On Friday, April 9., 2010, the ITEMS project group met in Ljubljana to discuss the progress in the project activities. The review of the work done in 2009 was discussed. The ITEMS modules have been accepted with enthusiasm by the teachers and students in all the countries involved in the project, there will be no problems reaching the goal set.
The meeting was followed by the review of the plans for 2010, especially quality criteria planning and dissemination activities (Teacher Training courses on the national and European level). An overview of the planned international and national courses was made.
Some tecnical issues relating to the use of ITEMS modules in the classroom were also discussed, including the procedure of enrolling the students into the courses etc.
Partners were also working on designing the evaluation forms for the teachers and students using ITEMS modules.
Teacher's course in Trbovlje
On March 13, 2010 more than 50 Slovenian primary and high school math teachers gathered in Trbovlje, Slovenia on Math Teachers’ Conference. The conference was organized by The Slovenian National Education Institute.
Breda Poličar presented ITEMS project: Introduction to Functions, Linear function module and Elementary Geometry module (Lines, Angles and Circles). There was also an ITEMS worshop , where teachers were able to go through both modules.
All of them were also invited to participate in the 24 hour course on the ITEMS modules (Moodle classroom as matehematical learning environment) in May 2010.
Slovenian math teachers showed great interest in ITEMS project modules. Some of them wanted to go through the module with their students also.
The program and the presentations of the teachers conference is available on http://info.edus.si/seminarji/course/view.php?id=2972.
Karl Sarnow presenting the ITEMS module "Introduction to graphs".
The European Schools Project (ESP) is a grass root teachers project. Since 24 years, teachers from all over Europe present existing projects and look for partners in new projects. At this years meeting in London from March 3rd to 7th, 2010, ITEMS presented its work in several presentations. First, Karl Sarnow gave an introduction to the concept of the ITEMS module “Introduction to graphs” (Photo left). Then theachers were introduced to the concept of the attending teacher training course. Teachers where invited to subscribe and as some already did at presentation time, others noted the link to promote the teacher training course in their country.
Jürgen Ganzer presents the tools for translation and adaption of ITEMS modules.
Another presentation was given by Jürgen Ganzer (Photo right), senior vice director of Gymnasium Hermannsburg. He translated the ITEMS course geometry and reported about the possibilities to adapt the ITEMS course given in English language to the native language of the pupils, while also adapting the content to the local curricular needs.
In other presentations, teachers reported the use of Moodle for WebQuests. During these presentations, a large interest in the Moodle tools popped up. The ITEMS presenters invited teachers to join the ITEMS teacher training in order to learn more about the power of Moodle for teaching.
ITEMS was presented twice at the Association for Science Education (ASE) conference in Nottingham in early January 2010. The ASE conference is one of the largest gatherings of science educators in Europe attracting registrations from many countries. Attendance on the first day was reduced due to snowstorms but recovered subsequently.
There was considerable interest in the ITEMS modules and operation. Partners in other EU projects also presented at the conference.
One project, Coreflect, was focused on the use of Stochasmos, a flexible web based platform to promote inquiry.
The S-TEAM project was also presented. This focuses on enabling large numbers of teachers to adopt inquiry-based and other methods for more effective science teaching.
