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C2 Short-term joint staff training event

The C2 event is one component of an end of year Transnational Project Meeting ("TPM2"/M2) to be held in Athens from September 19th-23rd 2015.

The principal theme of C2, as set out in the project proposal (p.52) is "experiencing and reflecting on the practical progress on making construals over year 1". The context for C2 is described on p.40 of the project proposal: "The activities associated with the end of year TPM comprise a 'Short term joint staff training event' at which the results of the year's work are presented (C2), and reports (O2/A2, O3/A2) on the findings of the empirical studies that inform the intellectual outputs O2 and O3."

As is shown in the project timetable (where the TPMs are referenced as M1, M2 etc), C2/M2 is part of a bigger constellation of activities which includes reporting progress on the year 1 agenda and previewing the agenda for year 2 where the Intellectual Objective O1 of developing an open online course for making construals is concerned. These activities are referenced on p38 of the project proposal as O1-A6 ("Reporting on MC1a and MC1b from pedagogy and technology perspectives") and O1-A7 ("Reviewing the second component of the resources for 'making construals' (MC2a and MC2b) in conjunction with preparing a review of existing resources for distribution to the partners").

In summary, the agenda for C2/M2 will have the following components:

  • a review of what has happened in CONSTRUIT! so far (to include reports on progress towards the Intellectual Objectives O1,O2 and O3).
  • an introduction to topics that will underpin the activities in year 2 (for which the key themes are collaboration and instrumentation for assessment) - to include a review of pre-existing resources relating to these themes.
  • discussion of strategic, management and implementation issues going forward.
  • activities that will help to assess progress towards the project goals and to provoke thinking about construals and their potential applications.

In drawing up the draft timetable, there have been some unforeseen circumstancees (such as the Greek elections on Sunday 20th September!) and constraints. There will be 17 participants at C2, representing all the partners. but not all will be present all the time. These representatives are:

  • Edumotiva: Dimitris Alimisis, Manolis Zoulias, Rene Alimisi
  • Warwick: Meurig Beynon, Steve Russ, Elizabeth Hudnott, Mike Joy, Nick Pope, Antony Harfield
  • Helix5: Piet Kommers, Margriet Simmerling
  • Edinburgh: Hamish Macleod
  • Comenius: Peter Tomcsanyi, Michal Winczer
  • UEF: Markku Tukiainen, Tapani Toivonen, Touko Lohilahti

We shall refer to them by their initials.

The key activities we have in mind are listed in the following draft schedule:

Session/Day Time Venue Content Present Notes

S1 Saturday

19/9

10.00 - 13.00

Impact Hub

Athens

Review of the status of the OOC, and of the online resources that have been developed to support it (e.g. C5: Warwick, December; C8: SciFest, April; C14: Athens, May).

Practical sessions to illustrate the various resources conceived.

DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM

A key resource: the iTAG tutorial

S2 Saturday

19/9

14.30 - 16.00 Impact Hub

Athens

Practical sessions to illustrate the various resources conceived with project team participation, with emphasis on evaluation as so far practised and as may be done in the teacher/pupil sessions to follow and in the future. Feedback from Edumotiva based on analysis of C14 Teacher Training event (DA, RA, MZ).*

DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM

*See also the slides from RA's presentation on the teachers' feedback from C14 in session S6 below.

S3 Saturday

19/9

16.30 - 18.30 Impact Hub

Athens

Feedback from Piet and Hamish re OOC status and evaluation. Discusssion and planning for the sessions with teachers and pupils concerning content of the sessions and how these may be evaluated. DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM

 

           

S4 Sunday
20/9

09.00 - 12.00

National Archeological Museum

The Antikythera Mechanism – might it be considered as an ancient Greek paradigm of construal? visit and discussion, with brief introduction from SR and a guided tour hosted by Xenophon Moussas.

MZ, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM, PT, MW, TT, TL Transport from the hotel to the museum will be by taxi at 08.45
      Recreational space!    

S5 Sunday
20/9

16.30 - 18.30 Athinais Hotel

Discussion of the online resources for the OOC from a technical perspective (EH). Planning for an introductory 'making construals' from scratch activity with input from PT and MW, AH, EH and NP intended for trialling with school students in session S9.

MB, EH, PT, MW, TT, TL, AH, NP Optional meeting for the technical team
           

S6 Monday
21/9

10.00 - 13.00 Impact Hub

Athens

Demonstration / exposition of activities illustrating technical advances in the MCE (including demos by EH and NP; discussion of Jonny Foss's work on the interface and on management of construals; AH on work in Thailand; UEF work on construals in monitoring a robotics classroom).

Presentation from RA on teachers' feedback from the workshop given at C14.

DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM, PT, MW, TT, TL, AH, NP Innovative developments for the MCE (to appear)

S7 Monday

21/9

14.30 - 16.00

Impact Hub

Athens

Preparation of workshop with teachers and preparation of lab activities with high school students as a corporate exercise with trials and live feedback from project team participants.

DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK. MS, HM, PT, MW, TT, TL, AH, NP, MT  

S8 Monday

21/9

17.00 - 20.00

2nd Experimental Lyceum of Athens

Workshop / seminar with teachers

DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM, PT, MW, TT, TL, AH, NP, MT

Resources for workshop with teachers Athens 21 September 2015

include("models/wmb/C2teachersws");

           
Tuesday 22/9 10.30-12.00 2nd Experimental Lyceum of Athens Preliminary meeting with school staff and preparation for S9    

S9 Tuesday

22/9

12.00-14.00 2nd Experimental Lyceum of Athens Lab activities with high school students DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM, PT, MW, TT, TL, AH, NP, MT Resources and evaluation in Workshop for Students
           

S10 Tuesday

22/9

15.00 - 16.00

Impact Hub

Athens

Introduction to the second Transnational Project Meeting TPM2.

A review of what has happened in CONSTRUIT! so far (to include reports on progress towards the Intellectual Outputs O1,O2 and O3), an introduction to topics that will underpin the activities in year 2 (for which the key themes are collaboration and instrumentation for assessment) - to include a brief review of pre-existing resources relating to these themes. Dissemination activities to date, as reviewed by Rene Alimisi.

DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM, TT, TL, AH, NP, MT, MJ


See the Progress and draft Interim reports, the CONSTRUIT! account, and related documentation

S11 Tuesday

22/9

16.30 - 18.00 Impact Hub

Athens

Review of management issues and matters arising from project review in previous session. Brief introductory presentation from new team member Markku Tukiainen at UEF (re spreadsheets and software development). SR on the theme of communities of CONSTRUITers in partner countries. Plans for the final conference at Warwick in Summer 2017. Key dates for Year 2. DA, MZ, RA, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM, TT, TL, AH, NP, MT, MJ  
           
S12 Wednesday

25/10

09.00 - 13.00

Impact Hub

Athens

Discussion of strategic, management and implementation issues going forward, to include discussion of the questionnaire, official project website, the template for each year of the project, the interim report, publications, competitions, Warwick IGGY / Joensuu Kids Club, and AOB.

Evaluation of the C2/M2 event

DA, MZ, MB, SR, EH, PK, MS, HM, TT, TL, AH, NP, MT, MJ

 
      End of meeting    

Note that, in certain sessions, not all the project team members who are available will wish to be involved. In some cases, it may be more appropriate for members to meet in subgroups in parallel with scheduled events. (For instance, it may not be appropriate to take the entire project team along to a school.) To help to give a focus to such subgroup meetings, it is helpful to propose informal groupings based on three themes, broadly concerned with technical matters, evaluation, and strategy. Suggested affiliations might be:

  • Technical: PT, MZ, EH, AH, NP, MW, TT, TL, MB
  • Evaluation: DA, RA, EH, PK, HM, AH, MT, SR, MB
  • Strategy: MJ, DA, PK, MS, HM, PT, MT, MB, SR

Steve and I plan to suggest a 'brief' for each of these teams, so that they can perhaps do some homework (at least virtually!) prior to the meeting. For instance, the technical team may be able to work on introducing 'making construals' for school students in a way that puts less emphasis on the conceptual and philosophical aspects and more on the technical - "this is how you do something relatively exciting and practical with JS-EDEN starting from scratch". (Something more like a Scratch or Arduino workshop.) Antony Harfield made a prototype tutorial of this kind that we've used in the past - it features in the embryonic open online course (see the JS-EDEN intro from C5). Peter Tomcsanyi was championing this idea at SciFest and he and Michal have thoughts about how this approach to popularising CONSTRUIT! could be developed.


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