Article – Eduix

Open Science Schooling and the Project: Young Students as Critical Science Detectives

Posted on July 27, 2022January 11, 2023 by Lais Oliveira Leite

The current disengagement of science education at school

Students have been constantly reporting cognitive and affective disengagement with science learning (Cowie et al., 2011; Murray et al., 2004) due, among other factors, to a disconnection between school learning activities and young people lived experience.

At the same time, there is an increasing demand for science related professionals in Europe (CEDEFOP, 2016). Such unbalance between industry demand and school supply of youths pursuing scientific careers calls for innovative ways to re-engage students in science learning.

The Open Science Schooling Approach

To tackle the above mentioned issue, a consortium of educators, researchers, and students around Europe have deployed from January 2020 until March 2022 a transnational school project in Greece, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. The project was built upon previous experiences developed through the Open Science Schooling (OSS) approach, in which …

students are active agents at the heart of inquiry-oriented science learning. In the OSS project, students identify and frame the research problems that they are intrigued and interested in tackling, and they lead the discovery of solutions and innovations, helping situate science in every-day life.
Leite & Montero, 2022, p. 5

Research experiences during the pandemic

Posted on October 4, 2021November 10, 2021 by Lais Oliveira Leite

Eduix participated in the X International Symposium on Research, organized by the Colombian Association of Higher Education Institutions with Professional Technical, Technological or University training (ACIET). The event happened from 29th September until 1st October and addressed the theme “Research Experiences in the Age of Pandemic”. In the event, Eduix presented how our edtech solutions has helped Finnish Higher Education Institutions (HEI) continue running their research endeavors during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The paradigm shift in education

From a global perspective, we all know that many HEIs have faced increased dropout rates due to students’ financial difficulties and inefficient virtual learning environments in the past year. Nevertheless, HEIs with the the appropriate virtual tools were able to keep educational processes running online (synchronous and asynchronous), identify students at risk and retain them, maintain staff efficiency, reduce costs, and attract more students.

A teacher toolkit for developing positive relationship with students

Posted on November 18, 2020December 22, 2020 by Lais Oliveira Leite

When I came to Finland for my Master studies, I wanted to research about a topic that already intrigued me in Brazil when I was working as school psychologist in a rural school of Ceará.

I was interested in understanding how some teachers managed to have such a good relationship with their students, which impacted positively on the students’ learning; while other teachers struggled with it. By good relationship I mean when teachers and students are focused on teaching and learning the content while they are also relaxed. Spontaneous actions such as jokes, laughs, personal reflections, and life stories’ sharing color the interactions and are important parts of the education process. I could observe that the students were more focused on the content when they had such a good relationship with the teachers, than when they did not. I could also see how this impacted on the teachers’ satisfaction regarding their work from the way they talked about it.

Developing museums’ resilience by digitizing archives and operations

Posted on November 12, 2020May 27, 2021 by Lais Oliveira Leite

Institutions that store and protect cultural heritage, such as museums and archives, are vital resources for mental health, well-being, social cohesion, and cultural learning. Today, more than ever, the importance of culture and creativity for society is clear. During the Covid-19, those with access to the Internet have constantly resorted to online cultural production provided by institutions and private initiatives. Who, during the past months, has not watched a live session with their favourite singers, read an e-book temporarily available during the months of lockdown, or visited a museum “walking” through its digital corridors in a 360-degree view?

Unfortunately, the lockdown measures over this year and the impossibility of physical visiting have caused massive loss of revenue for cultural institutions such as museums and archives. In addition, the digital gap due to lack of Internet accessibility in many regions around the world have increased largely and strongly affected those institutions that cannot resort to such resources, especially the smaller and private initiatives in small cities or rural areas.