TY - GEN
T1 - GO-GA
T2 - IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering, TALE 2020
AU - Coenders, Fer
AU - Gillet, Denis
AU - Sayegh, Rola
AU - Gomes, Nuno
AU - Noutahi, Aurelle
AU - Madu, Nissi
AU - Kinyanjui, Isaac
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. Grant agreement no 781012.
Funding Information:
This paper reports the findings of a study in which teachers implemented an inquiry learning space (ILS) using the Go-Lab platform in their classes. The study was part of GO-GA, a project funded by the European Union (https://go-ga.org), and took place in Kenya, Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. The GO-GA consortium consisted of five partners in five countries in Europe, and three partners in Africa, one in each of the target countries. The teachers participated voluntarily. In a first study, that is not the scope of this paper, only teachers who had internet at school where invited to join. In this study, teachers in schools without internet were encouraged to participate. To facilitate this, an offline viewer had to be developed. This offline viewer makes it possible that students can use a computer without an internet connection to go through the Inquiry Learning Space (ILS) in class. Teachers must develop the ILS for their students online, and subsequently download this into an offline viewer. Back at school, teachers install the offline viewer and the ILS on each computer or laptop their students are going to use. Before ILS class implementation, the teachers received training: first an introductory course in IBL, and then an intensive three-day seminar with as main items how to develop an ILS using the Go-Lab platform, and how to implement an ILS in class. Most teachers implemented the personally developed ILS in class at their school. Some however used an ILS developed by a colleague. During implementation teachers were supported through a teacher implementation manual, an online helpdesk, and e-mail. Additionally, teachers could communicate with each other and the support staff through a WhatsApp group. This study investigated what happens when teachers implement an (offline) ILS in class. Because teachers are key players, and teacher training is an essential feature of this innovation, the following five levels to evaluate teacher professional development were used [30]: 1) what are the participants’ reactions; 2) what did the teachers learn; 3) was organisation support & change present; 4) did participants’ implement the acquired knowledge and skills in class; 5) what were the student learning outcomes.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 IEEE.
PY - 2021/3/8
Y1 - 2021/3/8
N2 - This paper reports on a study carried out in the framework of the Go-lab Goes Africa project, in which teachers implemented online and offline Inquiry Learning Spaces (ILS) in their classes using the Go-lab platform. After a brief description of the Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) methodology, of lab work and in particular virtual labs for STEM education, and of the process of preparing teachers for using IBL in class, we highlight the methodology used in this study, and finally report the results. Our results show that (i) the introduction and class enactment of a digital inquiry-based learning platform in Africa is possible (although challenging with respect to pedagogy and infrastructure), and (ii) does lead to student learning, (iii) for this to take place teacher training with respect to the Inquiry Based Learning methodology, and the development of an ILS are necessary, (iv) the digital infrastructure at school is sufficient for offline use, however, poses problems when online ILSs are used, and (v) a local partner needs to provide assistance, mainly to set up the infrastructure (installation of the ILS and the viewer) at the beginning of the lesson, and to assist students with computer related queries.
AB - This paper reports on a study carried out in the framework of the Go-lab Goes Africa project, in which teachers implemented online and offline Inquiry Learning Spaces (ILS) in their classes using the Go-lab platform. After a brief description of the Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) methodology, of lab work and in particular virtual labs for STEM education, and of the process of preparing teachers for using IBL in class, we highlight the methodology used in this study, and finally report the results. Our results show that (i) the introduction and class enactment of a digital inquiry-based learning platform in Africa is possible (although challenging with respect to pedagogy and infrastructure), and (ii) does lead to student learning, (iii) for this to take place teacher training with respect to the Inquiry Based Learning methodology, and the development of an ILS are necessary, (iv) the digital infrastructure at school is sufficient for offline use, however, poses problems when online ILSs are used, and (v) a local partner needs to provide assistance, mainly to set up the infrastructure (installation of the ILS and the viewer) at the beginning of the lesson, and to assist students with computer related queries.
KW - Digital platform
KW - Go-lab
KW - Inquiry-based learning
KW - Online and offline learning
KW - STEM
KW - Virtual labs
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102970079&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TALE48869.2020.9368333
DO - 10.1109/TALE48869.2020.9368333
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85102970079
SN - 978-1-7281-6943-9
T3 - IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE)
SP - 55
EP - 62
BT - Proceedings of 2020 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering, TALE 2020
A2 - Mitsuhara, Hiroyuki
A2 - Goda, Yoshiko
A2 - Ohashi, Yutato
A2 - Rodrigo, Ma. Mercedes T.
A2 - Shen, Jun
A2 - Venkatarayalu, Neelakantam
A2 - Wong, Gary
A2 - Yamada, Masanori
A2 - Chi-Un Lei, Leon
PB - IEEE
CY - Piscataway, NJ
Y2 - 8 December 2020 through 11 December 2020
ER -