THE GREEN FORUM OPEN EXHIBITION

THE OPEN EXHIBITION ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE AND SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION  (CCSE) was held at the Library on the 27th to 29th of March.

The exhibition received two large external audiences.

First on the 27th of March, the Green Forum Network  launched the CCSE movement and the green catalogue at the open exibition.


There were members of 20 organisations who attended the event in-person and 24 others who participated online.

Second,  67 delegates supported by BETT Brazil  visited the library to know about the OU projects  and green initiatives in Education across the world  including funded-research projects led by the UK and Brazil.

Various opportunities were discussed to enhance CCSE movement.

See what one of the international visitors  found about the open exhibition.
The interview is in Portuguese, but the transcription in Youtube can be automatic generated in English.

To make the open exhibition interactive and fun; a small group of secondary school students visited the library to explore how to make the exhibition more interactive and fun for young people; supported by Dr. Okada’s team they developed three activities to engage young visitors:

1. Voting on the three best posters.

2. Drawing their views about CCSE learning with fun.

3. Replying to the question  “what are the key challenges of CCSE”?

The young people highlighted 18 ideas.

key problems: poverty, deforestation; child forced marriage, corrupt government, bad education; car pollution; sea pollution

potential solutions: climate justice; digital literacy, students-centred learning, emergency services; meanigful learning, international collaboration

future-challenges:Where will we get food? How to find solutions for climate change? How will we travel?  How can education improve? How could teachers be better prepared?

The posters winners were:

  1. Relevant global challenge to be explored in education:
    Disaster-risk reduction education
  2. Participatory and democratic approach led by university with shools:
    Mock COP27 Inverness
  3. Significant project for inclusion and equity in education:
    Catch-Up Programme
  4. Innovative use of technology for critical thinking to protect  humans and environment:
    Protecting Life in Amazon

They invite you all to share your comments about  how to make The CCSE open exhibition  more exciting supported by open schooling?  See the posters bellow and provide your views in comments…

Lets us know if you would like to celebrate “Outdoor Classroom Day” on the 18th of May.

 

The Empowerment Framework, Play and Fun!

Children’s Research Centre

👉Join Dr Natalie Canning for the launch of ‘The Empowerment Framework’. If you are interested in how you can identify children’s empowering behaviours to support their learning and development then this webinar is for you!
17/01/23 19:00-20:30 GMT
Link:https://bit.ly/3PRrfeH

Children’s Empowerment in Play is an accessible insight into the vital place of play in children’s development. The book focuses on three main themes of participation, voice and ownership, and explores ways to positively and naturally develop play in early years settings.

 

Call for papers – Special Issue: Fun participatory science, arts, and emerging technologies

Open Schooling 2030 for emancipatory education
with fun participatory science, arts, and emerging technologies

The Agenda 2030, also known as the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, is a program established by the United Nations, with the commitment to seek solutions to global challenges and promote peace and prosperity in today’s adverse world. For this, education plays a central role in empowering this and the next generations for the collaborative construction of a better and sustainable future for all (UNESCO, 2021). Consistently, open schooling is an approach promoted by the European Union that aims to establish partnerships between schools, universities, companies, research centers and civil society towards more scientifically literate communities for sustainability (EC, 2018; HAZELKORN et al., 2015).

Education open to partnerships is key to enable students to discuss problems and solutions within and outside schools, including research and innovation related to real life by interacting with expert professionals, citizens of their communities and families. In open schooling underpinned by the CARE-KNOW-DO principles (Okada, 2020), students are engaged to identify and discuss real-life problems that they CARE about, need to KNOW about and DO something about. This approach aims to transform education so that young people are involved in acquiring knowledge for decision-making in authentic contexts and developing scientific skills for problem-solving in an innovative, enjoyable and responsible way supported by – natural, social and formal – sciences and technologies.

Open schooling aims to prepare young people to develop competences to respond to relevant real-life scenarios supported by curriculum knowledge and fun participatory approaches for enhancing science with and for society. In this context, emancipatory education for independent thinking with fun (Okada & Sheehy, 2020) enables less favored students and also less represented learners of society to develop a critical awareness of their contexts and the world to transform it with the joy of search and discovery (Freire, 1967; 1984). Learning in an emancipatory and fun way allows students to be protagonists of their own story with intrinsic motivation and genuine pleasure through cooperation with others. Learning supported by the pedagogy of autonomy with fun allows apprentices to become transforming agents with enthusiasm, initiative and driving energy to innovate their reality and shape a better world (Freire, 1996; 2009).

This special edition explores a range of innovative practices, challenges and recommendations for education supported by open schooling with Responsible Research and Innovation (Okada & Sherborne, 2018; Almeida & Okada, 2019). Our goal is to bring together innovative studies on authentic learning – that is – with real-life issues that include apprentices, educators, professionals and policy makers and civil society managers in the various areas supported by emerging sciences, arts and technologies. The objective of this special edition is to address transformative initiatives in education through open schooling based on theoretical and empirical studies in various settings supported by formal, informal and non-formal learning scenarios. This special edition is open for articles with diverse real-life socio-scientific issues related to the AGENDA 2030 (UNESCO, 2015), the European missions (EC, 2021), and the global challenges (EC, 2018) which include, for example, food, health, environment, climate change, energy and science-society.

We look forward to receiving papers that present distinctive participatory methods involving the partnership between school, university and society with different settings, for example, online, offline, hybrid and onlife(Floridi, 2015) practices. They may also include community-based participatory research, collaborative project-based learning, collective inquiry mapping, citizen science, environmental citizenship among others. We invite studies about open schooling through a variety of emerging technologies that create opportunities for learners to explore APPs, robotics, coding, FabLab, MakerCulture, Artificial Intelligence, Inquiry narratives, phenomena-based learning, self-assessment and co-evaluation instruments, educational policies, contextualised and significant curricula, methodologies for teacher education, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and emancipatory scenarios, among others.

Articles can be published in English, Portuguese, French and Spanish. We invite  research groups, academics and practitioners interested in sharing research studies including quantitative and qualitative research methods, case studies, and well-founded conceptual work.

About the Journal

The Open Access Journal “Diálogo Educacional” (top score in Brazil A1) is a four-monthly publication, peer-reviewed in a double blind review system with national and international printed and online circulation.
Submit your manuscript online until January 31st to be published on the platform in June 2023.
For author submission guidelines and further details, please see the submission page:
https://periodicos.pucpr.br/dialogoeducacional/about/submissions

References

Floridi, L. (2015). The onlife manifesto: Being human in a hyperconnected era (p. 264). Springer nature.
Freire, P. Role of education in humanization. Series Articles, 1967.
Freire, P. Cultural action for freedom. 7. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Peace and Earth, 1984.
Freire, P. Pedagogy of autonomy: knowledge necessary for educational practice. 9. ed. São Paulo: Peace and Earth, 1996.
Freire, P. Pedagogy of hope: a reunion with the pedagogy of the oppressed. 16. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Peace and Earth, 2009.
Hazelkorn, et al.. 2015 (org.). Science Education for Responsible Citizenship. Luxembourg: Publications Office for the European Union.
EC (2018). Open schooling and collaboration on science education. [https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-search;callCode=H2020-SwafS-2018-2020]. European Commission
Okada, Alexandra and Matta, Claudia Eliane (2021). Teacher training for professional education through a course of extension on emerging Technologies with open schooling. Revista Diálogo Educacional, 21(71) pp. 1794–1819.
Okada, Alexandra; Souza, Karine Pinheiro de; Struchiner, Miriam; Rabello, Cíntia and Rosa, Luziana Quadros da (2023). Open schooling to empower Brazilian teachers: Emancipatory fun in education for a sustainable innovation ecosystem. In: Holliman, Andrew J. and Sheehy, Kieron eds. Overcoming Adversity in Education. London: Routledge, pp. 234–248.
Okada, Alexandra and Sheehy, Kieron (2020). The value of fun in online learning: a study supported by responsible research and innovation and open data. Revista e-Curriculum, 18(2) pp. 319–343.
Okada, Alexandra and Sherborne, Tony (2018). Equipping the Next Generation for Responsible Research and Innovation with Open Educational Resources, Open Courses, Open Communities and Open Schooling: An Impact Case Study in Brazil. Journal of Interactive Media In Education, 1(18) pp. 1–15.
UNESCO (2021). UNESCO and Sustainable Development Goals https://en.unesco.org/sustainabledevelopmentgoals

RUMPUS in Amazon rainforest!

A major challenge in education across the world is to support the large number of less well-represented actors and territories towards a more scientific-literate society for sustainable development locally and globally.

With this purpose in mind,  the Rumpus team established a partnership with various organisations in Brazil and visited the Amazon Forest in November 2022 to implement an  open schooling initiative.

Partners of the OU – Open University UK were the UFAM – Federal University of Amazon, the UFCA – Federal University of Cariri,  and three NGOs: “Anjos Digitais” for digital and scientific inclusion with gender equity; IRAMA – Ribeirinhos Institute of the Amazon  and  REDDA – Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.

More details: https://www.connect-science.net/blog/welcome-to-a-new-phd-student-to-explore-lesson-study-for-open-schooling/

 

CBIE – INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF COMPUTING IN EDUCATION in BRAZIL

On the 15th of November, Dr. Okada was invited as a keynote to present about “Open Schooling, Emerging Technologies, Green Skills and Innovative Ecosystems”

She discussed various initiatives developed by  the international CONNECT network which were focussed on the sustainable development goals and in particular the global challenges of the Agenda 2030 .

The practices with learning materials and examples were developed in Europe and South America. The CONNECT network brings together universities, schools, companies, research centres and communities in five countries Brazil, Greece, Romania, Spain, and the UK.  Dr. Okada discussed strategies with pedagogical, methodological and technological resources that can be reused, reconstructed and expanded by educators, students, academics, and leaders of research networks.

The best practices of CONNECT  are supported by the theoretical-empirical model CARE-KNOW-DO, including  affective, cognitive, and digital engagement as well as critical-creative, scientific-technological, and ethical-sustainable identity.

More information https://ceie.sbc.org.br/evento/cbie2022/sbie/

 

International conference ‘Strengthening Partnerships to Support Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction’

The ASSIK (Anak Setara SIaga Kebencanaan) research group are within Rumpus, and are developing and facilitating inclusive and accessible disaster risk reduction education (IDRRE) in Indonesia.

They initiated an international conference ‘Strengthening Partnerships to Support Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction’, which was supported by colleagues from UNESA (State University Surabaya) and APPKhi (Indonesia’s teachers association) .

ASSIK members gave keynote and invited presentations drawing on their recent research.

· Saskia van Manen, -Design Network for Emergency Management, Leiden, The Netherlands).

· Sherly Saragih -Department of Clinical Psychology, Universitas Indonesia, Depok,Indonesia;

· Natalia Kucirkova -The Open University

· Budiyanto, -Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Surabaya, Indonesia

· Kieron Sheehy -The Open University

The conference was very helpful in networking with government policy makers, teachers and researchers from across Indonesia, and in expanding the network of schools taking part in our kindergarten research.

 

OLAF – recent publications

Sheehy, K., McClanachan, A., Okada, A., Tatlow-Golden, M., & Harrison, S. Is Distance Education Fun? The Implications of Undergraduates’ Epistemological Beliefs for Improving Their Engagement and Satisfaction with Online Learning.
https://www.athensjournals.gr/education/2022-4756-AJE-Sheehy-07.pdf 

Barros et. al (2022) HIGHER EDUCATION IN PANDEMIC TIMES: personalization, engagement, autonomy and new learning strategiesTICS & EAD v. 8 no. 2 (2022): ICTs & EaD in Focus: Dossier – Policies and Teacher Training for a Digital and Inclusive School

Sujarwanto; Sheehy, Kieron; Rofiah, Khofidotur and Budiyanto (2021). Online Higher Education: The Importance of Students’ Epistemological Beliefs, Well-Being, and Fun. IAFOR Journal of Education – Studies in Education: Sustainable Education for the Future, 9(6) pp. 9–30.

Conference Proceedings and Book Chapters :

Sheehy et. al. (2022). Should meaningful online learning experiences be fun for higher education students in Indonesia? In: Ravi, Kumar, and McKinney,, Stephen eds. LSME Research Compendium 2022. London School of Management Education, pp. 270–290. BEST PAPER

Okada, Alexandra; Souza, Karine Pinheiro de; Struchiner, Miriam; Rabello, Cíntia and Rosa, Luziana Quadros da (2023). Open schooling to empower Brazilian teachers: Emancipatory fun in education for a sustainable innovation ecosystem. In: Holliman, Andrew J. and Sheehy, Kieron eds. Overcoming Adversity in Education. London: Routledge, pp. 234–248.

 

Overcoming Adversity in Education

Overcoming Adversity in Education presents experiences of adversity that encompass disability, race, sexuality, poverty, violence, and natural disasters (among others).

“Adversity refers to a ‘risk factor – condition, circumstance, situation, inequality, or event that threatens individuals’ learning, development, and achievement”.

This book edited by Andrew Holliman and Kieron Sheehy brings not only challenges but also alternatives for transformations. It is a fundamental set of studies that reflects on priorital needs together with opportunities to envison a better world through education.

The accepted version of Okada et. al. ‘s chapter  related to “emancipatory fun” in Brazil  is available in English and in Portuguese (Open schooling to empower Brazilian teachers: Emancipatory fun in education for a sustainable innovation ecosystem) https://oro.open.ac.uk/85248/

(Okada 2022)

 

The publishers’ final version of the chapter and also the whole e-book is available here: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003180029 

OPEN SCHOOLING pre-conference event in Heilbronn

Author: Alexandra Okada

The  Open Schooling together pre-conference event took place   on June 1st  as part of the 2022  ECSITE European Conference in Heilbronn Germany, led by Maria Zolotonosa (co-founder of Stickydot) and supported by Alix Thuillier from ECSITE.

The Open Schooling Together is a group of eleven consortiums funded by the European Union to innovate school education. Our goal is to help schools become agents of well-being. Students are engaged to solve real-life problems through the cooperation between teachers, science professionals, families, and community members.

The objectives of the workshop were:

  • To gain inspiration and reflect together about new methodologies of learning
  • To discuss challenges as well innovative pedagogical tools to find solutions

The invited speakers who presented their projects and run interactive activities with the attendees were from
2023 MIO: Maya Halevy, Chagit Tishler, Tamar Fuhrmann, Pam de Sterke

2023 SALL: Pavlos Koulouris, Claudia Aguirre     , Malvina Artheau, Didier Laval

2023 CONNECT: Alexandra Okada

2022 PHERECLOS: Torben Roug Eszter Salamon

2022 OSHUB:  Maria Vicente, Cristina Olivotto, Shaun Ussher, Brendan Owens

The event started with two engaging strategies.

1. The Pecha Kucha session invited each project to present itself in a 6 min 66 seconds presentation with 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide.

The MIO project presented by Maya provides 16 learning scenarios and open schooling navigator. She also announced the new MOOC in development The project inspires schools with  communities to “Brief, Research, Make, and Share”.

The SALL project presented by Matteo Merzagora focuses on living labs.  This refers to an open innovation methodology, user-driven where people are key actors of the innovation process. The project is centred on food  and inspires schools with  communities to “Cocreate, explore, experiment, evaluate”   in real-life

The PHERECLOS  project presented by Cyril offers six local educational clusters. It is designed to create new opportunities for educational landscapes, based on interconnected and innovation-geared activities. In this context, Children’s Universities takes the role of mediation and translation between the sectors to accelerate learning.

The OSHub project presented by Cristina Olivotto supports schools and local stakeholders to use research and innovation a tool for tackling local challenges and contributing to sustainable community development. The OS Hub is composed by Broker Team, Schools, Local Challenges and local stakeholders. The project offers a Course Handbook for teachers and promotes a long term engagement with schools.

The CONNECT project presented by Alexandra Okada embeds open schooling in the mainstream curriculum underpinned by the CARE–KNOW–DO framework. This approach aims to help students engage with real-life issues that they care about, create the need to know about and also opportunities to do science in their lives and society. The project offers open resources, learning scenarios, self-assessment tools for teachers and students, video library, best practices, policy report and fun participatory tools to increase  students’ engagement, confidence and  aspiration so that “science is for them”

Second, the Tools carrousel – round 1 where we will be sharing innovative educational tools we developed.

This activity was delivered in 4 sessions of 15 min for 4 different groups that rotated across 5 project tables.

In CONNECT, Alexandra created a game for educational providers to select a set of four cards to implement open schooling based on: (1)   students’ need, to be linked to (2) teachers’ need, then (3) select a resource and (4) science-in-the-news to engage families and scientists. Each card was a piece of a puzzle to be built on a board that contained 4 questions. All cards included a QR code linked to a real multimedia digital resource. After players completed the puzzle and explored the resource they were invited to create a card or a set of 4 cards to be added to the game related to their own OS projects. The activity was developed in pairs and took 8′ minutes. Then during the last 7′ minutes players discussed their initial insights, which means,  suggestions for improvement, potential benefits, and barriers. Some insights about the gamification activity shared by players were, for example, ‘the game will be useful for knowledge exchange’. It could be used for ‘building capacity’, ‘teachers’ training’, ‘running a workshop event’, ‘public engagement’, and ‘exploring opportunities for learning design’.

There were two  external guests that provided some insights for   evaluation and research.

Marc Fuster, Research Analyst at OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation talked about “OECD schooling scenarios schools as learning hubs”. He presented some insights from the report “Back to the Future of Education” OECD (2030) and highlighted the four OECD Scenarios for the Future of Schooling: McClellan,

  1. School extended, an international collaboration to expand formal education
  2. Education outsourced, more diverse with digital technology
  3. Schools as learning hubs, schools connected to their communities
  4. Learn-as you go, education anywhere anytime

By 2040 schools remain, but diversity and experimentation have become a norm.  Opening the school walls connects schools to their communities favoring ever-changing forms of learning, civic engagement, and social innovation” (OECD, 2020

Open Schooling part of Open Education is key that means integrating open collaboration, open teaching, and open educational resources as well as open assessment – all supported by enabling technologies. The OECD report mentioned three arenas for re-schooling congruent to open-schooling: the pedagogical core of the learning environment, learning leadership, schools as learning organisations, and partnerships working with stakeholders to enhance innovation. Some interesting links were shared: www.dialogrede.es, www.brookings.edu

Evaluation to support evidence-based policy has a vital role. From this session there is a question for OS projects evaluators to reflect on innovation: “How are innovating in terms of: 1.resources, 2. content,3.teaching/learning process, and 4. teachers and learners’ profiles?

Comments from the audience were useful to reflect on how evaluation could support OS learning environments to enhance flexible cooperation between different types of educators (teachers, parents, professionals, and community members in open education). For that, there are some requirements necessary, for example, formative feedback tools for teachers and learners as well as formative evidence analytics for learning leadership. These should be connected also with learners’ achievements and progress through portfolios, open badges, best practices, information systems, and data management.

Another reflection was related to ‘Building capacity through partnerships is key which starts with students’ evidence of learning’. The cycle starts from the expected outcomes and is coherently co-designed, delivered, evaluated, and improved.  I found this congruent with the theory of backward designs (Wiggins and MicTighe, 1997) which highlights the first step to identifying the desired learning results, then determining the acceptable evidence, and finally planning the teaching instruction for significant learning experiences.

Jeffrey McClellan, founding principal of MC2 STEM High School in Cleveland, “Innovate – Enrich – Engage” opened this talk with an engaging question “ what would happen if the city became the campus for a public STEM high school? McClellan then provided various examples and a short video about  MC2 STEM High School.

The STEM high school started in 2008, and is part of the new and innovative school system and its campus is the city of Cleveland. Key features of the school are mastery learning and authentic STEM experiences with a trans-disciplinary project-based approach. In terms of the pedagogical model, the school adopted various approaches, for example, real-world experience, partnerships, FABLAB, content-in-context, community, and business internships, and mentoring.

His initial presentation was followed by a discussion ‘ can this model be replicated? “  McClellan then introduced three drivers: motivation,  engagement, and self-management, and compared with four barriers: behaviour, complexity, cost, and time.   

Two key aspects have then been highlighted the curriculum of big questions and  self-organised learning environments supported by formative assessment

 

 

The Butterfly of fun reaches 389,606 views

Okada & Sheehy (2020) “Factors and Recommendations to Support Students’ Enjoyment of Online Learning With Fun: A Mixed Method Study During COVID-19” journal article  was awarded as a Top paper  with more views than 94% of all Frontiers articles.

It  is now part of the  special e-book: Cooper,J; Gauna,L. Beaudry C. (2022) COVID-19 and the Educational Response: New Educational and Social Realities. Frontiers. URL https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/14005/covid-19-and-the-educational-response-new-educational-and-social-realities (reaching 389,606 views) Elsevier; various studies are citing this paper: SCOPUS here