, showed how to “open up” tasks, i.e. how to re-design tasks in an IBL way. Then participants were encouraged to design their own IBL tasks. As the PD course proceeded they were asked to present tasks they had been implementing in class and to reflect about their experiences. We also showed and discussed how to assess IBL and Wow tasks and how to design tasks for tests. Two of our PD courses were prepared in close cooperation with vocational teachers who had been working in the WoW before becoming a teacher. Another two PD courses were prepared in cooperation with instructors of in-firm training and were taking place in the training workshop of an industrial company (SSS Siedle).

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Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Our PD course “Practical mathematics” focused on connecting general school education and the world of work through collaboration with an industrial company, the communication technology manufacturer SSS Siedle. It was planned and conducted in cooperation between the mascil team and in-firm training instructors. In the course of several preparatory meetings authentic mathematics tasks from the workplace were defined and adapted for use in the PD course and later on in classrooms. It was also agreed upon the structure of the PD sessions which comprised of presentations from the side of the company and from the side of mascil, hands-on activities in the training workshop as well as different arrangements for discussions among teachers, instructors and apprentices. In the consequence, this PD course allowed secondary school teachers (resp. young teachers in the induction phase) to inquire from instructors and apprentices how mathematics is used in the workplace and solve real workplace problems in the training workshop. On the basis of authentic workplace tasks, participants were supported to develop IBL scenarios, implemented them in their classrooms and reflected their experiences in the following PD session, and so on in iterative cycles of analysis-implementation-reflection. As a result, their students got to know how mathematics is used in ‘real life’ and understand that they will need the mathematics they learn at school in their later lives. Teachers who took part in this PD course gave very positive feedback about the chance of obtaining deeper insights into an industrial company and in-firm training in the dual system which they (as teachers in general education) had never experienced before. Besides, a small, but interesting collection of inquiry-based mathematics tasks inspired by authentic workplace situations (in this case from industrial mechanics and electronics) was created, presented to teachers during PD and tested by teachers in their classrooms.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; The more one aspect is being focused on, the more is a tendency of “losing” the other aspect. For example in the PD course “Practical mathematics” mentioned above we had the great chance to obtain authentic mathematics tasks from real workplaces. However, workers or apprentices usually solve these tasks by following given algorithms; it was not easy and sometimes even impossible to formulate these tasks in an inquiry way, because there was a lot of background knowledge and experience necessary in order to solve the tasks within a reasonable time. On the other hand, with teachers from primary school we rather focused on the IBL aspect of the tasks because there are very few workplace problems you can solve with the mathematics taught at primary schools (in Germany grades 1 to 4, i.e. 6 to 10 year old pupils).


In the following excerpt Germany describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom: Concerning IBL teachers started with over- and underdetermined tasks, i.e. with tasks containing more or less information than needed for solving the task, so that students learn to take the context seriously, decide which information is useful or not, and estimate quantities where necessary. Then they continued with open tasks and finally successfully implemented IBL tasks they got to know during a PD meeting or

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developed themselves in the course of PD. As to the WoW aspect, vocational teachers naturally used the tasks they usually work with, and teachers from general education school started to implement the tasks they encountered during the PD course. The opportunity to prepare lessons together with other teachers during PD, sometimes to visit each other in classroom and jointly reflect their experiences seemed to be very important for successful implementation of IBL and/or WoW aspects. By telling their students in advance that there were tasks like that going to be in the next test, teachers stressed the importance of engaging in IBL or WoW tasks, which helped them to successfully teach their students. Of course those teachers who tried to do IBL tasks without preparing their class carefully reported problems with time management or discipline in class.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; A teacher told that for an upcoming school party he was actually planning how much potatoes he would need for a certain amount of potato salad – peeling losses included. First the teacher let the students peel some potatoes in class in order to do estimations. This task is obviously close to the world of the students, but at the same time is an authentic task from a cook’s workplace – it was developed in collaboration of the German mascil team with vocational teachers from the field of nutrition. The teacher wanted the students to really do their own inquiry and therefore used IBL questioning technics which were taught during the PD course. So he helped the students to get a general estimation by asking again and again for reasons, instead of giving them answers to their questions.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; There was one teacher trying to do the parking garage problem without preparing the students for open tasks before and at the end of the school year on a very hot day in the late afternoon. The students didn’t even try to estimate how big the parking lot for one car is supposes to be. Also the teacher didn’t try to clarify with the students what makes a good parking garage to be good. So the group work was very inefficient, some groups of students did not work at all, and the results of other groups were rather weak.

Theme 3c: Implementing the spiral model/ promoting teachers’ reflections

In the following excerpt Germany describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. Specify how you promoted teacher reflection by providing examples; All PD courses followed a spiral model with phases of planning – implementing – reflecting. Teachers actively experienced inquiry learning and the connection to the WoW with new “open” tasks themselves, subsequently implemented the tasks in their classes and reflected on their experiences. An outstanding example for the realisation of the spiral model was the “tandem” collaboration of vocational and general school teachers described above (no. 5). In our PD courses it’s kind of a tradition that at the beginning of each day (except at the first meeting) teachers report about their experiences with IBL and WoW. In all the PD courses the teachers were very happy about this and said that they had great benefit from this.

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GREECE


In the following excerpt Greece describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs: In order to engage teachers in integrating IBL and WoW in our PD meetings the multipliers in each group designed and implemented the following activities: Presented and discussed the mascil philosophy and its characteristics; presented and discussed videos from youtube referring on the importance of using IBL in classroom; asked teachers to read carefully and propose ideas for solving specific mascil tasks (e.g., solar cells, the parking problem) emphasizing their IBL and connections with the WoW characteristics; suggested teachers to read specific topics from the mascil toolkit (e.g., Guidelines for redesigning activities; the reflection circle; examples of structured and open tasks); suggested teachers to study specific articles on IBL and WoW (e.g., Jaworski, 2006; Maaß & Artigue, 2013; Wake 2014; Triantafillou & Potari, 2010) in order to support teachers’ theoretical perspectives on the latter issues; initiated PD groups’ discussions about all the above documents in the subsequent PD meetings; arranged visits to specific workplace settings (for example one primary school students visited a particular technological education institution); encouraged teachers to discuss the mascil task theme with professionals who could provide authentic details about the task; initiated discussions where group members were commented their colleagues’ attempts to design their own mascil tasks (e.g., usually physics teachers very often stressed the importance of linking a mathematical problem to a realistic situation); emphasised reflection on the implemented tasks in PD groups’ discussions.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: One successful example of integrating IBL and WoW in our PD activities was the design of one structured questionnaire that multipliers in each PD group distributed to teachers after teachers’ classroom implementation and asked group members to complete it and discuss certain issues in the subsequent PD meeting. This questionnaire covered three dimensions of classroom implementation: ‘aspects of IBL and WoW in the teaching intervention’, ‘Students’ learning outcomes’ and ‘Teachers’ professional development issues’. Some of the questions addressed in the first dimension were: “How do you utilize aspects of the WoW in your classroom implementation”; “What elements of inquiry based learning did you recognize in your classroom implementation”. As regards‘Students’ learning outcomes’ some of the questions addressed were: “What type of students’ strategies did you recognize in students’ activities?”; “How did your students develop connections between the task and your subject knowledge?” Finally, we tried to support teachers’ reflection by addressing the following questions: “Select and present a critical incident that you encounter in your classroom implementation”; “What new did you recognize in your teaching activity?; and “Refer to certain changes you recommend in a future implementation of the same task”. The above questionnaire aimed to support teachers’ reflections supportive in the direction in improving their involving in IBL activities and in supporting aspects of the WoW in their teaching. Furthermore, by emphasizing teachers’ reflections on critical incidents (what happened? why this incident it was chosen as critical? which aspect of this critical incident was referring

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to IBL and/or WoW?) provided teachers an entry to improve their teaching in respect to the mascil philosophy.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: One example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in our PD activities appeared to be weak was an incident where the group missed a chance to create meaningful connections between the WoW and the school classroom. Particularly, one multiplier presented the incident as follows: “One teacher in my group planned to develop a task about the factors that could influence the construction of a bridge. The question for the students was to find out the exact point in which the bridge should be build. A landscape engineer, who was invited in school, informed the teacher that in reality the professionals take into consideration only the cost of the construction. In this case the reality ‘flattened’ the problem in respect to mathematics and inquiry. On the other side taking into consideration multiple factors that could influence the construction made the task very complex” (Multiplier’s interview, 08092015). The teacher was not encouraged to deepen in professional’s aspect and experiences. In this way an opportunity to achieve a real connection to the WoW at the level of school mathematics was lost. Finally, the teacher designed and implemented a typical mathematical task about the function that models a parabolic bridge (f(x)=-x2+6x). In the above example, hindering factors were the complexity of authentic situations and mathematics teachers’ limited experience on deepening in these situations. From the teacher’s point of view the authenticity of a workplace situation conflicts the mathematical and learning dimensions posed by the school mathematical curriculum. The latter issue reflected the difficulties teachers encountered in designing tasks that connect WoW with school-based knowledge.


In the following excerpt Greece describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom: The issue of integrating IBL and WoW was the main difficulty, as well as an interesting challenge, participant teachers met during the PD course. Their previous experiences on this idea were limited on one hand, and on the other the mathematics and science used in real work places usually are advanced and complex. Moreover, teachers are always worried for using activities that match their classrooms’ curriculum, so different instances that have been thought out, sometimes did not suit to their teaching content during the PD course. Trying to make a descriptive scheme of participant teachers’ experience, the following categories emerged:Implementations based on authentic situations from WoW, which were followed by conventional mathematical/science teaching and limited inquiry; Implementations where the WoW is present, but weak, and the mathematical/science inquiry not functionally connected; Implementations where the involvement in the situation from WoW was a surface inquiry, without being able to support the meaningful learning of the relevant content.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom: The issue of integrating IBL and WoW was the main difficulty, as well as an interesting challenge, participant teachers met during the PD course. Their previous experiences on this idea were limited on

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one hand, and on the other the mathematics and science used in real work places usually are advanced and complex. Moreover, teachers are always worried for using activities that match their classrooms’ curriculum, so different instances that have been thought out, sometimes did not suit to their teaching content during the PD course. Trying to make a descriptive scheme of participant teachers’ experience, the following categories emerged: Implementations based on authentic situations from WoW, which were followed by conventional mathematical/science teaching and limited inquiry; Implementations where the WoW is present, but weak, and the mathematical/science inquiry not functionally connected.Implementations where the involvement in the situation from WoW was a surface inquiry, without being able to support the meaningful learning of the relevant content.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: A successful example is the task implemented in a 7th grade classroom, where students had to take the role of Rural and Surveying Engineer, who work in a company. The company has asked to provide a solution for the rearrangement of a given piece of land, where many habitants own different small parts and desire to have them in one piece of land, in order to be easier to cultivate it. Students, as employees of the company had to use geometry and produce their proposal of a new plot of land. The condition was to find the optimum solution in order the land of all owners to access the road. A useful strategy was the initial video shown (http://youtu.be/l3-MID7YSkM), which the teacher had produced from three other videos she found. This introduced students to the aspects of the profession and creates the atmosphere for their involvement. The groups of students worked successfully on the task and realistic aspects had been taken into account meaningfully. They admitted that they didn’t know the profession of a Rural and Surveying Engineer and enjoyed the task, as they found it different than usual classroom teaching. Students through the video and their own experience on the task had the chance to use geometrical concepts and provide a plan that met the demands of the problem given to them.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: An example of a task which proved to be weak in its implementation in classroom was the Fish hatchery, which is one of the problems of the month. Limited time was the main obstacle in a meaningful inquiry. Implementation lasted a classroom session, 45 minutes. Teacher restricted his guidance in connecting the role of professional to the stability of Ph and in practicing the changes of Ph in relation to acidity or alkalinity. Economic and environmental factors were not discussed extensively, but only mentioned.Students watched the suggested video, which the teacher had produced (this PoM built on his own idea) with interest. Groups of students worked up to a degree, presented their ideas and their intended actions in classroom, but further inquiry was not unfolded. The potential of the task was not realized. Probably if teacher provided more specific information, the discussion of other aspects of the task could be more meaningful. Even for this, however, another session would be needed.

Theme 3c: Implementation of the spiral model/promoting teachers’ reflections

In the following excerpt Greece describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

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Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. Specify how you promoted teacher reflection by providing examples; In order to engage teachers in integrating IBL and WoW in our PD meetings the multipliers in each group designed and implemented the following activities: Presented and discussed the mascil philosophy and its characteristics; presented and discussed videos from youtube referring on the importance of using IBL in classroom; asked teachers to read carefully and propose ideas for solving specific mascil tasks (e.g., solar cells, the parking problem) emphasizing their IBL and connections with the WoW characteristics; suggested teachers to read specific topics from the mascil toolkit (e.g., Guidelines for redesigning activities; the reflection circle; examples of structured and open tasks); suggested teachers to study specific articles on IBL and WoW (e.g., Jaworski, 2006; Maaß & Artigue, 2013; Wake 2014; Triantafillou & Potari, 2010) in order to support teachers’ theoretical perspectives on the latter issues; initiated PD groups’ discussions about all the above documents in the subsequent PD meetings; arranged visits to specific workplace settings (for example one primary school students visited a particular technological education institution); encouraged teachers to discuss the mascil task theme with professionals who could provide authentic details about the task; initiated discussions where group members were commented their colleagues’ attempts to design their own mascil tasks (e.g., usually physics teachers very often stressed the importance of linking a mathematical problem to a realistic situation); emphasised reflection on the implemented tasks in PD groups’ discussions. In general, teachers through their participation in discussions either in the face-to-face meetings or in the e-learning platform they progressively throughout the PD implementation: they started to communicate their ideas and plans with other teachers and the multiplier; they started to work collaboratively and build on the others’ ideas and approaches; they were challenged to start thinking what is IBL and what issues emerge when designing and implementing IBL tasks in the classroom; they started to recognize the complexity of issues emerging when attempting to integrate the WoW in the teaching of mathematics and science in the classroom; they build progressively a more widened view of the issues influencing their teaching. These features in teachers’ communication appeared mainly after the first implementation and the reflection that followed in the subsequent PD meetings. This confirms the contribution of teachers’ participation in cycles of design-implementation-reflection in the improvement of teacher communication in the groups and broadly the teachers’ professional development. Below, we provide one successful example to illustrate how the quality of teacher communication was increased during teachers’ PD activities. It appeared in the e-learning group consisted of 10 secondary school teachers (5 teachers of mathematics and 5 teachers of physics) and the multiplier. Early in the PD activities, the multiplier had invited teachers to propose ideas for their first design and the subsequent implementation. One teacher working in a lower secondary school in small Greek city introduced the idea of working on an existing mascil task (Parking Problem). She proposed her modification of this task consisted of the following features: reference to a real open-air parking place in her city in which parking was not well organized; use of the corresponding lows so as to enhance the realistic character of the situation; students’ experimentation with manipulatives (e.g. paper models of parking and cars) and digital tools. Online teacher communication about the design of this task and its implementation, challenged two more participating teachers to investigate how this would work in one of their 8th grade mathematics classrooms. These teachers were living in different small cities so they were motivated by the fact that they could attempt to further modify it by referring to real parking places in their cities. At this phase through online communication the teachers were engaged in a cyclic process of designing and sharing of ideas and comments. Later on, after the first classroom implementation of one of the teachers, online teacher communication was enriched by teachers’ sharing of their classroom experiences and their reflection on them. Since classroom implementation did not take place in the same period of time, online communication helped teachers’ transformation of their tasks taking into account the experiences of the preceding implementations (e.g. made changes in the tasks and the accompanied worksheets taking into account identified constrains or time limits).

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LITHUANIA


In the following excerpt Lithuania describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

The main thing of PD seminars was that all seminars were built on inquiry-based activities. The discussing of characteristics of Mascil tasks, observation and discussions of IBL lessons, developing classroom tasks based on IBL and WoW were used all the time during the PD. Most of participants try to use their own tasks in the classes. Teachers were surprised to work in PD active. They had to work inquiry, to discuss in pairs, groups of 3-4. They have to feel inquiry activities on themselves.

Succesful example(s): The most successful activity for the PD was to solve IBL task, to try IBL themselves. The task was called „Bridge“. Teachers saw video where the content of Lithuanian university students was shown. The students have to build bridge of macaroni in such way that it can hold as heavy weight as possible. Then teachers split in groups of 3-4. They get task „Bridge“, where several conditions were described. The teachers get lists of paper, scissors, and glue and had to make bridge. Then they had to argue whose bridge was most ecological and cheapest.

Weak example(s): Some examples of the Toolkit teachers couldn’t understand. The examples used in the tools WA-1 and WB-1 were understood as tasks for the students. But in these tools examples were used to explain teachers in what professions mathematics and science could be met. The teacher weak understanding of WoW in lessons can has impact of usage of tools. In Lithuania WoW is implemented in the education in other way. Teachers take students to particular organization to show, what professions exist or ask to come representatives of specific profession to the class. But these activities rarely are related to particular task. The idea to show video about profession before the task was suitable for teachers. Some of them tried to do so.


In the following excerpt Lithuania describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Teachers often used open questioning, inquiry experiment and sharing with other students were supportive methods in term of implementation of IBL, but the connections to WoW were weak. The teachers often introduced the topics by asking students to discus. Students were engaged and liked to remember facts from their experience and discuss. The teachers asked students to work in groups and support them if they had questions. Teachers explained with real life examples when students didn’t understand something or switched questions to other students to make discussions in the group. Students could work inquiry when they did experiment and discussed. They could find their own solutions. They use each other for support and resources. Usually they shared their results was other students.

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Students were involved and all of them had work and tried to make experiments and to put results into worksheets. One of the most interesting examples was an activity devoted to 6th grade students. A teacher implemented the mascil task “Counting people“. The teachers showed photos and asked to discus in pair why these photos are shown. After three minutes they discussed with all class what about it is. Teacher B listed and switched students’ questions to other students. After ten minutes all of the students decided that the main problem is to count people. Then teacher explained and showed all tools what they can use. Teacher asked students to make groups of four. The work begins. The teacher supported students by asking questions observed their work and asked what they decided to do next. Teacher communication was matched to the needs and abilities of the group. She support students to be active and make their suggestions all the lesson. The used tools were chosen by the needs of the students: ruler, iPad, AREA, photos and places where people have to be counted. But there were examples what wasn’t such successful. The lesson with 4th grade students and the topic was about solutions. The teacher guided student to held hypotheses and explain experiment in details. She demonstrated experiments or methods and asked students to repeat instructions. The tasks, what were prepared for students refer to repetition of some steps. Students were introduced inquiry steps but they really didn’t work.There wasn’t connection to WoW.


In the following excerpt Lithuania describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

The general idea of model of PD was to make teacher to implement IBL and WoW and then reflect to other teachers how it was. Therefore the teachers had face to face seminars and then experimental work in the classes. The multipliers had to observe these IBL implementations in the classes and discuss with teachers. After two month teachers return to face to face seminar and make presentation of their experimental work. All participants of seminar discuss what was successful and what was weak.

THE NETHERLANDS


In the following excerpt Netherlands describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs: In the mascilBedrijfsDOT course we invited professionals at the beginning of the course for speed dates by which teachers could investigate how their subjects connect to world of work contexts and could be inspired by the professionals for identifying potential contexts for their subject teaching. The main idea of the speed dates was to identify topics for designing mascil lessons by a teacher and a professional. However, that seemed to be very difficult to realize due to time limitations for both to develop and finalize a design. Furthermore, we invited professionals to provide a guest lecture at each of

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the PD sessions to inspire the participating teachers with current workplace practices at industry close to their schools.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: A succesfill example of integrating IBL and WoW in our PD activities is a course that was connected to the programme studiestijgers.This programme is organised by RUG (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) offering science and maths teachers from the region a continuous professional development programme for their discipline. As teachers are being trained for only one subject in the Netherlands, this results in groups of teachers working together in either biology, chemistry, physics and math. The programme runs over one academic year with monthly meetings in the whole group, whereas teachers are also motivated to work in small groups to reflect and develop their own competencies (called DOT: docentenontwikkelteams). Sessions take place on Friday afternoons lasting for 4 hours and starting up with a short plenary. Because mascil tasks with a clear experimental component were chosen, the relevant sessions took place in a microbiology lab at the university. Our multiplier who was responsible for this course is employed by RUG in the field of science education, has a degree as a biology teacher and owns a PhD on professional development of context-based curricula (science). She was introduced to mascil ideas to find out whether the approach matches with her view on what the aim of the PD programme is. Mascil ideas were explained to her but no in-depth insight into the data analysis was given in order to avoid bias in the interviews. She was introduced to the structure of the homepage and selected classroom material. The contents and structure of the PD sessions were prepared in collaboration with the mascil team to ensure incorporation of her ideas. Whereas the multiplier was responsible for realisation of the sessions, mascil personnel facilitated the preparation. Within the programme it was possible to implement mascil tasks and reflect on them within the broader framework of curriculum innovation. However, ideas by the teachers, the overall concept and the multiplier were also accounted for during the process. The next section will provide an in-depth insight into the structure and course of the PD programme as it was eventually realised. The implementation of mascil ideas will be described in detail. An overview of the relevant PD sessions is shown in Fig.1. The programme always starts with a plenary for all groups of teachers to get input on modern science and technology. In the second session, teachers were introduced to a possible world-of-work (WoW) context which has a clear connection to Groningen University. As part of the IGEM competition, students had been working on developing a band-aid that facilitates wound healing by the help of bacteria1. Teachers were supposed to explore the context and develop first ideas how to implement it into the secondary biology classroom. In the next sessions, mascil ideas were introduced (session 3) and connected to the context (session 4). These two sessions are described in detail.

1http://2014.igem.org/Team:Groningen

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Fig.1. PD sessions with short description of content

Session 3: Introduction of mascil ideas: As can be seen in the approach of the PD was very participant-oriented. Teachers were given the opportunity to experience the tasks as students and reflect on it in the phase afterwards. The two tasks that were provided (horticulture task and brines task) both had experimental elements where students need to plan and conduct an experiment in order to answer the question. Although the brines task is merely for the chemistry classroom, it was chosen because of its benefits for the following discussion. Especially its potential in providing different pathways to find a solution and the concrete product (table salt) was regarded as fruitful for a comparative reflection on the two tasks. Although the elements of a mascil task were already introduced in the introductory (interactive) presentation, they were supposed to gain more depth in the reflection after the activity. The concrete experience in doing the tasks was supposed to link the elements. In step 1 teacher pairs worked on work stations, in step 2 the pairs were reassembled for reflection to ensure more communication between all participants. To give teachers more self-confidence in designing a task themselves, the brines task was chosen as an example for how to redesign a textbook task into an inquiry task in step 3. Step 4 had the function to already activate participants for the next session that had the aim to combine mascil ideas with the band-aid context and design a task.

Session 4: Application of mascil ideas to the Lactoaid example: In session 4, the ideas of mascil were applied to the scientific example from session 2. The different elements that are crucial for a mascil task were activated and group discussions were led to design a useful inquiry task for the context. The multiplier and mascil personnel had prepared a possible way to implement the example and focused on the problematic parts in the reflection. Problems arise in the availability of equipment for molecular biology purposes and handling of modified bacteria. Because of this the design was moved into the direction of planning and conducting an experiment to test hypotheses about the characteristics of bacteria. This could easily be implemented as a mascil task by planning variable controlled experiments on the growth of bacteria. For the experiment, different contexts were designed and discussed on the basis of the respective contexts in the schools. Here, a rural context (growth of bacteria in raw milk) was provided to be compared with the very technological IGEM contexts. Advantages for both were reflected in the discussion. This example was successful as it was part of a continuous professional learning community, related to how to implement IBL and WoW in daily practice and offered good learning opportunities for the participating teachers.

Provide a more detailed description of oneexample in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion).Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; In the Netherlands we could attract teachers to join a mascil

Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Session 5

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course by connecting it to a reform in upper secondary mathematics education. The main focus of this reform was an emphasis on the increase of mathematical thinking activities in daily practice. This was supportive for introducing and working on IBL and using IBL related tools from our PD Toolkit. However, the absence of the world of work in this reform hindered attention for the use of workplace contexts and its implications for tasks, the way students work and the teacher. So, it was more or less an absence of WoW resources because teachers didn’t feel the need for them and we couldn’t include them in the course.


In the following excerpt The Netherlands describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom: In general, we had two ways by which teachers implemented mascil tasks from the platform or self-designed IBL and WoW tasks in their classrooms. First, by joining a mascil course they were asked to try out mascil tasks and reflect on their experiences. In these cases we have little information about the teaching strategies, although in one course the teachers provided us feedback forms. From these forms

we have the feeling that they sometimes have difficulties in using classroom discussions to create students’ ownership of the tasks and switching between whole class sessions and group work. Second, our institute has connections with schools in the neighbourhood and we asked teachers of these schools to pilot some of the mascil tasks. In this case, we were supporting their preparation of the implementation and were observing the lesson(s) and supporting their students during groupwork. Moreover, these teachers are

experienced and used to teach with various pedagogies. These teachers did hardly experience any hindering factors.

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Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: This example concerns the implementation of the task: Design a good home for dogs. The design of a boarding kennel for dogs is a complex task involving many variables. Constructors have to think about the structure, dog houses, numbers of dogs in a dog house, free space, etc. The minimal space required for dogs in a dog house depends on the size of the dog. The task presents a table with the height of a dog as a variable. Other sources take the length of a dog into account (a link is provided). The teacher is an experienced teacher at the Lek&Lingecollege inCulemborg. The students are grade 9 students (13 years old) and the subject is mathematics. The duration of the lesson is 70 minutes. The mascil assignment is carried out in a class with 24 students. In this task, the students work in small groups of four students in the role of dog kennel constructors. The goal of this task tis o create a dog kennel for several types of dogs where dogs can be housed during the holidays. The teacher introduces the task by showing a video of an example of a dog kennel and explains that students need to create a dog kennel on a piece of coloured paper. The teacher asked the students to read the task in silence without further instructions. Then, the students worked on their task for about one hour. The students created beautiful designs using many different (mathematical) skills. A lot of creative ideas were put forward in the designs like a swimming pool or parking spaces. Most of the groups directly divided the task into sub-tasks. Because some of the students finished their tasks in less time than the others, the teacher decided during the lesson to add a new product: each design should be complemented by an advertising brochure. This shows that the original task can easily be modified to fit the needs of a classroom. In the task description, a table with different sizes of the kennels for different dogs is given. It was expected that the students would work with this table. However, most of the students only used one size kennel. It could be useful to explicitly set a requirement for including at least three different sized kennels. This will enhance the level of mathematics used in the task. The implementation of the task was valued by the teacher as it could be implemented in one lesson (70 minutes), which meant that it didn’t affect her planning too much. The IBL aspect was really good as the students had the feeling that they themselves were solving a problem and they had a lot of room for being creative. The world-of-work aspect was successful as the students experienced the task as if they were really solving a workplace related problem and worked as architects.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoWin the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion).Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: In a PD workshop on a conference we had mathematics teachers redesign a set of 10 very structured problems around preparing baby-milk in a day-care one work-related IBL-task. Information was given in a semi-authentic table with the number of infants, the times on which they were being fed and how much milk they were given. There was also information on the baby-milk powder and instructions for preparing it.Although all teachers (in pairs) succeeded in writing a more open IBL-task, which allowed for different approaches and solutions, they had a difficult job really incorporating aspects of the World of Work. As a context they only used one or two aspects related to the world of work. For example, some groups only used the baby milk package on which the product information and instructions could be found. In retrospect we concluded that probably teachers were not familiar enough with the professional tasks of a day care worker. The structured tasks didn't provide any information on the professional context as a whole. A lesson we learned from this is, that we always need to present or discuss the professional context in some depth, to ensure that is visible in the task.

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In the following excerpt The Netherlands describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. Specify how you promoted teacher reflection by providing examples: During the face-to-face sessions teachers are asked to try-out a special activity or way of working in the classroom based upon the input during the session. They have to report about their experiences with a report-form (“Rapportageformulier”), and they get feedback on it before the next session. Teachers that don’t send in their form before the deadline are asked by e-mail to please send in their form as soon as possible or report why they didn’t manage to experiment (we manage to keep a return percentage of about 80%, also as a result of the quick feedback). With this report form the teachers document what they tried out, with which students, with what aims and about their experiences.

NORWAY


In the following excerpt Norway describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs IBL and WoW were integrated in the PDs in different ways, and mainly by focusing around classroom tasks and their implementations in both math and science: e.g. by showing examples of tasks from the website and discussing their characteristics, by conducting demonstration. Further, by using the guidelines of re-designing tasks (developed by WP3), classroom tasks based on IBL and WoW were developed in the context of lesson study (see point 5 and 8). We also worked with mascil toolkit “comparing tasks” (WD-1). In all these activities, there were always been reflections. One of the multipliers invited a professional from a workplace, an audiologist, when he worked with the PoM “The Problem of Hearing” with his colleagues in a PD-course that he was running. This multiplier has since developed classroom materials in which teachers and students are attributed certain roles taken from the workplace.

In terms of Teacher Education (TE), we run courses for both in-service (further education) and pre-service teachers in primary science. IBL was included in the content of the courses. The teachers had an assignment to design a classroom task, implement IBL in their lesson and subsequently report their reflections to us. Besides, they were encouraged to think of connection to WoW. However, there seemed to be challenges in relating to WoW as they dealt with mostly lower primary level. WoW was perceived as a difficult concept to understand by lower primary children, due to a great mental distance. The idea of IBL, on the other hand, seemed to be well received by the participants of the TE-courses.

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Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: Successful examples: PD-lesson. Brine problem. It was the second part of the PD sessions run by our multipliers from one of the case studies (WP10). The session took place in the science lab. The teachers were supposed to work on the mascil PoM of October 2014, Brine. This part of the session started with a video about production of salt, followed by one of the multipliers taking the role of an engineer working for a salt company. The teachers were divided into four groups who were the supposed to make the best salt out of a sample of sea water; best being defined according to purity, taste, smell, dryness, and packing. (References in the case study: PD S 1.1 line 127; PD S 1.1 line 154-155).The task generated lots of engagement. The participating teachers worked seriously, discussing in their groups how to proceed and how to make best use of the available equipment. In addition to the science related questions discussed, the multiplier also raised 3 didactical questions: IBL, WoW, adjustments according to grade (age level of students). At the end of this session, the multipliers showed the mascil website on the screen and pointed out the Problems of the month, with teacher guides etc.Throughout the PD sessions, the multipliers were highly engaged. They also demonstrated that they had grasped the ideas of mascil in terms of working in IBL ways and making connections to the WoW. In particular, the participating teachers were exposed to tasks that they themselves had to work on in an inquiring mode, experiencing this themselves. In this way both parts of the session had the function of being a demonstration of how a mascil inspired teaching lesson can be run.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: Implementation of IBL and WoW appeared to be in the overall weak in one of the school participants. The multipliers from this school gradually seemed to lose motivation, although they were initially engaged. An example of the initial enthusiasm is described below: As part of the lesson study model we used (see point 8), one multiplier from this school volunteered to conduct one math lesson observed by the other mascil participating multipliers. The lesson was about becoming an architect; the students were to redesign an existing working drawing of house, the area of the ground floor and some other constraints being given. In the post lesson reflections, it seemed that the multiplier was inspired by the mascil task.However, there was no report of further mascil-related activity from this school after this lesson study. When asked about the impediments, the multiplier said that it was difficult for her to make mascils’ ideas accepted by the teacher colleagues. There were parallel classes, so it was necessary that teachers worked together. Faced to the resistance from the colleagues, she did not feel up to holding on to the mascil ideas on her own. On top of that, she felt that working with mascil required more time than expected. Hence, the implementation of mascils’ ideas was seen to be weak in this school due to lack of support from the colleagues and time constraint; which in turn lessened the motivation of the participating multiplier.


In the following excerpt Norway describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom (e.g., teaching strategies, contextual and other factors supporting or hindering the integration).

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IBL and WoW were integrated in classroom in different ways. Generating age-appropriate tasks or lesson plans was among the strategies most applicable. Careful planning on how to implement, that included taking care of availability of time, equipment or room capacity did support the implementation. Next, the knowledge of the students in terms of their conceptual understanding, inquiry skills, ability of working in groups and communicating did play a role in how the teachers implemented IBL and WoW. Among the supporting factors are teachers’ beliefs in the importance of IBL and WoW in promoting understanding and increasing motivation/ engagement and their willingness to try out this new approach. The hindering factor, so far, was found in the study of implementation at lower primary (1st and 2nd graders); mostly related to classroom management issues, and that the WoW concept too abstract for pupils. Please see the following examples for more concrete description.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; This example is taken from the lesson study in the PD-course for multipliers (our multipliers are ordinary in-service teachers). In the lesson study, multipliers from primary designed together an IBL and WoW related task, which then implemented by one of them and observed by the others. In the task, the students in 7th grade were given the role of developers and contractors. They had to develop an empty plot into housing area by the year 2025, which include houses and apartments for 100 persons, garages, parking lots, playground/recreational areas and roads. The total areal for houses should be about 700 m2. The product of the activity was sketches, made by students, based on existing, real drawing of the district plan. The sketches were to be delivered to a person representing the municipality. The implementation was a great success. The problem itself invited largely to inquiry, and there is a strong connection to WoW. It was an authentic context, and close to the real life of the students. The students became immediately engaged and strongly focused on task. They really wanted to succeed in producing the sketches. It was fun and at the same time mathematically challenging. Collaboration and communication between students – teachers and among students were highly facilitated (e.g. by group work).

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; Here we would like to draw in an example from the context of teacher education (TE) of pre-service schools, they had to teach 1st or 2nd graders (lower primary). Since the mascil task repository does not contain tasks appropriate for these age groups of students, the pre-service teachers had to design their own IBL tasks on the topic of own choice, decided together with their mentoring teachers. Examples of covered topics: Digestive Systems, Eye and Sight, Day and Night, Floating and Sinking, Autumn Leaves, Senses. After the implementations, the pre-service teachers had to reflect on their experience and reported to us. We also interviewed the mentoring teachers and conducted classroom observations.Upon reflections, some of the pre-service teachers reported challenges in implementing IBL. Those challenges were mainly connected to classroom management issues. As teachers at lower primary, they were in the phase of establishing routines and behavior rules, and to some extent felt the need of having control and thus some reluctance to “let go”. This reflection was confirmed by a lesson observation, in which we observed a highly teacher-steered lesson in which students received detailed instruction on what to do, the classroom dialogs were mainly teacher-led, etc.; despite the fact that the tasks were initially designed to give some opening for inquiry. The challenges connected to WoW have already been mentioned (see part 6).We are conducting studies on supporting and hindering factors for implementation of IBL and WoW at lower primary; and what we have reported here is our preliminary results on challenging factors. Further analysis is in progress.

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In the following excerpt Norway describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. Specify how you promoted teacher reflection by providing examples; We used the lesson study model to work with the implementation of the mascil ideas in the schools. In some schools the multipliers also used this model to work their teacher colleagues. The model implies that a group designs a lesson together, including making detailed lesson plans and observation sheets. One (or two) teachers carries out the lesson, observed by the rest of the group. The lesson plan is followed and the observers use the preplanned observation schemes to make notes during the lesson. Post lesson the group meets to reflect upon the lesson, whether the learning goals were met, how the activities worked out in class etc. Based on this a new lesson is redesigned.

ROMANIA


In the following excerpt Romania describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs; IBL and WoW was integrated into PD/TE programs on several levels: first teachers had to deal with tasks as students; they had to make the end products and go through the whole process exactly like their students. This was important to understand the difference between most classroom activities where they only talk about how things can be done and an activity where the end product has to be made in reality. This created also the opportunity to discuss a lot of real work related aspects and also alternative ideas for inquiry. We used also some videos about how thing are made (e.g. a can or a book in a typography), and some groups visited local traditional workplaces (blue printing workroom) and worked with professionals from different areas (carpenter, topographer, architects, etc.) in designing their own materials and activities.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; Teachers involved in the PD activity had several activities with building bridges from different materials. One of these activities was about building a small bridge from board (wainscot) that can support one person (without any other materials). They received the boards (16 mm thick) and they had to design the structure, they had to cut the pieces and to assemble the bridge. There were mathematics and physics teachers involved and participated also 3 members of the NAB. The activity was also related to local traditions about wood processing.

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Building (other) bridges:

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: One of the activities in a summer camp (where teachers and students were working in mixed groups) was a homemade chocolate making contest. Small groups (3-4 people, 1-2 teachers and 1-2 students) had to prepare their favorite homemade chocolate from milk powder, butter, cocoa, sugar and their secret ingredients. The contest was announced before the camp, so the participants had time to develop their own recipe and to bring the secret ingredients. The activity had a huge success, but I think neither the IBL, nor the WoW aspects sufficiently clear. Most of the participants brought a family recipe without experimenting about it. Of course, the results were compared, but the process of inquiry was not sufficiently clear. On the other hand a lot of tricks were shared among the participants about how to make good chocolate (these were related to the WoW) aspects, but the WoW aspects were not compared to the standards of a manufacturer.


In the following excerpt Romania describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom (e.g., teaching strategies, contextual and other factors supporting or hindering the integration): The main difficulty for most of the teachers was to find a professional to work with, to involve him into a student activity. Moreover the time frame was also a crucial hindering factor, because if they wanted to have a real end product, the traditional 50 minutes/lesson was not sufficient and also for the professional person it was not acceptable to come to the school several times for regular lessons. For this reason most of the teachers organized the mascil activities not during the regular 50 minutes lessons, but as additional or extra-curricular activities, or made arrangements to reserve half-days/days for these. Most of them used mascil tasks on regular classroom activities, without the participation of other professionals, but when they wanted to have a real WoW context, they designed their own activity. This also created an extra workload both on the teachers and on the mascil team (because these activities were also discussed with the team members).

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: One of the teachers designed an activity with a carpenter. The students had to

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design and to make a real bench. In the first stage they draw a bench individually, after this they worked in groups and they agreed on a common structure. After this they designed each piece of the bench by using different measurements (about the dimensions, the angles, etc.) and made a concrete list of pieces (with dimensions). The carpenter discussed with the students about their plans and he provided the pieces, according to the dimensions calculated by the students. In the last phase the students had to assemble, burnish and paint the benches. The strategy of teacher was to let the students create their own models, to determine the sizes experimentally, so the students had the opportunity to inquiry about almost every aspect of the whole process. In the last phase they used the tools provided by the carpenter, they transformed the classroom into a small workroom.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; The “Egg throwing” activity is about constructing a device for catching an egg that is thrown from 2nd floor from a piece of cardboard and some sheets of paper. The activity is quite interesting and funny, students can construct a lot of devices and they also can build a lot of theories during this activity. The testing phase is also interesting, it is not only about choosing the best device, but about calibrating each device (which is the maximal height where it catches the egg) with a minimal number of eggs. From the IBL viewpoint it creates a lot of opportunity to experiment in several directions. But the real WoW aspect is somehow missed, even if there are end products and there is a designing/manufacturing cycle during the activity.

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In the following excerpt Romania describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. Specify how you promoted teacher reflection by providing examples: With some groups and some materials the spiral model worked quite well: teachers implemented a task and after it they discussed about their experiences, they made a different plan and tried the same material with a different teaching approach in a different classroom. The only problem was that the differences between classrooms can influence the success of the activity, so in some cases the innovative improving ideas didn’t work, because the classroom was completely different. Moreover this cycle was not possible where other professionals were involved. For this reason they involved external professional only after they performed some mascil activities with their students and discussed these with their colleagues. Moreover before involving external professionals, they also discussed with the mascil team about the activity. The mascil team focused from the very beginning on developing local “best practices” in order to have local examples in PD courses. On one hand this was a very successful strategy because teachers had the opportunity to see working examples that were related to the national curriculum and were using real IBL and WoW. On the other hand some examples (like the bookshelves video) were also frustrating for most of the teachers because they did not want to invest too much energy/time. This worked also as hard selection criteria for participation into the PD courses. During the PD courses we tried to focus on transforming traditional tasks into mascil flawored tasks and to document some of them to prove that mascil ideas can be used according to the individual needs of the teahers (without investing a lot of extra work).

SPAIN


In the following excerpt Spain describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs: As said before, WoW has not been included in our PD courses. There is an exception: the first course we organised together with the Ministry of Education and the Menéndez Pelayo International University in Cuenca. In this course there was a plenary talk about mathematics and the WoW, followed by a workshop were teachers explored WoW-related tasks and think about their characteristics according to the mascil framework (context, role, activities, and product). Geoff Wake was invited to give the plenary talk and, together with the Spanish team, we run the workshop. In the case of IBL, in all the courses we have explored several IBL tasks with teachers, before introducing the concept of inquiry-based teaching and learning. In the form of IBL workshops, teachers have been given 3 or 4 tasks and asked to work in groups to find possible solutions to the tasks, and also to reflect about the tasks in more general level. Thus, we created an environment where teachers could uncover their initial ideas about IBL, shared them with other colleagues, and finally get to a new understand about IBL. Besides, most of the course have included periods in which teacher had to create an IBL task, devise a lesson plan, teach the task with their students, and report back to the group.

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Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; As explained before, we think that our IBL workshops could be considered as successful stories. Workshops were structured as follows:

A collection of IBL tasks was offered to teachers. Teachers worked in small groups. First of all, they had to find possible solutions to the tasks. After that, they had to reflect about common features of tasks like these, and their potential to promote students’ learning. A plenary discussion took place after group work, in which teachers shared their ideas about these tasks in particular, but also about IBL in general. Workshops finalised with aninstitutionalisation phase, where the group facilitator introduced a definition of IBL, as well as a list of inquiry processes. Then, the group facilitator came back to the tasks and analysed them in the light of the given definition, making explicit the inquiry processes involved in each task.

After conducting many of these workshops we realised that teachers attending to our courses arrived with very different ideas about what IBL could mean. Besides, many of them thought that IBL was meaningless for them. By selecting and offering different kinds of IBL tasks (very opened and unstructured tasks, guided-inquiry tasks, reality-based tasks, inquiry tasks within mathematics…), teachers could get to a rich view of IBL, and learn about the inquiry processes. Besides, we modelled somehow they way teachers were supposed to work in IBL lessons. Instead of offering a definition from the very beginning, they were invited to enquiry about IBL.

Provide a more detailed description of oneexample in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; In most of our courses, teachers had to design their own IBL tasks. This seemed to be problematic, and revealed that they had just a partial understanding of IBL. Our interpretation is that many teachers believe that IBL tasks are tasks without data (and the key is that students find them, normally in Internet). Thus, inquiry was restricted to looking for some data in the Internet (or asking to experts or adults). Once these data have been found, students’ activity was rather traditional (restricted to a few arithmetic calculations, in many cases). Although looking for data could be an essential feature of IBL tasks, real inquiry is more than this. Particularly, more important than hiding data is opening the problem so that students can explore it in many different ways, and have to activate processes like hypothesising, controlling variables, exploring systematically, formulating and proving conjectures, argumentation, communication, and so forth.We think that a hindering factor is the lack of IBL materials in Spanish language. This provokes that teachers face difficulties to explore more IBL tasks and to get to a deeper understanding. Also we, as group facilitators, had to encourage them to create their own tasks instead of selecting from a repository, with the risk of getting low quality tasks.Designing and implementing tasks is a powerful PD activity, which is richer when teachers have the opportunity to work in small groups, probably within a same school, in long periods of time. However, teachers are quite reluctant to engage in this kind of groups once the PD course has finished, even if they had some support from the local school authority. We interpret this as another hindering factor, which is connected with the current culture of the teaching profession in Spain, but also to some professional conditions (like the lack of recognition of this kind of work, or the fact that teachers have to meet in the afternoon, or the feeling that the curriculum is so dense, and therefore difficult to cover, that there is no time for other teaching activities, like IBL ones).

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In the following excerpt Spain describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom (e.g., teaching strategies, contextual and other factors supporting or hindering the integration): As far as we can control, most of theteachers integrated IBL in their classes because they were explicitly asked to do so as a part of the PD course (the so called ‘implementation phases’). Besides, some of them went further, and continued using IBL after the course, although this is difficult to track.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: One teacher that attended the first mascil course (July and autumn 2014, course organised together with the National Ministry of Education and the Menéndez Pelayo International University). It is a primary school teacher that, instead of using commercial textbooks, creates his own teaching materials for his students. After attending the course, he is integrating IBL tasks in most of the teaching units he has been elaborating (tasks from PRIMAS, mascil, Nrich and other sites, as well as his own tasks). An example can be visited here: http://cesar-catral.wix.com/operacionesquinto#!/c1p5hThis is a successful story because: (1) he is using IBL tasks continuously in his teaching; (2) he has got a grant from the Ministry of Education, and his teaching units will be published in the open-access repository hosted by the Ministry.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoWin the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; When designing their own IBL tasks, there are cases of poor IBL tasks. That is, tasks that are more like traditional word problems than IBL ones. For instance, a secondary school teacher proposed the following one: “in a theatre, tickets for adults cost 5€, and tickets for kids 2€. If 326 people attended the show, and 1090€ were collected, how many adults and how many kids attended the show?”This is a reality-based task, but not an IBL one, at least for secondary school students. It might be considered different if it is proposed for primary school pupils, because they do not know algebra. Nevertheless, it is far from the kind of tasks we tried to disseminate among teachers.


In the following excerpt Spain describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

In our one-day courses, the use of the spiral model was not possible. For the rest of the courses, one or two implementation cycles were included as a part of it. Teachers were given some information about these cycles, which included the following steps:

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Analysis: to detect students’ and teachers’ needs and conditions, which in turn will inform the selection and/or design of the IBL task. Design or selection of an IBL task to be taught. It should include not just the task, but also a lesson plan. Implementation: teaching the task with a group of students, and collecting data (pictures, videos, example of students’ work….). Reflection and reporting: reflecting about the benefits of the IBL class taught, and also about the challenges faced. Writing a report.

A written report was asked at the end of each implementation cycle, containing key information from each step.The quality of these reports, as well as the quality of teachers’ work, has been heterogeneous. In some cases, teachers’ work has been really good, including a thoughtful design of the task and the lesson plan, video sequences of the lesson taught, and analysis of students’ work, while in other cases teachers submitted just a mere description, with not much reflection. However, in face-to-face courses, best cases were presented to the rest of the group in plenary sessions, which led to interesting discussions and an enrichment of the whole group.

TURKEY


In the following excerpt Turkey describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs: Our previous experience showed that integrating IBL (and WoW) tasks into the current Turkish curriculum is more convincing for teachers to use them in their classroom practice. Therefore, choosing tasks that address objectives of the curriculum were preferred. Participants of mascil workshops visited a workplace, which produced the first Turkish electrical car.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; A visit to workplace was very successful and well received by teachers. mascil cooperates with companies in the WoW: mascil teacher workshop participants visited a “R&D and manufacturing company of automobile technologies” that produced the first Turkish electrical car (http://www.evtmotor.com.tr/eng/). The teachers received first-hand information from the engineers on the application of scientific and mathematical knowledge into the real world problems. The engineers mentioned interdisciplinary approaches that they used to solve problems of real worlds. They expressed that the problems of real world or WoW are mostly interdisciplinary in nature; therefore, applications of scientific and mathematical knowledge to the WoW are important aspects of school teaching. Here are some pictures for the PD training sessions.

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Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: The phases of the Earth and Moon (an activity from FIBONACCI project) due to the lack of connection with the WoW.


In the following excerpt Turkey describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom: Some teachers pointed out that main aspects of IBL are that it encourages learners to think, reflect and link the concepts with the phenomena. For example, one teacher defined the WoW as a process that creates a market value to ideas or products. “IBL encourage learners to link with their pre-knowledge while doing hands-on activities. Most importantly IBL creates a culture of working collaboratively. Students learn to work in a team to develop ideas and products. They learn how to transform these ideas or products into the market.” Some teachers mention that they use IBL activities in their teaching but not much the notion of the WoW and its relationships with science topics in hand. As one teacher expressed: “Sometimes I use IBL in my lessons but I did not connect it to the WoW. After mascil course I got some ideas how to do that but still I am not that confident about to make this connection. Because there isn’t much connection to the WoW made in the curriculum. …. I assume students would like to see the connections between physics and the WoW. That would value to learn physics and they might be motivated by that.” “For me WoW is about to transforming ideas to products, which has got a market value.”

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive: A teacher used mascil PoM-November 2015 - Design and build your own vacuum cleaner, hair dryer or toy car. The task has a direct connection to the world of work. Students explore the nature of some basic products such as vacuum cleaner or hair dryer. They generate creative solutions to a challenging problem and works like engineers. The teacher gave freedom to students to work in-group and design an artefact. During that the teacher facilitated their learning.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering: In particular, some teachers had difficulties in making connection

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to WoW. One teacher pointed out: “Sometime I use IBL in my lessons but I did not connect it to the WoW. After mascil course I got some ideas how to do that but still I am not that confident about to make this connection. Because there isn’t much connection to the WoW made in the curriculum. …. I assume students would like to see the connections between physics and the WoW. That would value to learn physics and they may be motivated by that.”


In the following excerpt Turkey describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

Teachers attended two 2-days workshops. The first workshop mainly focused on inquiry-based learning (IBL) and world of work (WoW). Selected teachers who participated in previous mascil workshops shared their experiences and challenges while implementing mascil activities in their classrooms. After the first workshop, teachers implemented mascil units in their classrooms. After the implementation, second 2-day workshop was organized to get their experience on the implementation phase. Based on teachers’ reflective reports and responses, mascil resources were modified.

UNITED KINGDOM


In the following excerpt United Kingdom describes their strategies when integrating IBL and WoW in their PD programs and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs; The main method of integration was in the lesson planning aspect of the PD. Although some teachers were keen to explore IBL and some wanted to focus on WoW, the lesson planning activity with teachers always included both aspects. We found it helpful in the PD to make a clear distinction these aspects of planning: Designing a task with opportunities for IBL; Encouraging inquiry (through the classroom approaches planned and used with the task); using context to make meaningful connections. The teachers however then worked on lesson plans to address all three aspects so that they were integrated rather than focusing on just one aspect. The work on lesson planning was constrained by time within the PD sessions but seemed to work best when groups of teachers either started from a task that was familiar so they could focus on the teaching and learning approaches, or they worked with a task in a familiar context.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; In this example a group of teachers who were all familiar with teaching students from the Hair and Beauty area worked on planning a lesson using a task about making an appointment schedule. Although the task was provided for them they were able to use their knowledge of the vocational area to shape this into an authentic work-related task. They also had particular groups of students in mind and

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were creative in ways of incorporating inquiry approaches that they believed would be effective with their particular student groups. Their existing shared understanding and experience meant they were able to move straight into the heart of the lesson planning without having to negotiate meanings and intentions before discussing the key aspects of the lesson.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering:In this example the teachers had different backgrounds but chose to work together on planning a lesson using the same task. This had the potential for some good discussion about alternative approaches but, within the time available, was less productive. Much time was spent discussing the context of the task (Joinery) and how it might be used but the mixed nature of the group meant that multiple issues were raised without having the time to address these. Although group members with different viewpoints contributed and some interesting ideas were discussed, the group were unable to agree and their fragmented ideas needed much more time before they could present them to other groups. The lack of a ‘product’ (i.e. an outline lesson plan) was not a problem for the Mascil PD since the discussion itself was useful but the teachers had different expectations and wanted to ‘complete’ the lesson planning. This example illustrates the difficulties when using teacher inquiry in PD within tight time constraints and with teachers’ own expectations of achieving a specific product.


In the following excerpt United Kingdom describes how teachers integrating IBL and WoW in their classroom implementations and detailed descriptions of one successful and one weak example.

Schools are dominated by the performance culture that is prevalent in English formal education and this affects pedagogy. Typically teachers rarely use open or extended tasks that require problem solving skills and the ‘pace’ at which the curriculum is ‘delivered’ in a classroom is seen to be very important, with speed being highly valued. Some participating teachers introduced less structured problems successfully but others struggled with their own established habits, their preferred teaching methods and students’ responses to a different approach. In colleges, connections to the world of work were more often already used in teaching, although teachers found it helpful to consider ways to make this even more effective. The emphasis in colleges was therefore on incorporating inquiry approaches into existing work-related tasks. There were challenges in making this work with disaffected students, particularly those with very low attainment where typically they would work on short closed and well-structured questions. Reading levels sometimes made it difficult for students to interpret word problems. Using group work and questioning with classes where some students were challenging (in terms of their social behaviour) was also an issue.

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive; One of the schools was keen to develop a task that facilitated inquiry but wanted to relate this to a real local problem. After discussion, the school worked on adaptations to the mascil task on designing a car park and increased its relevance by basing the problem on re-designing the existing staff car park at the school (which was badly in need of attention). This meant that students could inspect

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the actual physical space, observe the current arrangements, identify problems and eventually make a useful contribution to a real problem. This served to increase the relevance and also enabled the teacher to bring in other teachers (car park users) and the school site supervisor to answer questions about the constraints. Students were firstly asked to think about the general issues to consider when designing a car park and find relevant data, such as the lengths, widths and turning circles of different cars. This involvement of the students in identifying issues, strategies and relevant data early on helped develop their ownership of the problem and their engagement in the search for a good solution. Students worked in groups to share ideas and produce designs. This encouraged collaboration and useful discussion between peers. All the lessons (3) were observed and discussed with a member of the research team. On-going feedback and discussion between researcher and teacher was used to plan and refine the process of investigation, including what interventions were needed and how support was provided. In this way the task was successfully adapted to suit the local context and the inquiry-based approach in the classroom was monitored and refined. The commitment of the teacher and their openness to the use of observation and feedback was also a key factor in the success of designing and using the task in a school where these approaches were not commonly employed.

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering; In this example a team of 8 teachers in the school worked with a task from the mascil classroom materials (Designing a safe staircase). The head of department selected the task since she believed it would engage some of the disaffected young male students and all the teachers were asked to use the same task with one of their classes. Using a work-based task and an inquiry approach were both unfamiliar aspects of teaching for many of these teachers. Students were also unused to working on unstructured tasks and solving problems. As a result teachers adopted some very varied teaching approaches, with some attempting an inquiry approach whilst others attempted this at first but soon reverted to providing more structure. Similarly, with the connection to the world of work, some teachers maximised the opportunities by taking students to observe and measure a real staircase, or making paper models, to understand the problem before students worked in groups on solutions. The outcomes were varied, with some teachers reporting that students were unwilling to work on a task that was not directly related to their external examination (which was nearly two years away). The failure here was mainly due to a lack of anticipation of the difficulties when introducing two new ideas simultaneously (a work-based problem and an inquiry approach) to teachers and also expecting a positive response from students who were not familiar with these ways of working in mathematics. It was clear that some teachers were not committed to the inquiry approach and quickly changed back to their own preferred teaching style. Making such major changes to the performance-dominated culture in the school required greater preparation and commitment from teachers to overcome the inevitable problems when changing their classroom approach, suggesting that a longer period of PD and a more phased approach would work better than the radical change attempted.


In the following excerpt United Kingdom describes how they implemented the spiral model in their PD/TE programs.

We used the cycle below, which is based on the spiral model, with individual schools and colleges by offering initially to lead at least two PD sessions so that the cycle was established. This was with an

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understanding that teachers would agree on a research question to explore through their own classroom practice before the second session and that the cycle would then continue without needing external input. In this way, starting at the top of the cycle, initial discussions were based on teachers’ existing knowledge; the toolkit was used to present research evidence and encourage further discussion; teachers agreed on a specific question to explore through their classroom practice;they used inquiry in the classroom;they reflected on their practice and then re-convened to discuss findings and issues. Teacher reflection was encouraged during the PD sessions by using an inquiry approach including paired discussions, group discussions, active work to categorise or arrange statements in order (to promote focussed discussion), etc. With respect to their classroom practice teachers explored questions such as: how did students respond to the small group work? What specific questions prompted deeper student thinking in this lesson? What issues arose for you as a teacher with this problem-solving task? What were students actually doing during the collaborative work in the lesson?

Discussion based on exis ng

knowledge

Considera on of research evidence

Ques on to explore through classroom prac ce

Inquiry in the classroom

Reflec on on classroom prac ce

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2.4 Implementation strategies: Theme 4 – Engaging the wider community in mascil

The following excerpts show how each country engaged the wider school and educational community in mascil implementation (Question 9). In the end of this section we provide a brief summary based on the contributions of the participant countries.

AUSTRIA

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community: We did not engage the wider school community directly in our PD courses. However, representatives of the education authorities were in the NAB and gave support in advertising the PD courses. We contacted with School heads in order to pretest mascil tasks for PD courses and discusses this task with colleagues for optimisation.

BULGARIA

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community (e.g., School head, other colleagues, parents, educational authorities, local agents) in mascil implementation: The activities of the IMI-BAS mascil team have engaged a wider educational community, e.g. RAABE, the regional academic centers of BAS (Rousse, Dobrich, Blagoevgrad), the principals of the mathematics and science high school (there was a special meeting with them in Stara Zagora in 2013), experts from the regional inspectorates, parents organizations

CYPRUS

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community (e.g., School head, other colleagues, parents, educational authorities, local agents) in mascil implementation: Some teachers after the workshops they were asked to inform their colleagues in schools by providing short term training within the school (2 hour training to other teachers) and then implementing tasks together. Parents were involved in order to promote the WoW aspect and help the students understand how their work is linked to science and mathematics. Education authorities were engaged with the project through local conferences and seminars in which either our research group or the mascil teachers were involved.

CHECH REPUBLIC

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community: For teachers´ community there is provided high external motivation because all prepared PD courses were accredited by the Czech Ministry of Education and valid for teacher´s career development system which is currently being finalized (till now missing in the Czech Republic). For professionals and as well as for general public we included our activities from PD courses also in public relations activities oriented to promoting of mathematics and natural sciences, i.e. in activities organized by the Faculty of Science - “Science on Riverbank”, “„Let´s Use our Heads to Play“, “No a mathematical talent wasted”, “Market of Chemistry Teachers Ideas” etc. Also synergy with other projects is used, e.g. with the project “Science at Your Fingertips”, “IQ UHK” etc.

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GERMANY

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community in mascil implementation: Some of the PD courses and other events took place in schools so that the school heads were automatically involved and informed about the project. Since in most PD courses a group of teachers from one school was trained, often other colleagues were automatically informed. Educational authorities and local agents are members of the NAB and therefore get informed during the NAB meetings. Parents haven’t been informed yet, but soon will be at a meeting of the parents’ association by one of our NAB members. When announcing a new PD course, we have a very good cooperation with the PD centre of Freiburg University of education (ZELF) and with the state council of Freiburg (several high ranking officers are members of the NAB), who support us in disseminating the information and inviting teachers to sign up for PD. In the course of three national policy workshops in early 2015 representatives of the wider school community were informed in detail about the objectives of the project mascil and of our PD courses. Several high ranking participants have shown great interest and expressed their willingness to support the implementation.

GREECE

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community in mascil implementation: Some of the participant teachers in PD courses were School heads. Also, the fact that groups of teachers from different schools were participated in the mascil activities gave the chance communities of learning to be created that affected other teachers in the schools, as well. Different school advisors have been contacted and asked to help in spreading the main ideas of mascil. In some cases they have involved some of the mascil ideas in seminars for teachers. Parents have not actually involved in the mascil activities. However, they have been informed about mascil as they had to sign the consensus for videotaping the mascil interventions. In some cases, other agents have participated as specialists from the workplaces presenting their experiences from the WoW, or providing to the students specific information needed and explanations. Local authorities have not been engaged in mascil implementation. Moreover, the research group has spread the ideas through the teaching in normal university courses, and post-graduate certificate of education courses, where future teachers and in-service teachers obtained experiences with the mascil platform, ideas and activities.

LITUANIA

Engaging the wider school and educational community in mascil implementation: The dissemination of project mascil IBL and WoW in the beginning of the project had impact of engagement of wider school community. The website, articles in the newspaper and teachers’ portals were announced regularly. Each mascil event in Lithuania was announced. The presentations about mascil and IBL were made in all Lithuanian conferences for teachers (mathematics, science and others). Several dissemination workshops were done in different Lithuanian cities. These dissemination events had impact into successful implementation of the overall mascil PD model. Teachers were interested and come to know more about IBL in connecting with WoW.

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THE NETHERLANDS

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community: We don’t have evidence about our successes in engaging the wider school community in our mascil implementation. We had a few e-mail exchanges with school heads in preparation of our PD courses, and representatives of educational organizations and school authorities are member of our national advisory board, but furthermore we have no further actions towards the wider school community.

NORWAY

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community:In our model for scaling up, the multipliers are regular teachers, working with their colleagues in PD-sessions. Therefore it was of great importance to us that the mascil project was truly welcomed and supported by the multipliers’ head teachers. This would guarantee the multipliers reasonable conditions (allocated time etc.) to conduct their PD-sessions with colleagues. In order to find cooperating schools and teachers, we initially contacted the local school community officers. With their help, we set up a meeting for all principals in the community, where we informed about the project. Afterwards we wrote a contract with the participating schools, specifying the responsibilities of both the multipliers and the school/head teacher. For multipliers working in primary schools, all colleagues participated in their PD-sessions, also those who do not teach mathematics and/or science. For multipliers working in lower secondary schools, all colleagues teaching mathematics and/or science participated in their PD-sessions. Engaging the whole school community was considered important by us in order to create a sustainable impact. The involvement of parents has mainly been conducted by the multipliers, by presenting project and the core ideas of mascil at parents meetings. The mascil team has had regular contact with (local) educational authorities and other important agents (such as representants from national centers) through the NAB-meetings. In February 2015, a policy workshop was arranged, with a total of 23 participants, including representatives from local, county and national level school authorities, national centres for mathematic, for science and for science recruitment, national mathematics and science educational initiative projects, researchers in science and mathematics education, and school teachers. The workshop was a follow up to a similar event in 2014, and thus was in line with the explicit goal of the Norwegian mascil team to build and sustain continuity amongst colleagues working in teacher education and school stakeholders and policy makers on the issues of IBST. An important outcome of the workshop was the consolidation of the importance of IBST and WoW approaches amongst the teacher education community, dissemination of the importance of such approaches to school and government authorities and the underlining of the important role mascil plays in this.

ROMANIA

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community: We organized “open day” style activities and also regular activities where we invited school masters, inspectors and we made workshops with them. We also participated in local events in schools, parks, etc.

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SPAIN

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community: No specific actions have been taken in this direction.

TURKEY

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community: Wider dissemination through conference presentation: mascil has been presented in 3 conferences in Turkey:

IOSTE Eurasia Regional Symposium 2013, Antalya. www.ioste2013.org IOSTE Eurasia Regional Symposium 2015, Istanbul. www.ioste2015.org In September 2015, STEM Teacher Conference (STEM teacher conference - Strategies for Assessment of Inquiry Learning in Science (SAILS)) was organized in conjunction with “STEM & Makers Fest/Expo” in Ankara. Around 2000 participants from 3 years old have attended and engaged with IBL activities. Around 700 teachers have participated in 26 workshops. Many national and EU-funded projects including mascil were presented in a workshop format. http://www.stemandmakers.com URL for the video: http://www.stemandmakers.com/portfolio/stem-makers-festexpo-turkiye-2015/ Media coverage : mascil PD workshops were reported in several national newspapers (see below). Source: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yerel-haberler/nevsehir-haberleri/yasam-icin-fen-ve-matematik-calistayi-duzenlend_198108/

UNITED KINGDOM

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community: Most of the teachers who were involved with mascil were working as part of a school or college-based group and therefore the entire maths and/or science team were usually involved. This included the heads of departments and any managers who were teaching mathematics. Senior managers were aware of the involvement of their mathematics or science teams with the mascil project since permission from senior management prior to involvement was necessary. In several of the large colleges senior managers were active in the initial discussions and in making practical arrangements for the mascil PD activity. Outside the schools the new Maths Hubs leads were briefed and consulted, as referred to earlier. Some supported mascil activity, circulated information on events and encouraged schools to participate. In addition, there was wide dissemination to regional and national groups with shared interests, as listed in our extensive dissemination records.

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2.5 Implementation strategies: Theme 5 – Partners' reflections

The following excerpts show how each country evaluates mascil implementation in their national context (Question 10).

AUSTRIA

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants: From the oral feedback after our PD courses and the interviews with some teachers about 6 month after the PD courses, we observe minor changes in the day-to-day teaching but a higher potential on a long-range scale.Many participants tested at least one mascil task in their classroom and gained experience with these tasks. Due to institutional obstacles, some participant could not implement a task but discussed with their professional group how to incorporate such task in their future classes. In the interviews these tendencies were confirmed. The interviewees explained that it was difficult to incorporate a mascil task in their day-to-day teaching since they made a very detailed lesson planning for the whole year. However, in the preparation for the next year, they take into consideration to include mascil tasks at the beginning or the end of a longer teaching unit. We could also motivate some multipliers from other PD centres to join our courses and to communicate the mascil ideas in their region. Our two-stage PD model was from its structure quite new to our PD centres. The participants were not used to attend twice and implement a task as a requirement of a PD course. So some terminated the course after the first meeting since they were not willing to adapt a task on their own, to implement it and to discuss their experiences. However, with these new format, we could convince one PD centre to change all its PD courses in mathematics in 2015/16 to this format. So we proclaim a direct impact on the level of PD course models in this centre. Summarizing, it will be difficult to evaluate the impact within the duration of the project due to the reasons mentioned above, but with a long-range operation of our national website we hope to stay in contact with interested teachers and to promote the mascil ideas also beyond the end of the project in December 2016.

BULGARIA

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence:The continuity of ideas from previous experience (in terms of educational experiments and other European educational projects) was emphasised by all our interviewees. The feeling of support within the community of teachers, multipliers and the IMI-BAS team is crucial for the further success of the project achievements. The e-resources developed within VirMathLab and those on the mascil website, are a rich platform for ongoing development of teachers and students alike. There were no drop-outs from the PD courses. A problem for the leaders of the PD courses organised jointly by the IMI-BAS and the MES was the variety of background and level of computer skills of the participants (being selected by the Ministry of Education and Science), but the specifics of our approach with the use of appropriate e-resources was very helpful in this situation. The relative skepticism of some participants in the PD courses is the applicability of IBL in terms of its been time-consuming, the standard (test-based) way of measuring the results. The dissemination activities are very rich – enriching the Bulgarian mascil site with teacher’s contributions, organising events (seminars, workshops, poster sessions) within conferences, including international ones, visiting schools in the country, giving interviews on TV and the National radio about

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the significance of the IBL, providing talks and publishing articles in professional journals– such activities become a natural part of teachers’ life and contribute to raising the teacher’s prestige (which has been rather low in the recent years in our country). In a nutshell, the continuity of implementing the ideas of IBL in a sequence of European educational projects, intensified in a mascil context with its connection with Wow, is what makes the IMI-BAS team optimistic about the future of math education in Bulgaria. The main positive effect is the feeling of belonging to a creative and supportive community of teachers, educators and math researchers (a community, which recently involves experts from the MES and parents). This community has a common goal – the one of building citizens of innovations&creativity based society, people who would be ready to tackle challenging problems, never occurring before. With this in mind, this community shares the opinion that math education is much more than covering specific topics within a limited number of class hours. Furthermore, the competences it is expected to develop are related to all the key competences for life-long learning. Thus, when the teachers do not feel isolated in their endeavour for implementing IBL integrated with WoW, when they could rely on rich resources and expert’s support, their role of multipliers of these ideas will be achievable on a larger scale.

CYPRUS

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence: Most of the in-service teachers were already familiar with IBL, but not with WoW. Overall, the workshops and training help the in-service teachers gain a better understanding of IBL and provided them with examples that can actually be used in their classes. Furthermore, the PD enabled the teachers to start collaborations and exchange of materials with other in-service teachers. The aspect of WoW was unknown to most of the in-service teachers, therefore we believe that the PD helped them to find a connection to students’ interests through the WoW. The pre-service teachers were not familiar with either IBL or WoW and they reported that the tasks were helpful in improving their understanding and practice.

CHECH REPUBLIC

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence: Reflecting all the above mentioned, we have to say that PD based on mascil ideas has impact in in-service and also pre-service teacher´s education in the Czech Republic, especially at the home academic institution and co-working academic as well as teachers development institutions. However, it should be also said we are aware that a large extent of work is still in front of (all of) us. It is high time we started the process of IBL and WoW implementation into the Maths and Science education on all levels of schools in the Czech Republic, as these approaches provide learners the connection (of our system of education) to the real world, which we expect will enable the graduates to succeed on the labour market in the future. Our connection with the accreditation process of teacher´s PD courses in time of teacher´s professional career system finalising is very promising.

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GERMANY

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence.

The vocational school teachers involved in the planning process of our PD course “Applying and understanding mathematics“ have for more than than two years implemented an IBL approach in their lessons. They reported back to us that they experienced positive changes in their classrooms: Their students are more motivated, intrinsically motivated, make the tasks ‘their own’, understand mistakes as ‘helpers’ and have developed a better understanding of mathematical content. They observe that their students’ competencies in team work, communication and presentation have improved. They experience ‘open tasks’ to be suitable for internal differentiation in heterogeneous classes. Both vocational school teachers and general education teachers participating in this PD course highly valued the tandem collaboration initiated through the PD course. They emphasized that this is very special to them as (1) there is no culture of mutual visiting each other’s classrooms in Germany and (2) it is the first time for them to transit the boundary between general and vocational school. In the course of planning and conducting the PD course “Practical mathematics” in cooperation with the industrial company SSS Siedle we promoted - and this is new for Germany - a substantial dialogue between representatives of school and industry concerning the use of mathematics. We observed first effects in some classrooms, as teachers could better connect mathematics learning to the demands of vocational training and show students the use(fullness) of mathematical skills in workplaces. Our second PD course in cooperation with SSS Siedle has been booked out even though it was very short before summer break, due to the good references the participants of the first course gave. PD participants’ positive feedback to all of our PD courses shows that mascil in Germany is succeeding in implementing IBL and connections to the world of work in classrooms on a broad scale. With two new PD courses planned for spring/summer 2016 the German mascil team responds to current challenges and needs of teachers: (1) to the technical challenge through the omnipresent smartphone by the PD course “Differentiated and inquiry based learning with applications on the smartphone”, and (2) to the societal challenge through a large number of young migrants arriving in Germany a new PD course, where pre-service teachers and teacher-volunteers will be trained to support newly arrived refugees in preparing for vocational schools in a weekly mathematics workshop.

GREECE


IBL and the WoW: The PD program had in general a positive effect on teachers’ engagement with IBL and on searching ways of integrating the WoW in the teaching of mathematics and science. The latter was viewed mainly as the design of realistic problems that asked students to adopt the role of a professional. In a few cases however the WoW was more successfully integrated into teaching like inviting a professional in the classroom or visiting the workplace. The way that IBL was considered by the teachers was not unique. Some of the teachers managed to integrate this approach to the curriculum while others viewed IBL as an open exploration. In some cases IBL was considered as a more guiding way towards the accomplishment of specific goals. Concerning the multipliers, IBL was introduced through asking teachers to compare IBL tasks with structured and closed tasks and by providing examples from inquiry classrooms. WoW proved to be more difficult to handle with the teachers. The

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multipliers read relevant research papers on workplace mathematics and were introduced to various workplace artifacts by one member of the research team who had done research in this area.

Teacher collaboration: Another positive impact of mascil implementation was the collaboration developed by many teachers in designing, teaching and reflecting on lessons based on mascil tasks or on others developed by the teachers themselves. Some teachers taught together in the same classroom or transformed tasks that were used by one teachers into their own classroom and often observed classrooms of other teachers. The collaboration between teachers of different disciplines took place in some of the PD groups.

Disseminating ideas and practices: Another positive point of the implementation was that many groups of teachers presented their experiences in national conferences for teachers and researchers of mathematics and science education. This is very important as the teachers adopted a role of a teacher-researcher of their actual teaching.

Large scale implementation: In Greece a large number of teachers were educated in the context of mascil. This was very important in Greece as usually professional development is not a systematic process. So working in mascil was a very useful experience in teachers’ their professional life. Moreover, it was not in the culture of the Greek educational system teachers of the same discipline and of different disciplines to collaborate. Mascil provided opportunities for teacher collaboration that proved to be effective.

Students’ views about IBL and WoW: Although there was not a systematic evaluation of the impact of the project on students’ mathematical engagement, informal evaluations of the students showed that the students liked working on the mascil tasks as they show some relevance of mathematics and science to their life and the workplace contexts allowed them to make connections.

LITHUANIA

The PD had really great impact for multipliers and for teachers, and for students. The multiplier achieved new competencies what helps to work with teachers. For example, active methods used in seminars were new for multiplier. Usually she used lecture or guided inquiry method. She emphasises that to try IBL and WoW in practical lessons before her PD was very helpful and makes easier to explain material for teachers. PD courses gave for teachers deeper and more concrete and concentrate knowledge about student oriented learning methods. New knowledge helped to prepare for IBL lessons and make it more open: students could choose methods how to solve problems and to present results. The teacher expanded her view of teaching mathematics and science. At the beginning of PD courses most of teachers used only structured inquiry and after first session they tried to use more open inquiry – guided inquiry learning. The strategy of questioning was changed: they asked more open questions and waited a minute for answers; they try to involve students into discussions with each other. They let students to work in more inquiry-based atmosphere.

THE NETHERLANDS

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence: As a result of the mascil project we were able to continue PD activities on IBL as initiated by the EU-project Primas and enrich them with the use of workplace contexts in daily practice. In addition, all mascil resources enabled us to provide workshops at teacher conferences and organizing a policy workshop for a variety of

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stakeholders. All these initiatives contributed to the ongoing discussion about the possibilities to implement inquiry-based learning in science and mathematics education. The innovative aspect that mascil brought to that discussion is the integration of workplace contexts in inquiry-based tasks. We still receive invitations by conference organizing institutions to present about our ideas and experiences.

NORWAY


The mascil team has followed four multipliers and two schools during their PD program (as case studies), one primary school and one lower secondary school. The interviews conducted with multipliers and teachers shows that the IBL approaches has been very well received by all, while the WoW approaches have been harder to convey, especially at primary school. In lower secondary school the WoW aspects were more successfully implemented, e.g. as one multiplier said:“… it is this wow factor, that’s what I have taken into my teaching to a highest degree, taken into consideration what we have worked with.. (IM S B1, line 106-107) ..I feel that the wow factor brings in creativity in me as teacher, compared to a pure IBL task, because I become more creative. I feel it easier to make it more exploring when I can link it to a profession”. (IM S B1, line 451-454) -Multiplier Bjarne. A key factor for success has been to involve the whole school/learning community in the PD-program, even though it was challenging to include teachers who were not teaching mathematics or science. By engaging a large group of teachers working at the same school, the impact becomes more sustainable as the community gets into a habit of discussions about subject content and pedagogy, and a culture of sharing. From the primary school, more teachers report that they value the experience on how the same task can be used at several different grades, and from the secondary school, the multipliers reports that colleagues has started to develop tasks together. In the training of the multipliers, a key factor for success has been to use lesson studies. This created a fruitful milieu for discussions about important aspects of learning and teaching in general, and of important IBL- and WoW-aspects in particular. The multipliers report that they valued the lesson study cycle highly, they found it interesting to observe each other’s teaching, and claim that they learned much through the reflections afterwards. They also state that they became convinced about the tasks and ideas of mascil when they saw that pupils were really engaged, motivated and even involved their parents in evenings and other staff at school, see quotes: “…through what actually happened and that several had an observer role and was not obliged to be responsible, but they got the possibility to sit and see, and experience that this was something that appealed to students and captivated, yes, students that you find it difficult to engage otherwise” (IM P A1, line 356-359) – Multiplier Andreas. The network of multipliers have decided to continue to meet regularly also after the project period of mascil has ended, which we take as an indication of success. Another indicator of success is that new schools have decided to join these follow-up meetings/workshops. After a press release about the project (5th Dec 2015), where teachers explained the new ways of thinking in math lessons, we got a great deal of positive feedback from parents, teacher educators and school leaders. This can also be seen as an indicator of success. As an overall evaluation, we can value the project as a success story within our local area. As one of our multipliers said, when hewas asked whether the project responded to his expectations: Yes, to such a degree. ... Yes, there are not so many projects of this size, but in relation to the projects that the entire school has been involved in, and only me and a few more, then this project is the one I have had the greatest benefit from since I started as a teacher. It is at least what changed my teaching most, it is. Or, developed could be more right to say ... (IM S B1, line 314-318) - Multiplier Bjarne.

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ROMANIA

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence: Our implementation strategy was a bottom to top approach. We focused on teachers, parents, low-level policy makers (inspectors, school masters, etc.). Teachers involved in the long-term PD program experienced a lot of new ideas, a completely new teaching strategy. The reported results (teaching materials, organized events, etc.) are high quality results both from IBL and from WoW perspective. In some schools the managers find sources to buy didactical materials for IBL and WoW activities. In the Romanian context this is really rare. Moreover some teachers involved in mascil PD became informal multipliers, they are acting on their own, they have their small local groups and they keep working without the assistance of the mascil project (in the case study for evaluation we analyzed such a group). In the last few years the mascil team was invited to several local and international conferences in order to present their activities, so the impact on local scientific community is also significant (several public talks, conference in Budapest, Cluj, etc.). These are signs that the mascil ideas will spread even after the project ends.

SPAIN

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence: Our interpretation is that our courses have been well valued by most of the participants, and that, somehow, our courses have changed the way teachers perceive the teaching and learning of mathematics and science.For instance, one teacher sent this email once she finished her work in one of our online courses (November 2015): “Thank you so much for organising this course and for offering such interesting materials. Personally, the most important outcome of this course is that it has helped me to see things from a different perspective. Now I feel motivated to put these new ideas in practice, knowing that my students are going to learn by discovery”. However, that does not necessarily mean that our courses have really transformed teachers’ teaching practices, and that their teaching is now more IBL oriented. It has happened in some cases, but not in the majority. This perception will probably be validated when we get the data from the pre- and post-questionnaires, but so far it is just our interpretation.We think that our courses have been powerful to challenge teachers’ perceptions and the pedagogies they normally use, but that a real transformation needs a longer support in smaller communities.

TURKEY

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence: mascil project has been making a substantial influence on policy makers, researchers and practitioners in Turkey. The main impact of the mascil project in Turkey has been on science teachers. More than 100 in-service teachers have involved in mascil teacher workshops in Ankara and Nevsehir. Throughout three conferences in Ankara, Antalya and Istanbul, mascil resources were delivered to wider audiences. We were asked to run mascil workshops in different cities in Turkey. There is a long waitlist on mascil PD courses.

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UNITED KINGDOM

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence: Although the overall numbers participating in the PD are in line with expectations for the project, the impact at this point is probably less than anticipated due to a number of factors. As explained in detail earlier in this report, the lack of structures to support the wider spread of mascil PD activity and the difficulties recruiting multipliers on to longer courses has led to a reliance on short courses in individual schools and colleges. Some of these are, however, large organisations or are part of academy groups where there is the potential for a wider impact across more teachers than those who have already participated. The growth of this work though is dependent on the sustainability of the professional learning communities now established and the opportunities within an education system with changing priorities and a strong emphasis on examination performance. Our work with schools or colleges did extend across several different regions and has the potential for more than just a local impact. Active partnerships with national organisations were difficult to develop at the start of the project, but we are currently engaged in on-going liaison with organisations that share some common interests in IBL and WoW and some of these would wish to continue work with similar aims to that of mascil in the future. From informal discussions with these organisations and the representation of mascil team members on national advisory boards, awarding bodies, etc., this liaison is set to continue beyond the timescale of the mascil project and have further impact on mathematics and science classrooms.

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3 Comparisons across the countries

3.1 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 1 – Participants

Participant teachers

Table Ia presents the number of in-service and pre-service participant teachers in each country. The total No of participant pre-service teachers was 2731. The total No of participant in-service teachers was 2432. The total No of all participants was 5163. The largest number of participants was in Austria (960) and the lowest number of participants was in Chech Republic (186).

TABLE Ia: No of participant teachers in each country

Country Pre-

service teachers

In-service

teachers Total

AU 862 98 960 BU 0 386 386 CY 102 155 257 CH 125 61 186 GE 458 142 600 GR 198 136 334 LI 0 187 187 NL 264 263 527 NO 40 195 235 RO 95 125 220 SP 261 457 718 TU 219 125 344 UK 107 102 209

Total 2731 2432 5163

Comparing participation planned and implemented: All partners managed to recruit more participants than their initial planning. Particurarly, they were planning to involve 2379 teachers (1220 pre-service teachers and 1159 in-service teachers) in mascil activities. Mascil partners managed to over double this number.

Pre-service teachers' educational level

Tables IIa and IIb present in-service and pre-service teachers’ educational level.

0

200

400

600

800

1000

AU CY GE LI NO SP UK

Pre‐service

In‐service

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TABLE IIa: Pre-service

educational level

Country Primary* Secondary* AU 0 862 BU 0 0 CY 30 72 CH 42 83 GE 223 235 GR 0 198 LI 0 0 NL 0 264 NO 40 0 RO 40 55 SP 180 81 TU 0 219 UK 23 84 Total 578 2153

TABLE IIb: In-service

educational level

Kindergrarden* Primary* Secondary*AU 0 0 98 BU 41 92 253 CY 53 102 CH 0 11 50 GE 61 81 GR 15 121 LI 39 148 NL 263 NO 143 52 RO 40 85 SP 230 227 TU 125 UK 0 0 102 Total 41 684 1707

*The primary level usually includes grade 1 to grade 5 or 6 while the secondary level includes grade 6 or 7 to grade 12 or 13.

Bulgaria is the only country that engaged teachers from kindergarten. Many countries (Austria, The Netherlands and Turkey) did not involve teachers from the primary educational level in mascil activities. Teachers working in secondary schools constitute the largest group (almost 70%)in the case of in-service teachers. Teachers from the secondary level constitute the largest group (almost 80%) of participants in the case of pre-service teachers (see pie-charts).

Kindergarden

Primary

Secondary

Kindergrarden

Primary

Secondary

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Comparing participants’ educational level planned and implemented: The percentages are almost the same in partners’ planning and implementation.

Participants’ disciplines

Table IIIa and IIIb present in-service and pre-service teachers’ educational level respectively.

TABLE IIIa: Pre-service disciplines

Country Math Science/

Technology Not

specified AU 0 862 0 BU 0 0 0 CY 37 35 30 CH 39 86 0 GE 458 0 0 GR 58 140 0 LI 0 0 0 NL 69 35 160 NO 0 0 40 RO 55 40 0 SP 61 200 0 TU 0 219 0 UK 43 25 39

Total 820 1642 269

TABLE IIIb: In-service disciplines

Country Math Science/

Technology Non

specified AU 73 25 0 BU 240 140 6 CY 95 60 0 CH 18 43 0 GE 142 0 0 GR 58 63 15 LI 45 70 72 NL 207 56 NO 0 0 195 RO 85 40 SP 90 137 230 TU 125 UK 82 20 0

Total 1135 779 518

Tables IIIa and IIIb show the number of mathematics, science/technology and teachers in a nonspecified discipline (pre-service and in-service respectively) that were participated in mascil. Some partners educated exclusively teachers in only one discipline (e.g., Germany in mathematics, Turkey in science and Norway in a nonspecified discipline). In the case of pre-service teachers the largest group was in the

Mathematics

Science/Technology

Not specified

Mathematics

Science/Technology

Not specified

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science/technology discipline (almost 60%) while in the case of in-service teachers the largest group was in mathematics (almost 42%) (See pie-charts).

Comparing PD strategies planned and implemented: In the above case there are slight differences in partners’ planning and actual implementation.

Forms of education

Table IVa and IVb present in-service and pre-service teachers’ form of education.

TABLE IVa: Pre-service

Form of education

Country General Vocational AU 862 0 BU 0 0 CY 86 10 CH 119 6 GE 458 0 GR 58 140 LI 0 0 NL 223 41 NO 40 0 RO 95 0 SP 261 0 TU 219 0 UK 50 57 Total 2471 254

TABLE IVb: In-service

Form of education

Country General Vocational AU 96 2 BU 350 36 CY 144 11 CH 59 2 GE 94 48 GR 125 11 LI 183 4 NL 263 0 NO 195 0 RO 40 85 SP 457 0 TU 117 8 UK 54 48 Total 2177 255

Some partners educated exclusively teachers from general education (e.g., Norway, Spain and the Netherlands in the case of in-service teachers). In both cases (pre-

General

Vocational

General

Vocational

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service and in service teachers), the largest group of participants was from general education (almost 90%) (See pie charts). At the pre-service level, only four from the thirteen countries educated vocational teachers (i.e.Greece, Netherlands, Chech Republic and United Kingdom). At the in-service level, more countries recruited vocational teachers but still the number is very low. Greece educated the largest number of vocational pre-service teachers (140 pre-service teachers) while Romania educated the largest number of vocational in-service teachers (85 in-service teachers).

Comparing PD strategies planned and implemented: We had recommened partners to increase the number of vocational teachers as the philosophy of mascil is very relevant to the context of vocational education. It seems that mascil partners did not manage to succed in this task although they were more ambitious on this issue in their planning.

Multipliers

Table V presents the number of multipliers in each country used in their PD activities.

TABLE V: Multipliers

Countries Multipliers

AU 10

BU 8

CY 19

CH 12

GE 4

GR 11

LI 17

NL 5

NO 22

RO 13

SP 0

TU 4

UK 4 Total 129

All partners used 129 multipliers in their PD/TE activities. Spain was the only country that did not use multipliers and most of the courses have been taught by the national team. Only in two cases other teacher educators were involved. These teacher

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educators did not need any training due their previous experience in PRIMAS. Norway has the largest number of multipliers. Finally, many of the multipliers were also participant teachers.

Comparing PD strategies planned and implemented

Partners did not used as many multipliers as they planned (they planned to have 161 multipliers).

PD educators’ profiles

Table VI presents PD/TE educators’ profiles.

TABLE VI: PD/TE educators’ profiles

PD Educators'profile No

mascil team 60

teachers 58

university colleagues 12

research assistants 8

school advisors 1

Others 1

Total 140

The total number of PD/TE educators used by all countries is 140. This is slight different than the total number of multipliers since many countries did not count as multipliers the members of the national mascil team.60 members of the national mascil teams and 58 in-serving teachers acted as educators in their national context.

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3.2 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 2 - PD models and the process of implementation

PD model description

Table VII shows the parameters mentioned by each country in specifying the adopted PD model for in-service and pre-service teachers and multipliers.

TABLE VII: PD model description

Face to face e-courses

Courses Meetings Workshops Lectures/ Seminars

e-communication

platform

Skype/On-line

meetings AU √ √ √ BU √ √ √ CY √ √ CH √ √ √ √ GE √ √ √ GR √ √ √ √ LI √ √ NL √ √ √ NO √ √ RO √ √ √ SP √ √ TU √ UK √ √ √

Only four countries adopted a blended model by combining face-to-face and e-communication (Chech Republic, Greece, Cyprus and Spain). The rest used only face-to-face communication in their PD activities. The most frequent ways of face-to-face communication were: workshops and meetings in groups.In most countries courses and lectures/seminars were used for educating pre-service teachers, and meetings were used for educating in-service teachers and multipliers. The limited use of e-communication platform indicates participants’ reluctance to communicate in this way.

Comparing PD model planned and implemented: Although almost all countries planned to adopt a blended model (combining face-to-face and e-learning), they chose different models in the implementation.

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Resources used in PD activities

Table VIII shows the parameters mentioned by each country concerning the selected resources for PD/TE and classroom teaching.

TABLE VIII: Resources used in PD activities and classroom teaching

Developed in mascil Other

f2f toolkit

(parts) e-PD

toolkit Mascil tasks

PoMs Primas

Other educational

environments/

materials

AU √ √ √

BU √ √ e-resources

(VirMathLAB)

CY √ √ √ √

CH √ √ √ √

GE √ √ √

GR √ √ √ √

LI √

NL √ √ √

NO √ √ √ √

RO √ √ √ Cross

national policy papers

SP √ √ √ √

TU √ √ √ SAILS,

FIBONACCI

UK √ √ √

All countries used mascil tasks and PoMs in their national PD context and they stated that they used all or parts of the f2f toolkit (except Spain and Bulgaria). The latter countries prefferd to use either their own educational material (i.e. Bulgaria used materials from VirMathLAB while Spain used materials from the PRIMAS Project). We note that only five mascil partners used the e-PD toolkit (Chech Republic, Greece, Norway, Cyprus and Spain).

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Comparing PD resources/strategies planned and implemented: In their planning, most countries had expressed their willingness to make use of the e-learning model in their PD activities. In their implementation, however, most countries avoided or made a limited use of this model. The obstacles they mentioned for this decision were the participants’ difficulties to navigate in the e-learning toolkit and delay in its preparation by the teams that they developed it.

Quantitative data on PD/TE activities

Table IXa and IXb show the frequency and the duration of PD activities for in-service and pre-service teachers respectively in all countries.

TABLE IXa: Frequency and duration of PD/TE activities for in-service teachers

Meetin

gs (No)

Courses

(No)

Teachers

groups (No)

Average No/

group/course

Duration (Hours/days/

months)

Workshops (No)

Lectures/ Seminars

(No)

Skype and/or on line video meetings

(No) AU 13 7 14 80 hours 2 3 - BU 25 25 31 290 hours 11 - - CY 3 - 12 15 - - - - CH 3 - 6 10 - - - - GE 7 8 18 29 days 1 - - GR 79 - 14 10 166 hours - - 4 LI - - 11 17 2 - NL - - 8 25 82 hours 5 - - NO - - 10 20 39 - - RO 20 - 8 15 12days 144 40 - SP - 20 16 28 52 3 3 TU - - - - 174 hours 2 - -

UK 10 10 11

1 day & 36 hours

In the case of in-service teachers, six mascil partners used exclusively group meetings with teachers (Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Chech Republic, Romania and United Kingdom) as their main PD activity. Some other partners used courses in order to educate their teachers (Bulgaria, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom). The average number of teachers per course/meeting ranged from 10 (Chech Republic, Greece) to 31 (Bulgaria). Some countries used workshops in order to educate their in-service teachers (Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway and Turkey). The total duration of PD activities was measured in some countries in hours (e.g., Greece had 166 hours of group meetings), in some other counties in days (e.g., Germany had 29 days of PD activities) while

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United Kingdom had 1 whole day and 9 short courses). Finally, three countries educated their in-service teachers by providing additionally lectures and/or seminars (Austria, Romania and Spain). Greece and Spain had also some skype meetings with their e-learning groups.

TABLE IXb: Frequency and duration of PD/TE activities for pre-service teachers

Meetings

(No) Courses

(No)

Teachers groups

(No)

average No/ group/course

Duration (Hours/days/m

onths)

Workshops (No)

lectures/ seminars

(No) AU 23 5 172 16 days 26 6 BU CY 3 5 15 CH 5 6 20 GE 12 38 72 GR 4 6 33 LI NL 6 46 30 hours NO 2 20 30 days RO 126 9 10 90 36 SP 8 5 6 77 TU 1 UK 5 5 21 20 hours

In the case of pre-service teachers, four mascil partners used exclusively group meetings with teachers (Cyprus, Chech Republic, Romania and Spain) as their main PD activity with a wide range of average number of teachers per group (ranging from 10 in Romania to 77 in Spain). Some other partners used courses in order to educate their teachers (Greece and Spain). In the latter case, the average number of teachers per course was relatively large (from 21 to 77 teachers per course). Some other countries used workshops in order to educate their pre-service teachers (Austria, Romania and Turkey). The total duration of PD activities was measured in some countries in hours (e.g., The Netherlands) while in some other countries in days (e.g., Germany, United Kingdom). Finally, three countries educated their pre-service teachers by providing additionally lectures and/or seminars (Austria, Romania and Germany).

Teachers’ communication on national and international level

Table X shows in-service and pre-service teachers’ communication models adopted by each mascil partner at a national and at an international level.

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TABLE X: Techers’ communication

Between mascil participants At national level At international

level f2f in

courses/ meetings

e- platform

emails other e-

resources

Organized events

Other f2f

conf/nce Virtual

conf/nce

AU √ √ √ BU √ √ √ CY √ √ √ CH √ limited √ √ limited limited

GE √ √ Collaborations

√ newsle

tter √

GR √

only for the e-

learning group

√ forums; dropbox

√ √ √

LI √ NL √ √ √ NO √ limited √

RO √

Teachers’

facebooks

None

SP √ √ None None TU √ UK √ √

Communication between mascil participants was carried out through mostly f2f communication in mascil meetings and courses, in same cases through emails (e.g., Austria, Unite Kingdom) and through the e-learning platform (e.g., Greece). Besides, Greece supported communication in teachers’ forums and Germany supported collaboration between general and vocational teachers (co-designing of tasks and visiting each other classrooms). At the national level, communication between other teachers (besides those participating in mascil activities) was made through e-resources and organized events (e.g., workshops and conferences). Besides, Romania used teachers’ facebook and Germany mascil newsletter to dissiminate mascil activities. Communication between teachers at the international level seems to be very limited. Only four countries (Norway, Greece, Austria and Netherlands) took part in virtual conferences.

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Most prominent mascil tasks and PoMs in PD and classroom activities

Table XI presents the most popular mascil tasks and PoMs used in PD and classroom activities by pre-service and in-service teachers.

TABLE XI: Most prominent mascil tasks and PoMs

Mascil tasks PoMs

Parking problem

Solar cells

Drug con/tion

Other Bicycle insuran

ce Brine

Counting

people

Chocolate Bar

Other

AU √ Hearing BU √ √ CY √ Sports

CH √ Parking

garage

GE √ CPS

puzzle √ √ √ Parking

garage

GR √ √ Circular -

pave √ √

LI √ Circular

pave √ Forest

and Timber

NL √ √ √

NO IQ game

design √ √ √

RO √ √ IQ game

design √

SP √ TU Hearing

UK Tennis

tournament

Hearing/ Safe

staicase

The most popular mascil task was the Parking problem and the most popular PoM was Counting people. Other favourite mascil tasks mentioned by partners were the Solar cells, the Drug concentration, the GPS game, the Circular pave and the IQ game design. Other favourite PoMs mentioned by partners were the Bicycle insurance, the Brine, the Chocolate mashine bar, the Hearing, and the Parking garage entrance problem and the Building of a safe staircase.

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Quantitative data on implemented tasks

Table XIX presents quantitative data on implemented tasks in PD activities and classroom implementations for pre-service and in-service teachers.

TABLE XIX: Quantitative data on implemented tasks

Country Implemented

tasks(No)

Modified mascil (except PoMs) (No)

PoMs(No)

New developed

Tasks (No)

Classroom implementations

(No)

Duration (h)

AU 90 50 5 35 123 438

BU 16 8 4 4 Not specified Not specified

CY 12 6 2 4 17 191

CH 30 10 8 12 83 90

GE 77 10 4 63 Not specified Not specified

GR 132 16 8 108 167 366

LI 118 6 12 100 204 408

NL 30 8 2 20 Not specified Not specified

NO 42 16 8 18 Not specified Not specified

RO 111 46 18 47 Not specified Not specified

SP 79 2 2 75 148 300

TU 24 10 6 8 Not specified Not specified

UK Not specified

Total 761 188 79 494

Mascil tasksand Poms

Newdevelopedtasks

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The total number of implemented tasks in PD and/or classroom activities was 761 while 267 were mascil tasks and PoMs. We note that many of the aforementioned mascil tasks were common in many countries. Greece implemented the largest number and Cyprus the smallest number of tasks. It seems that most of the implemented tasks were developed by the teachers (almost 65%), while the smaller part of implemented tasks includes mascil tasks and PoMs (almost 35%). This indicates teachers’ preference in most countries to develop their own tasks than using the tasks available in the mascil website. In some countries, the new developed tasks by the teachers reach portions more than the 80% (Lithuania, Germany, Greece, Spain) of the whole implemeneted tasks in this country.We do not have enough data on the total number of classroom implementations in all countries.

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3.3 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 3 – Integrating IBL/WoW in PD/TE and classrooms activities

Theme 3a: Integrating IBL/WoW in PD/TE activities

PD tasks and strategies

Introducing to IBL and WoW ideas: The introduction to the theoretical ideas of what is IBL and WoW in mathematics and science education was done usually with a short plenary from the multiplier (e.g. The Netherlands) the reading and discussion of research papers and texts from the toolkit (e.g. Greece) or the observation of videos that introduce IBL approaches and/or WoW (e.g., Romania).

Exploring IBL and WoW classroom tasks: Almostll countries reported that they built their PD tasks and strategies on the basis of IBL and WoW classroom tasks (e.g. Austria, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom). They encouraged teachers mainly to work as students on mascil tasks or on tasks specially designed by the national mascil teams. In the case of Bulgaria, the tasks were dynamic scenarios developed in computer environments. A common strategy was to model what it was expected for classroom students to do. So, the teachers worked in groups to solve the classroom tasks adopting the role of a professional, developed a product and shared this with the other participant teachers. This strategy was implemented in some countries before teachers being introduced to the theoretical ideas of what IBL is (e.g. in Spain) while in other countries this exploration followed a short plenary on the main ideas of mascil and in particular of IBL and WoW (e.g. Cyprus and the Netherlands).

Designing and redesigning tasks: This was also a common PD strategy in many countries. The teachers anaysed existing tasks (mostly mascil tasks), compared IBL tasks with closed tasks (e.g., Greece, Norway), redesigned tasks or designed their own ones (e.g., Germany, Lithuania). In few cases tasks were developed in collaboration between teachers and professionals from the WoW (e.g., Germany, The Netherlands).

Integrating the WoW to PD activities: In almost all countries there were attempts to familiarize teachers with different professions of the WoW. These included mainly visits to workplace, to science and art museums or to scientific centres and discussion with professionals (e.g., Turkey, Chez Republic). Partners and multipliers also invited professionals in the PD meetings to give lectures or to discuss with teachers about their profession (e.g., The Netherlands). In the case of Germany and to some extend in the Netherlands the teachers collaborated with professionals from the workplace to design

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classroom tasks that were based on workplace artifacts. In some cases videos from the workplace or interviews with professionals from the workplace were discussed in the PD meetings (e.g., Austria). Finally, another approach was to bring workplace artifacts in to the PD meetings (e.g., Greece).

Using the mascil resources: Various parts of the PD toolkit were selected and used by the partners. This material was adapted to suit the needs and interests of the different group of teachers.The PoMs were also used by some of the countries (e.g., Bulgaria, Norway). Besides, some partner teams mentioned developing their own resources such as Bulgaria and Spain.

The cycle of designing, implementing and reflecting: This cycle appeared to be central in the PD activities of most of the partner countries (e.g., Germany, Spain). United Kingdom provided exemplary questions that encouranged teachers to reflect on their inclassroom implememtations such as: "how did students respond to the small group work?" or "What specific questions prompted deeper student thinking in this lesson?" or "What issues arose for you as a teacher with this problem-solving task?" or "What were students actually doing during the collaborative work in the lesson?".

Successful PD strategies

The partners reported different cases that they considered that their PD activities were successful. They reported as successful cases the following:

When teachers explored tasks by themselves (e.g., in Cyprus – House installation, in Czech Republic – the water treatment process, in Lithuania – constructing a bridge, in Norway - a PoM (Brine), in Romania – the wood processing for constructing a bridge). A structured way of engaging teachers (e.g., in Spain – the teachers explored tasks by themselves first, presented the results, were introduced to theoretical ideas and used them to analyze tasks; in the Netherlands – the teachers explored tasks by themselves, reflected on a lesson plan, compared tasks, designed their own task, implemented and reflected on the lesson; in Greece – a way for promoting teacher reflection through four dimensions a) IBL and WoW, b) students’ learning outcomes, c) critical classroom incidents, d) professional learning; A case of close collaboration with professionals from the workplace in designing classroom tasks. In Germany the masci team collaborated with the industry and transformed authentic workplace tasks into classroom class. In Bulgaria in a workshop organized in a wood working professional school different participants collaborated and mathematical exploration emerged smoothly from the work context. Austria also

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reported as successful example the process of developing tasks in collaboration of the mascil team with the department of information systems. A visit to a RD company and the discussion with the professionals related to mathematics and science.

Weak PD strategies

All partners reported one case where they considered that the implementation in PD activities was not very successful. These weak cases concerned:

Teachers’ traditional ways of interpreting and implementing IBL (Bulgaria). Difficulty in designing classroom tasks integrating IBL and the WoW (in Germany, Greece and the Netherlands there was difficulty in transforming authentic workplace tasks in an inquiry way and in linking to the curriculum especially in upper secondary, in Lithuania in linking the visits to the workplace with the design of the tasks and in Turkey to integrate the WoW in the task design, in Cyprus the context of a task was not of interest to students). Non availability of appropriate resources in introducing the WoW into PD activities (e.g, the toolkit was more related to IBL and not to the WoW – Austria). A case where teachers from one school were not motivated in continuing the participation in PD (Norway). The difficulty to sustain teacher collaboration beyond the PD context (Spain). Techers' own expections of achieving a specific goal (United Kingdom).


The PD strategies that were planned by most partners were more or less the same that they were applied. For example, the partners had planned to use the mascil tasks as main resources in PD and to adapt them or develop their own to fit into the curriculum. Visits to the workplace and to the museums, invitations of professionals, collaboration with vocational schools were also examples that some countries had included into their planning of PD activities and were actually implemented. Of course, there were some deviations from the planning as the contextual situation did not allow (e.g., in Spain although the mascil team wanted to participate with a specific company to introduce the WoW this was not realized and overall Spain focused on the link of IBL and not of the WoW into their PD activities).

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Theme 3b: Integrating IBL/WoW in classroom activities

Strategies developed

The integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom constitutes one of the main aims of mascil. This was expected to be carried out through implementation of specially designed tasks that the teachers got to know during their PD activities (e.g. mascil tasks) or developed on their own (or in collaboration with other teachers) in the same context. Below, we provide some strategies through which the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom:

Analysing IBL and WoW classroom tasks

Almost all countries reported that the participating teachers were engaged in analyzing IBL and WoW tasks from mascil or given to them by the multipliers during their PD activities (e.g., Germany, Greece, The Netherlands). In the case of Germany, the teachers started with over- and underdetermined tasks (i.e. containing more or less information than needed for solving them), so that students learn to take the context seriously, decide which information is useful or not, and estimate quantities where necessary. In the case of Austria, the teachers analyzed in groups mascil tasks in terms of IBL and WoW before proceeding to adaptations and/or redesign.

Careful planning of task implementation so as to overcome institutional constrains

In many countries teachers spent particular attention on issues of planning and classroom management so as to overcome constrains imposed by the school context or the curriculum such as available time, resources and classroom orchestration (e.g. Norway). In some cases (e.g. Romania) the teachers decided to implement mascil tasks outside the normal lesson time as additional or extra-curricular activities.

Engaging in cycles of designing-implementing-reflecting

This was also a common strategy in many countries (e.g., Greece, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, United Kingdom). Teachers’ reflections on the initial implementations of mascil tasks helped them in attempting to improve their subsequent designs in terms of IBL and WoW. In the case of Netherlands, in order to support teachers overcome their difficulties in engaging students and managing classroom discussions, members of mascil team participated in the classroom as participant observers and supported students in groupwork.United Kingdom mentioned that the on-going feedback and

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discussion between the mascil team members and the participant teachers was used to plan and refine teachers' startegies.

Inviting professionals in the classroom

This strategy was followed in some cases (e.g. Romania, Cyprus, Greece). In the case of Romania, the students worked in the classroom from the beginning of the implementation with the support of a professional (i.e. carpenter) to design and construct real benches. In the case of Cyprus, after the implementation of the House Insulation task in which the students were asked to design houses with good insulation, an architect was invited in the classroom to evaluate the outcomes of the project and explain practices that are used when insulating houses in practice.

Participant teachers' commitment

All partners implicitly or explicity reffered to teachers' commitment in mascil philoshophy. Particurarly, United Kingdom reffered to teachers' commitment and their openness to the use of observation and feedback was also a key factor in the success of designing and using the task in school where these approaches were not commonly employed.

Supportive and hindering factors

All mascil teams but one (Czech Republic) reported teachers’ difficulties to integrate WoW in the classroom implementation. However, all of the teams reported that the teachers experimented with integrating WoW in their teaching.

Supportive factors in integrating WoW in their teaching were: collaboration of teachers (e.g., in Germany, general and vocational teachers’ collaboration included co-design of tasks, classroom visits and joint reflection); students’ engagement in designing and/or constructing real-life objects (e.g., in Turkey, students were engaged in developing products with market value such as a vacuum cleaner or a hair dryer).

Factors hindering the integration of WoW were: (a) unsuccessful attempts to engage professionals to support classroom implementation (Romania); b) curricular constrains (Spain); (c) vague/abstract connection to the WoW (Norway); (d) inappropriateness of workplace as a context for designing tasks for primary education (Bulgaria); (e) difficulties that many students faced when working in non-structured problems (United Kingdom).

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As regards IBL, most of the teams reported that it was integrated in classroom implementation in more or less successful ways.

Supportive factors were: appropriate task design and careful planning of implementation (e.g., time, equipment, class orchestration) (Norway), promoting class discussion and group communication and collaboration (Lithuania), challenging students’ personal experiences (Austria), connecting implementation of tasks to official school evaluation and tests (Germany).

In general, a common issue raised by all teams concerned the difficulty to integrate in the same task the following features: authentic workplace situation, inquiry and connections to existing curricula for mathematics and science.

Effective integration of WoW

Most of the teams prioritized the connections of the task and students’ activity to authentic workplace practices. They reported as effective cases the following:

When one professional was invited to the classroom and collaborated with the students during the implementation (e.g., in Romania when the students worked together with a carpenter to design and construct different models of benches). When engaging students in original workplace practices such as food preparation (cook, Germany), rearrangement of given piece of land (rural and surveying engineer, Greece), developing an empty plot into housing area (developer and contractor, Norway), designing an economical packaging for drugs (professional in a drug company, Austria), artistic work (painter, Bulgaria). When facilitating students’ expression of creative ideas through designing and/or constructing concrete objects that are useful in the everyday life: in the case of the Netherlands the students were engaged in working as architects to design the kernel of a dog; in Romania the students worked as carpenters to design and construct benches (in this case integration of workplace activity was reinforced by the presence of one professional in the classroom); in Turkey the students’ were challenged to work as engineers to design familiar commercial products such as a vacuum cleaner or hair dryer. When using mascil tasks and further challenging students’ exploration through strategies such as:

engaging them in competition for designing ‘the best parking garage’ (Design a Parking Garage, Czech Republic);

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supporting them through discussion to link aspects of reality to mathematics exploration (Counting People, Lithuania).

Effective integration of IBL

All of the teams targeted students’ engagement in IBL during classroom implementation. In their reports, the teams referred to the following strategies and resources that were supportive:

Enhancing the exploratory character of the designed tasks through

optimization problems based on a realistic context (Greece); Problems allowing multiple solution strategies (The Netherlands)

and creative thinking (Romania).

Engaging students in working with rich resources including manipulatives and/or digital tools (e.g. Austria, Bulgaria). Emphasizing IBL in teachers’ PD activities helped them design and manage the integration of inquiry approaches in the classroom through appropriate questioning (Germany) or discussion (Lithuania). Working with teachers who:

had been familiar with IBL and open teaching approaches before mascil (Bulgaria, Spain);

had willingness to try out IBL/open teaching approaches (Norway).

Weak integration of WoW/IBL

The teams reported examples of weak integration of IBL and/or WoW in classroom implementations. These examples concerned:

Teachers’ emphasis on the content and IBL and limited (or no) connection to the WoW. In some cases, the teachers emphasized IBL through – mainly mathematical - procedures and processes and refused to make connections to the WoW. In the case of Czech Republic and Greece, the implementation of the Acidity/Alcality task was oriented only to measuring the pH of different samples. Thus, most of the learners´ solutions were missed and creativity in searching for the solution was blocked. In the case of the Netherlands, the teachers failed to link a contextual task (i.e. preparing baby

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milk in a day-care) that facilitated IBL and multiple solutions to the WoW (professional tasks of a day care worker). In the case of Romania, the teachers engaged students in a play-like activity (i.e. construction of a device for catching an egg that is thrown from the second floor with a piece of cardboard and some sheets of paper) in which IBL was present (i.e. how to calibrate the device so as to catch the egg in relation to the height) but without any connection to the WoW. The limited available time for implementation. In the case of Bulgaria, the team reported that the limited time for compulsory mathematics and the lack of appropriate assessment tools were barriers for integrating IBL and WoW in the classrooms. Also, Greece reported that the need to implement a mascil task in one session posed the main obstacle for students’ engagement in inquiry. Problematic task design and classroom management. In the case of Germany, the teacher refused to provide information to the students as to what makes a garage good. Since the students had limited experience in similar tasks, they lost their interest for the activity. In the case of Austria, a task for exploring different applications of the integral calculus involved a lot of single correlated sub-questions in order to guide the students. The distribution of sub-questions to different groups confused some students and the teacher had to intervene several times. Teachers’ difficulty to design and implement IBL tasks. In the case of Spain, the teachers tended to consider normal word problems as inquiry-based. In the cases of Norway and Cyprus, the teachers found it difficult to abandon teacher-centred teaching approaches in classroom implementation.


The strategies for integrating IBL and WoW in the classroom are not far from what the teams had planned. Team collaboration, type/use of tasks, invitations to professionals, learning strategies and curriculum are issues that played a central role in teachers’ implementations in all countries. In some cases these issues came to the fore to indicate successful strategies for integrating IBL and/or WoW in the classroom (e.g. Cyprus) while in other cases the opposite (e.g., Norway, Bulgaria). Some deviations from the initial planning indicate the critical role of context in classroom implementations of mascil or macil-like tasks. For instance, the invitation to professionals was carried out by only one of the three groups that initially planned to do it. This maybe related to institutional difficulties faced by the groups to proceed in this direction.

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Theme 3c: Implementing the spiral model/promoting teachers‘ reflections

It seems that almost all countries have implemented a kind of spiral model in their PD/TE programs, although countries have used one or more different PD models. Most countries provide an analytic account of their experience, while analytic information on how the spiral model has worked is limited in the report of the Bulgarian team. The spiral model has been mainly evaluated as successful in many cases of its implementation. In some groups and for specific tasks in Romania or in some short courses, like the one-day courses tried in Spain, however, the spiral model did not work as good as expected. However in many cases, specific actions following the implementation undertaken in terms of revising and improving tasks have been reported.

Two types of spiral models, in terms of their repeated characher, have been identified, the short term and the long term spiral model.

The short-term model could be identified in both individual and group level. In this case, countries like Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey have followed the three-phase model for the PD courses, consisted of an initial introductory phase, the implementation and the phase of reflection. This model has organized in different ways in each country.

The long-term model could be identified in countries, like Germany, Greece, Norway and Romania. These countries applied a rather continuous and repetitive spiral model, where teachers asked to share and reflect personally and in groups on their experiences of developing and applying IBL and WoW tasks continuously during the PD courses.

Some useful ideas employed are: ‘good and not so good examples’ by the Austrian mascil team, the ‘local best practices’ and the transformation of traditional tasks into mascil spirit tasks by the Romanian team, reflection on each applied task by the Cyprian team, continuous reflection through e-mail communication with the multiplier by the Czech Republic team, the ‘tandem’ collaboration between of vocational and general school teachers in Germany, the study of relevant articles by the participant teachers in the Greek groups, the lesson study by the Norwegian team, and the step of analyzing students and teachers’ needs by the Spanish team. The Norwegian team described in details how the lesson study applied and supported the sharing of experiences, reflection and revision. Greece reported on the specific actions that have been undertaken in PD courses, as well as in e-learning in order the reflective process of the spiral model to be initiated and facilitated, providing also specific examples. Netherlands

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emphasized the production of the report-forms (“Rapportageformulier”) after each classroom implementation and provided a specific example.

Comparing spiral –model planned and implemented

Almost all countries were consistent in the way they planned and they implemented the spiral model in their PD activities.

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3.4 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 4 – Enganging the wider community in mascil

In the Table XX below shows the actors engaged in mascil from the wider community.

Table XX: Engaging the wider community in Mascil

MENTIONED PARAMETERS

COUNTRIES

Au Bu Cy Cz Ge Gr

Li Nl No Ro Sp Tu

UK

Actors

Parents √ √ √

Other teachers √ √ √ √ √

Future teachers √

Education authorities

√ √ √ √ √ √

School Head teachers/advisors

√ √ √ √ √ √

Universities √ √

Ministry √

PD institutions/ Participants’ accreditation

√

√

Synergy with other projects

√

National Policy Workshop/Conference/ Events

√ √ √ √

√

Media √

Work specialists √

NAB √ √ √ √

Particurarly, Education Authorities and School Head teachers or Advisors are mentioned by 6 countries (e.g., Austria, Cyprus). Other teachers and events, like National Policy workshops, Conferences and Outdoor days are referred by 5 countries (e.g., Germany, Lithuania). NAB meetings or NAB members are mentioned as agents that played a role in engaging the wider community in mascil activities in 4 countries’

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reports (Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Norway), while parents have been referred by three countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus and Norway). Two countries have involved Universities in this process, while future teachers, Ministry, PD Institutions, synergy with other projects, Media and Work specialists have been mentioned once by 6 different countries.

Comparing planned and implementated enganging of the wider community

Most countries have managed to activate different agents according to what they had planned in the beginning of the mascil project. For example, in their planning some mascil partners argued on enganging the wider community in mascil through leaflets and exhibitions. We could not identify these features in the present report.

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3.5 Comparisons across the countries: Theme 5 – Partners’ reflections

All the countries commented that overall the impact of the mascil project was positive at the national context and on the improvement of mathematics and science education. There were two partners (Austria and Spain) that were skeptical about the impact of the PD activities on the actual teaching practice. United Kingdom mentioned that the impact of their implementation strategies was succesful but less than anticipated due to significant changes to their national educational structures.

The positive impact that was reported was about:

The teacher communication opportunities that mascil provided (e.g., Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Norway)

The dissemination of the activities to other practitioners (e.g. Bulgaria, Turkey) The teacher development in

o Understanding better IBL and WoW and develop ways of integrating them in the classroom (Cyprus, Lithuania)

o Designing tasks that take into account students’ interests through the WoW (Cyprus, Netherlands, Greece, and Germany).

The collaboration between educational contexts and Wow (dialogue between representatives of school and industry concerning the use of mathematics) (e.g., Bulgaria, Germany)

The potential of the project in transforming the structure and the quality of mathematics and science education in the national context by meeting the current educational challenges and achieve the sustainability of it. (e.g. Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Romania)

The improvement of students' motivation and competencies such as team work, communication and content knowledge. (e.g., Germany, Greece)

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4 (Summary) Conclusions

Our analysis of the national reports for each country and the comparisons across the countries resulted in a set of issues related to the effectiveness of the strategies adopted in the implementation phase of the project.

Almost all mascil partners managed to recruit more teachers than they had planned.Particurarly, the total number of planned participants in mascil was 2379 in-service and pre-service teachers and mascil partners managed to over double this number since in mascil activities 5163 (2731 pre-service and 2432 in-service) participants were involved. Some difficulties to recruit teachers in the program were mentioned only by the United Kingdom team, due to significant reform in their national professional development structures regarding pre-service and in-service teachers.

In terms of participants’ proffesional profiles, we had the following results: There were 3860 participants from secondary education (2153 pre-service and 1707 in-service teachers), 1262 from primary education (578 pre-service and 684 in service teachers) and 41 in-service kindergarden teachers. There were 1955 Mathematics teachers (820 pre-service and 1135 in-service), 2421 teachers in Science and Technology (1642 pre-service and 779 in- service) and 787 were in a non-specified discipline. From the 3860 secondary education teachers 509 were from vocational education (254 pre-service and 255 in service teachers). The representatives of vocational education amounted almost 10% of all participants of PD courses. Finally, there were 140 PD educators (60 were mascil team members, 58 were teachers and the rest were researchers, research assistants or school advisors).

Four countries adopted a blended model by combining face-to-face and e-communication (Chech Republic, Greece, Cyprus and Spain). The rest used exclusively face-to-face communication in their PD activities such as workshops, courses and meetings in groups. In most countries courses and lectures/seminars were used for educating pre-service teachers, and courses and meetings were used for educating in-service teachers and multipliers. All countries used parts of the toolkit, mascil tasks and PoMs in their national PD context. Some countries adopted a short-term spiral model (Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey) by providing teachers mainly one cycle of implementation. Other countries adopted a long term spiral model (Germany, Greece, Norway and Romania) by applying more than one cycle. The rest of the countries were in between the two models. Moreover, in some countries PD courses/meetings involved a rather large number of participants so teachers’ engagement couldn’t be very active. This issue might affect the quality of mascil implementation. Moreover, in these cases it was

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very difficult to keep track of the implemented activities in the classrooms.Most countries implemented mascil activities in classroom while Bulgaria chose to implement them beyond classroom as it was difficult for the teachers to integrate them into the curriculum.

The most popular mascil tasks mentioned by the partners were the Parking problem, the Solar cells, the Drug concentration, the GPS game, the Circular pave and the IQ game design. The most popular PoMs were the Counting people, the Bicycle insurance, the Brine, the Chocolate mashine bar, the Hearing, the Parking garage entrance problem and the Building of a safe staircase.

The main PD strategies that were adopted were the teachers’ engagement in exploring IBL and WoW classroom tasks, in designing and redesigning tasks. The WoW was integrated into PD activities by visiting workplace, inviting professionals or building collaborative networks among teachers, multipliers and WoW professionals. Parts and ideas from the toolkit were used in most countries. Bulgaria developed its own educational resource while Spain used materials mainly from the PRIMAS project to prioritise the IBL dimension. Overall teachers preferred to develop new tasks themlselves than using the existing on the website mascil tasks as they found difficult to adapt them to the school curriculum.

All partners reported one case where they considered that the implementation in PD activities was challenging. These cases concerned: Teachers’ traditional ways of interpreting and implementing IBL; Difficulty in designing classroom tasks integrating IBL and the WoW; Non availability of appropriate resources in introducing the WoW into PD activities; The difficulty to sustain teacher collaboration beyond the PD contex; Techers' own expections of achieving a specific goal.

The most effective strategies adopted by mascil partners when implementing IBL in the classroom were: Enhancing the exploratory character of the designed tasks through optimization problems based on a realistic context (Greece), problems allowing multiple solution strategies (Netherlands) and creative thinking (Romania); Engaging students in working with rich resources including manipulatives and/or digital tools (e.g. Austria, Bulgaria); Designing and managing the integration of inquiry approaches in the classroom through appropriate questioning (Germany) or discussion (Lithuania, United Kingdom); Working with teachers who had been familiar with IBL and open teaching approaches mascil (Bulgaria, Spain,Norway).

The most effective strategies adopted by mascil partners when implementing connections with the WoW in the classroom activities were: Professionals' invitations in

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the classroom(e.g., in Romania students worked together with a carpenter to design and construct different models of benches); Engaging students in original workplace practices (e.g., food preperation in Germany); facilitating students’ expression of creative ideas through designing and/or constructing concrete objects useful in the everyday life (familiar commercial products in Turkey).

The challenging integration of WoW/IBL strategies in classroom activities reported by the partners were: Teachers’ emphasis on the content and IBL and limited (or no) connection to the WoW; The limited available time for implementation; Problematic task design and classroom management and Teachers’ difficulty to design and implement IBL tasks.

Teachers’ online national and international communication was rather limited in most countries. The main hindering factors were: teachers’ limited experiences with e-learning platforms; a long preparation period of the forums and platform and consequently late availiability of those instrumentsi; teachers’ unfamiliarity in communicating through discussion forums; technical difficulties; language barriers. Face-to-face communication at international and national level was developed through a wide range of events such as conferences and workshops. It worths pointing out that teachers from different disciplines as well as general and vocational teachers collaborated in planning and implementing lessons.

Engagement of the wider educational community was also supported in many countries as the teachers themselves and team members presented their experiences in national conferences for teachers and researchers of mathematics and science education.

Overall, mascil supported a large-scale implementation that was integrated in the national educational systems and involved teachers, researchers and policy makers in the process of introducing IBL and WoW in PD settings and in the actual classroom.

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5 Further Recommendations

Our analysis of the national reports for each country and the comparisons across the countries resulted in a set of issues related to the five themes underlying the planning of implementation in mascil.

In this section, we present the main issues emerged and we provide some recommendations aiming to (i) facilitate improvements of similar projects in the future and (ii) expand current project’s dissemination opportunities.

The difficulties partners faced when they were trying to establish teachers’ communication through the national and international level platforms could be facilitated in the future by considering language issues (for the international communication) and by supporting teachers’ familiarization with the use of the platforms. The difficulties partners faced with integrating IBL and WoW in classroom activities could be facilitated in the future by: applying a larger number of reflection cycles with teachers; engaging teachers more actively in the whole process; developing supportive materials for teachers such as classroom examples where integration of IBL and WoW was successful; and incorporating teachers' experiences in the developed resources.

Another issue that emerged in partners’ implementation activities was how to keep a high quality of PD activities with a large number of participants. This could be facilitated in future projects by forming groups with a small number of participated teachers.

A final issue is how to expand the sustainability of mascil’s philosophy. This could be facilitated by (a) disseminating summaries and reports from the implementation to educational policy organizations; (b) supporting the availability of mascil sites for the wider educational community after the end of the program; (c) integrating in teacher education and professional development ideas and materials produced by mascil through the body of multipliers.

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6 References

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Ball, D. L., & Bass, H. (2003). Toward a practice-based theory of mathematical knowledge for teaching. In B. Davis & E. Simmt (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2002 annual meeting of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (pp. 3-14). Edmonton, AB: CMESG/GCEDM.

Gueudet, G., & Trouche, L. (2009). Towards new documentation systems for teachers? Educational Studies in Mathematics, 71(3), 199-218.

Hart, L. C., Alston, A. S. & Murata, A. (Eds.) (2011). Lesson study: Research and practice in mathematics education. Springer.

Hoyles, C., Noss, R., Kent,P. & Bakker, A. (2010). Improving mathematics at work: The need for techno-mathematical literacies. London: Routledge.

Jansen, A. & Spitzer, S. M. (2009). Pre-servicemiddle school mathematics teachers’ reflective thinking skills: descriptions of their students’ thinking and interpretations of their teaching. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 12, 133–151.

Jaworski, B. (2006). Theory and practice in mathematics teaching development: Critical inquiry as a mode of learning in teaching.Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 9, 187-211.

Krainer, K. (2003). Teams, communities and networks. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 6, 93–105.

Maaß, K. & Artigue, M. (2013). Implementation of inquiry based learning in day-to-day teaching: A synthesis. ZDM 45, 779-795.

Nicol, C. (2002). Where’s the math? Prospective teachers visit the workplace. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 50, 289-309.

Potari, D., Sakonidis, H., Chatzigoula, R., &Manaridis, A. (2012). Teachers’ and researchers’ collaboration in analyzing mathematics teaching: A context for

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professional reflection and development. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 13(6):473-485.

Remillard, J. (2005). Curriculum materials in mathematics education reform: A framework for examining teachers’ curriculum development. Curriculum Inquiry, 29(3), 315-342.

Roth, W. M., & Radford, L. (2011). A cultural-historical perspective on mathematics teaching and learning. Rotterdam: Sense.

Skott, J. (2013). Understanding the role of the teacher in emerging classroom practices: searching for patterns of participation. Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik, 45, 547-559.

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Triantafillou, C. & Potari, D. (2012). Mathematical practices in a technological workplace: the role of tools. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 74(3), 275-294.

Valero, P. (2009). Mathematics education as a network of social practice. In V. Durand-Guerrier, S. Soury-Lavergne &F. Arzarello (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th Conference of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (CERME 6) (Plenary 2, pp. LIV-LXXX). Lyon, France.

Wake, G. (2015). Preparing for workplace numeracy: A modelling perspective. ZDM, 47(4), 675-689.

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Wood, T., & Berry, B. (2003). What does “design research” offer mathematics teacher education? Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 6, 195–199.

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7 Appendix I: The framework of implementation

Framework for reporting on the national implementation

Structure of the implementation

Country:

National team:

1. Participants in the PD/TE programs*:

Preservice (No) Inservice

(No)


Educational Level

Primary

(Grade… - Grade …)

Lower secondary (Grade… - Grade …)

Upper secondary (Grade… - Grade …)

Form of Education

General Vocational

Discipline Mathematics Science-Technology

Not specified Total number of

teachers/multipliers

* If the above categorizations do not correspond to your educational system make the necessary changes in the table.

In the case of multiplies that are also participant teachers please indicate the number in a parenthesis

2. Profile of PD/TE educators

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Insert in the cells of the table below the number of persons that were chosen to carry out PD and/or TE activities for teachers and multipliers.

PD/TE educators For teachers For multipliers members of the team teachers other university colleagues (not being members of the team)

research assistants school advisors add ………………………………….

add ………………………………………

3. Model of PD/TE for teachers and multipliers

Describe briefly the type of PD/TE model you provided for teachers and multipliers in terms of communication (i.e. Face to face interaction, e-learning, Blended) and structure (e.g. courses, seminars, workshops, self-regulating communities). Provide reasons for your choices. You can use data from the reports or texts you have prepared in the context of mascil (e.g., your report in the national evaluation framework).

For teachers: ……………..……………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

For multipliers:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Quantitative data regarding PD/TE activities

Provide information as regards the PD/TE activities you developed. You can use data from the reports or texts you have prepared in the context of mascil (e.g., the beneficiary reports):



Total number of teacher groups / average number of teachers per group/educational level and discipline per

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group Total number of PD/TE activities. Specify the number of PD/TE activities per type (e.g., meetings, seminars, workshops)

Total number of implemented tasks Number of mascil tasks implemented (possibly after transformation)




Total number of teaching hours

Provide more information or comments related to PD/TE activities

The most dominant mascil tasks or PoM ………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………….…………….………

Resources that you used in your PD activities (e.g. toolkit, mascil tasks, PoM, guidelines for teachers, e-PD toolkit, teacher communication platform)

………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………….……….…..

Possible obstacles in using the above resources

………………………………..…………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Teacher communication

You can use data from the reports or texts you have prepared in the context of Mascil (e.g., your report in the national evaluation framework): Describe briefly the extent and the quality of teacher communication and how this was supported in your PD/TE activities.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. Integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities

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You can use data from the reports or texts you have prepared in the context of mascil (e.g., your report in the national evaluation framework):

Describe briefly the activities by which you integrated IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE programs (e.g., discussing the characteristics of mascil tasks, developing classroom tasks based on IBL and WoW, inviting professionals from workplace/members of the NAB in the PD meetings, organizing visits to workplace and other formal (e.g., technological institutions, vocational schools) and informal settings (e.g. museums)).

………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………….……….….

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example of integrating IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive.

………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………….……….….

Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in your PD and/or TE activities appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering.

………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………….……….….. …

7. Integrating IBL and WoW in the classroom

You can use data from the reports or texts you have prepared in the context of mascil (e.g., your report in the national evaluation framework):

Provide a brief account of how the participant teachers integrated IBL and WoW in the classroom (e.g., teaching strategies, contextual and other factors supporting or hindering the integration) .

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Provide a more detailed description of one successful (in your opinion) example concerning the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher. Refer to strategies and resources used that were supportive.

………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………….……….…..

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Provide a more detailed description of one example in which the integration of IBL and WoW in the classroom by a teacher appeared to be weak (in your opinion). Refer to strategies and resources used that were hindering.

………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………….……….….. ……………………………………………………….

8. Spiral model/teacher reflection

Describe how you implemented the spiral model in your PD and/or TE activities. Specify how you promoted teacher reflection by providing examples.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

9. Engaging the wider school and educational community in mascil implementation

Describe below how you engaged the wider school community (e.g., School head, other colleagues, parents, educational authorities, local agents) in mascil implementation.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

10. Overall evaluation

Please comment briefly on the impact that you think that the overall PD program had on the participants (teachers/multipliers) in your country. Support your claims with evidence. You can use data from the reports or texts you have prepared in the context of mascil (e.g., your report in the national evaluation framework):

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8 Appendix II: Reviewer comments

The project under discussion in this short written communication is titled “Mathematics and Science for Life” (mascil). The project took place under the FP7-SCIENCE-IN-SOCIETY-2012-1 call (ACTIVITY 5.2.2 Young people and science, Topic Supporting actions on Innovation in the classroom: teacher training on inquiry based teaching methods on a large scale in Europe). This written communication aims at reviewing the implementation strategies of the project and their effectiveness in the 18 institutions from the 13 participating countries, as these are outlined in the program’s Description of Work and in the International Report concerning workpackage 8 (Implementation).

As one can surmise from its title, the mascil program addressed mathematics and science as embedded in everyday life practices. The project aimed at promoting the use of inquiry-based science teaching in primary and secondary schools in the participating European countries. Adopting, to a large extent, the definition of science given in the Rocard report, the members of the research consortium put forward, first and foremost, a view that stresses science as a way of thinking, as a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as an organized body of knowledge gained through such research.

In promoting a holistic view of science and mathematics to students the discussion of the education and professional development of science and mathematics teachers cannot but assume great importance. At the core of the program’s work plan was the selection and implementation of professional development and pre-service teacher education courses in line with the program’s intentions. In the 13 participating countries, an admirably large number of pre- and in-service teachers, of both elementary and secondary levels, got involved in the program. The outreach to vocational contexts of mathematics and science was an important feature of the program. A significant number of pre- and in-servicevocational teachers were educated in most of the participating countries (more so in Greece, Romania, Germany and the Netherlands), with the exception of Norway and Spain where only general education teachers were educated.

The models followed in the professional development and teacher education courses ranged from face-to-face communication (courses, meetings, workshops, lectures and seminars) to e-communication (e-courses, e-communication platforms). The resources used in these courses in all countries were mainly materials developed by the mascil

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team. As part of these courses, in some countries professionals were invited to participate—live or on video—or professional artifacts were brought to meetings in order to steer up the discussion and favor the collective design of classroom tasks. In some countries, along with these courses visits were also organized to workplaces, art museums, and scientific centers. In Germany and Greece, a number of the professional development courses were organized for mixed groups of teachers from general and vocational schools.

The quality of communication among the participants during face-to-face events was of high level. In these events teachers worked on and discussed mascil tasks, prepared lessons plans for future implementation in their classrooms, as well as exchanged opinions and reflected upon their experiences after having tried the tasks in classrooms. Contrary to face-to-face communication though, teachers were not readily willing to participate in e-learning courses of professional development activities.

During the program, a numerous classroom implementations took place in all 13 participating countries. In these implementations an admirable number of more than a thousand different tasks were used. These were tasks developed by the mascil team and translated in different languages, and other tasks developed by national mascil teams, mascil tasks modified by the participating teachers before been implemented in classrooms, and tasks that the teachers themselves developed following an inquiry-based teaching and a world of work scope.

Inevitably, due to the program’s scope, the level and quality of communication among participants within a country, as well as between and among countries was a key factor to the success of the program. Admittedly, in our times electronic communication among professional is essential. On a national level, the most common, and favorable by teachers way of communication though, was that of face-to-face during courses, meetings, and other organized events. Only in four (4) countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and Greece) participants chose to keep up the communication in between these face-to-face events electronically. More so, in these four countries participating teachers used mostly e-mail in order to communicate in between face-to-face events. Internet file hosting services and social media were used in Greece and Lithuania respectively, to exchange and disseminate professional development materials and mascil tasks.

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In Greece Skype was also used in order to run professional development sessions and meetings among teachers and between groups. This e-presence application helped in “breaking the ice,” as is written in the International Report, among mascil team members and participating teachers, but it seems that it further satisfied participants’ need for a face-to-face communication. Interestingly so, even in countries like Lithuania, Netherlands, and Norway, with the most recorded national teacher networks—as these were drafted by the program—, mascil members did not succeed in initiating and supporting an electronic communication between teachers among professional development groups at a national level.

On an international level communication among participants was very limited, with a small number of teachers from four (4) countries taking part, in-person or virtually, in conferences organized by the program. The international and the national e-communication platforms developed by the program were scarcely used. Possibly this development was due to a number of reasons as one can read in the International Report for WP8, such as the teachers’ limited familiarity with e-learning platforms and participation in discussion forums, their late availability and some technical problems, and language barriers. As the Norwegian mascil team wrote in the International Report though, teachers also may have feared of not being good enough and therefore been ‘seen’ in the open, electronic space. Moreover, teachers may have considered redundant to carry the discussions that took place in school corridors and during meetings on to the Internet, especially since they were not getting any credits for this.

During the program, numerous classroom implementations took place in all the participating countries. In these implementations more than a thousand different tasks were used. The majority of the teachers chose to modify the tasks developed by the members of the mascil teams, or developed tasks of their own. Teachers in all countries had to plan the implementations of the tasks carefully, as they had to overcome the demands posed by the curriculum and the school context itself (mostly time). An issue brought up by teachers in all countries was their difficulty to align mascil tasks with the goals and objectives of the existing mathematics and science curricula. This widespread observation is telling of the long distances that mathematics and science curricula in European countries need to cover to the direction of inquiry-based teaching and learning of mathematics and science, in order to achieve a genuine connection with vocational contexts.

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This final point brings us to the involvement of the wider education community in the mascil program. The mascil teams in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway had a regular contact with the local educational authorities in the National Advisory Board meetings. In Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Turkey, school educational authorities and/or school advisors participated in conferences and seminars, along with a number of schools’ headmaster and other teachers. In Bulgaria, Cyprus and Norway, parents also got somewhat indirectly involved in the program, either by participating in local meetings where the core ideas concerning the aims of the program were presented, or by stimulating their children’s investigations in the world of work aspect of the mascil tasks. In Norway specifically, local and national school stakeholders and policy makers participated in two workshops that aimed at sustaining and disseminating the momentum built by the program on issues concerning inquiry-based teaching and learning in science and mathematics. This was a significant achievement on the part of the Norwegian mascil team, as the swift in orientation of national curricula towards inquiry-based learning and the connections with the world of work is critical if teachers are to adopt such an approach in their everyday professional life.

Afterword

Students’ conceptualizations of fundamental science and mathematics concepts, resting on the memorization of terminology and definitions, and on practised numerical algorithms, often demonstrate a poor understanding of these concepts. Furthermore, in science these conceptualizations are permeated by students’ alternative conceptions such as non-scientific beliefs rooted in religion and myth, preconceptions based solely on everyday experience, and so forth. Such alternative conceptions, along with students’ poor conceptual understanding, limit their sight in terms of the applicability of science and the scientific method in everyday life. In a similar manner, students more often have difficulties to see mathematics as pertinent to trivial day-to-day life applications that involve arithmetic and measurements (i.e. arithmetic). The rapid evolution of knowledge and the increasing specialization in science makes the mastery of scientific knowledge, particularly at a school level, “an unwieldy and unsatisfying goal” (Kuhn, 1993: 319)2. This remark, paired with student’s poor conceptual understanding and limited views of math and science’s underpinnings in everyday

2Kuhn,D.(1993),Scienceasargument:Implicationsforteachingandlearningscientificthinking.Sci.Ed.,77:319–337.doi:10.1002/sce.3730770306.

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practices and vocational contexts, makes—more so in our times—the teaching of ‘disciplinary’-oriented science and math curricula as futile as ever.

Inquiry-based science teaching in various reformative curricula, structured around students working in small groups to perform experiments, gather evidence and build and refine models of the world, is suggested to help students appreciate science as a coherent and logical method of understanding the world. Science curricula based on inquiry teaching may also help students connect science with everyday life and the world of work. The approach adopted by the program’s coordinators, favor exactly the distancing from a ‘disciplinary’ approach to teaching science and mathematics, an approach that emphasizes concepts, theories and procedures, and alienates students from science and mathematics as a way of understanding and thinking about the world, and from a possible pursue of related careers.

Promoting the use of inquiry-based teaching then seems more at need than ever. Mascil program was very successful in that respect, through organizing professional development courses for pre- and in-service teachers. A large number of teachers participated in these courses. Teachers expressed an unfeigned appreciation of inquiry-based teaching and learning and the use of vocational contexts in teaching science and mathematics. Judging from the notably large number of classroom implementations that were carried out by participating teachers in collaboration with members of mascil national teams and professionals from the world of work, and from the equally large number of the tasks that were developed—many from the teachers themselves—the teachers’ engagement was fruitful and enthusiastic.This undoubtedly must be counted as a great achievement of the program.The courses developed in countries that addressed participants from general and vocational schools, and the thereafter cooperation in joint classroom implementations, further emphasized, and thus promoted the connection of inquiry-based teaching in science and mathematics with the world of work. This approach could be considered an example of good professional development practice that other countries could take on.

In wide-reaching programs such as mascil communication between participants assumes a key role in its organization and effectiveness. The ‘logistics’ and support of the program’s aim were run through an international platform and national websites that were deveped for the needs of the program. Teachers were not appreciative of the use of these international and national platforms, contrary to face-to-face setups. The late availability of the platforms (resulted from the fact that a lot of time was needed to set

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and start them up) might be accounted as a reasonable excuse. To seek for ‘excuses’ would be missing the point. Even though the multiple needs for such electronic platforms cannot be doubted, more research is needed into finding ways to organically incorporate other electronic communication practices to teachers’ professional development courses. In support to this suggestion comes the use of e-presence applications, social media and even e-mail from teachers in order to maintain distant communication with colleagues and of the mascil team. Applications that teachers already use in their personal and professional life could be considered as augmentation to large-scale platforms, as these add a sense of familiarity and ownership in the undertaken endeavor. Besides various Web 2.0 environments, even Internet file hosting services nowadays support the co-production of texts in various forms. These opportunities could also be taken into account when designing large-scale programs.

The International Report on workpackage 8 is carefully organized across five themes about the implementation strategies in each participating country concerning of the participants and their professional characteristics,the professional development and teacher education models (including activities and the materials for the courses and classroom teaching), the integration of IBL/WoW in professional development and teacher education as well as in the classroom,the ways of engaging the wider education community, and the partners’ reflections upon the impact of the implementation of the program. Besides presenting in detail the implementation strategies in each country, the Report sets side by side the strategies in all participating countries. In this way a number of good practices are brought to the fore.

All in all, the program was very successful in weaving a nexus among collectives of the education community, primarily general schoolteachers, vocational school teachers, primary school teachers, secondary school teachers and the research community. Teachers at all levels and schools in most European countries are burdened by discipline-oriented science and mathematics curricula. The outreach of the program to local and national educational authorities could help in changing the aiming in school science and mathematics curricula and freeing space for teachers to get involved in professional development activities.

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