Short-term joint staff training event “International Teachers’ Room -Real-life Based
Interdisciplinary Science Teaching“ was organised on the 20-24th May 2022 in Budapest by Jedlik Anyos Secondary School.
The training was opened by Mr Bese Benő, the headmaster of Jedlik Ányos Secondary School. Besides the participants of the conference, the opening ceremony was honoured by the presence of Jorge Roza de Oliveira, the ambassador of Portugal and Tóth János the head of the school district. Later teachers held the first workshop informing each other about the activities they had carried out in their institutions since the last meeting in November and about the ideas they suggest developing further in this project: Portugal – suggested daily phenomena based on Newton’s laws Hungary – made a presentation how to learn the 4 sciences through climate crisis and water pollution, Germany – suggested studying nanotechnology applied to everyday phenomena, Lithuania – suggested studying sciences through sport activities (changes in the body, motricity) and astronomy/comets. They also participated in the lecture of Vásárhelyi Zsóka, theoretical evolutionary biologist. In workshops 3, 4 and 5 teachers presented their ideas about possible activities for the next round of the project. There were activities for the next meeting discussed and prepared.
The whole-day Sunday bus trip was designed around the project’s program, and teachers visited the Bauxite Mine in Gánt as well as the Korda Film Studio where among others, “The Martian“ (one of the project’s materials to examine) was filmed.
On the 23rd May teachers participated in an observation of activities demonstrated by biologist Hubai András with the students’ participation. In the afternoon two participating colleagues, Carla Vaz (PT) and Hortobágyiné Kard Eszter (HU) gave an international interdisciplinary lesson.
On the final day of the training event the teachers had an evaluation session. All the teachers agreed or strongly agreed that the meeting was useful for their professional development. 92% of the teachers claimed that the lectures they participated in were inspiring, and 77% of them believed that the workshops, where more active participation was required, reached their goals. 92% of the teachers was satisfied with the cooperation of colleagues and the same number agreed or strongly agreed that they themselves were active members of the group. As difficulties, teacher participants mentioned the challenges of using a foreign language to express ideas, tiredness and the need to be patient with different communication tempo. Overall 84% of the teachers felt that the meeting met their expectations, 16% was neutral.
Some remarks from participants answering the question “What have you learnt this week?”: “I am eager for knowledge“, ‘‘We can use playful things to teach/learn‘‘, ‘‘The discussions around the design of the next theme was confusing first but then we managed to sort it out“.
At the closing ceremony Mr Bese Benő, the director of Jedlik Anyos Secondary School, handed out the participation certificates.
The next teachers‘ tarining event will take place in Eutin September 25th – October 1st, 2022.
