Tag: Science

In the previous episode we talked about how we must reset the way we teach science, which is vital for our entire future and especially considering the current context we are living in.

For Lab4U it is of utmost importance to foster conversations about how to improve science education and  what tools will we leverage to train students interested in science to ask questions and acquire better skills from science to solving the problems of the coming decades.

In this fourth episode, Komal talks with James Caras, a leader in STEM education, a mentor and advisor at Lab4U, a serial ed-tech entrepreneur and a brilliant scientist and educator, who is also CEO/Co-Founder of Catalyst Education, where here they are helping hundreds of science educators and faculty members with their solutions that allows educators and instructors inspire students to become the next generation of scientists and problem solvers.

In addition, he founded Sapling Learning, which was later acquired by Macmillan and continues to impact millions of science educators worldwide.

Don’t miss out on an important conversation about how, through the right methodologies and tools in STEM education, students in schools and universities, currently supporting the formation and training of the new generation of scientists.

Episode outline:

• 00:00: Presentations
• 04:00: Teaching students the love of science
• 11:00: How has this experience been lived in education in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic?
• 13:30: Why is this not just virtual labs or a virtual experience? What’s the difference between real experimentation and virtual labs? 
• 15:30: The development of virtual laboratories as a learning platform
• 21:00: What has happened in STEM education  considering COVID-19?
• 25:00: Conclusions and learnings

This opens different perspectives for the students, who, in James’ words, are tired, overwhelmed and afraid to feel that many times it is a waste of time to explore and learn the use of new technology that allows the development of virtual classrooms, virtual labs and virtual conversations that are far from the environment that the schools lived before the crisis of COVID-19.

Involving students in science

The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed experimentation with science education, so that today’s students can learn to use software that allows them to acquire knowledge in science and get involved, along with the entire school community, in forming a much more empowered perspective, regarding issues related to the use of digital technologies and distance learning.

In Lab4U we know how important and crucial it is to prepare students, teachers and members of the academic bodies of universities, especially those that teach science to students, to build platforms that allow the development of an education in the service of science.

James Caras, in his conversation with Komal, explained that being persistent in learning this topic with students, considering how difficult this situation is for many people, has allowed us to know the concerns and challenges that universities and science departments have in experimenting with scientific learning from different platforms.

Leading the challenge of teaching science

Some of the main topics discussed in this episode were:

• Skill development for students and instructors in science education
• Student experiences in learning with virtual laboratories versus real experiments and real data
• Challenges of science in education for future generations.

About how students are experiencing the challenge of teachers and academics to teach them the use of new skills and tools, this was commented by James Caras, as part of a search for different topics, especially in the development of chemistry or technology courses.

The development of this technology is linked to the way in which students arrive at the learned contents, being this a challenging task for the teachers. In many occasions, these topics linked to science can remain incomplete if there is not a feedback, being transcendental the search of results, hypothesis raising and visibility of the experiments.

An experience that becomes a legacy

From James Caras’ experience, it can be understood that strengthening science education requires several challenges to make the student experience as enriching as it would be in the absence of a pandemic.

Nevertheless, with or without COVID-19, science in education has allowed, with the virtual and remote modality as the way to practice education during the last months, the development of the spaces to learn science such as virtual laboratories.

This has been a coordinated work between instructors and students, regarding the assimilation and understanding of the software’s management, through the correct instructions, content and specific material. In this way, the learning has allowed to deliver the skills that are needed more efficiently and quickly in the teaching of these topics.

Thus, the virtual experience when entering a laboratory is key in the development of the learning process and in facing challenges regarding the answering to problems, formulating hypotheses and acquiring theories that are also at the service of scientific knowledge, as has been the work of James Caras during his implementation of this technology.

The value of this knowledge and learning is paramount in the way we deal with the acquisition of science for ourselves and our future. As the education currently being delivered, the role of science has not yet been projected with the acuity that one would expect, and therefore Lab4U makes available this and other topics to be in tune with today’s need to rethink science education.

What can we continue to learn from this technology in education?

According to James Caras, it is crucial that learning to train future science professionals is accompanied by a good experience in the online setting, because students are currently tired and the current context has overwhelmed both them and teachers.

That is why it is so important that there is a concern to strengthen skills that scientists need to develop in order to solve problems, keeping in mind what is necessary for the future of the workforce One of the opportunities that the handling of this technology has had is the construction of a structural design of the content that is being delivered by the instructors, being key the formation in the virtual classroom and the vision that in the future these generations can develop to the challenges of putting education as a link for a science that is closer and adaptable to the advancing times.

Experiencing science in virtual mode is what allows us to continue learning with enough tools for students, teachers and educational communities to consider factors such as the use of new technologies and virtuality to bring much closer the vision they may have about science to the debate, which, despite the distance, must exist as a part of the educational process.

In this challenge of transformation that students and teachers have experienced in recent times, some skills must be more stimulated, since the management and performance of these platforms are the engine of a reality that we can not fail to consider in strengthening scientific activities in the classroom.

Therefore, in Lab4U we want students to feel that they are progressing and not wasting their time with this virtual modality, and thus continue to empower and deliver skills to professionals, teachers and members of the schools so that this process is one of understanding, learning and living science.

Valuing scientific knowledge, the delivery of support material and the management of a team of professionals who teach future generations is crucial and a priority for Lab4U in generating a change in the necessary direction to deliver knowledge in a time as complex as this.

Related post

Lab4U Talks. Episode 3: Resetting the way we teach science is vital for all our future

You can listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Anchor.

In the previous episode we talked about how we could solve the problems of science education by building a better future, focusing on leading it in schools because this would make it easier to hear the voice of those who face these kinds of challenges.

For Lab4U, science is vital for learning and marks a guide in moments of change or adjustment in the way of delivering education.

In this third episode, Komal talks with two leaders, Nathan Marks and Javier Baeza, about readjusting the way we are teaching science, an idea raised in an article by the World Economic Forum.

The article, which was the result of the sixteenth forum of young world leaders, explains how COVID-19 has forced major reforms in the way education is delivered, rethinking a radical change in which science, technology, engineering and mathematics are crucial to our future.

Don’t miss this episode about the dialogue of two young people who have led projects with schools, and which highlighted the challenges of implementing educational technology, even more so taking into account the context in which the world is currently moving. 

Episode outline:

• 00:00: Presentations
• 02:00: How are we rethinking education from a science perspective?
• 03:40: What do we think about what we are living?
• 09:00: How do we help the school community in the development of skills?
• 14:30: How will we face the future in education?
• 16:50: Is it possible to experience the classroom from the virtual?
• 25:00: We must think about the challenges and opportunities of education in the future 
  

The new education

The current context that we are living with the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the school communities, both teachers, managers and the more than one billion students who had to leave the schools, according to the WEF.

In Lab4U we have space to know what happens in the classrooms, well, the new classrooms, and how from the virtual it puts on test teachers and complete educational communities, fearing to think that they will not be able to end a process or not knowing skills that the current context and the difficulties have not allowed them to learn and acquire. 

Thus, the daily struggle of schools to survive a crisis not only in education, but also in areas of such social impact, such as the economy and the occupation of public spaces that cannot be so easily replaced by teleworking or tele-education, is affecting the teaching of young people.

A world of opportunities of which we want to be a part

The work of LAB4U has been to open spaces of opinion that, from science, mathematics, engineering and other technological areas, allow the work of strengthening the educational communities from a common dialogue between teachers, board members, students and communities of parents and guardians.

This opens a possibility of opportunities of how we imagine learning with the new skills that teachers and students must acquire to bring the classroom to the imaginary of a video call.

Some of the main topics discussed in this episode were

• Changing the Rules of the Education Game During the Pandemic.
• Adapting to a new reality that demands the attention of both teachers and students.
• Rethinking the future with collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and communication (4C).

On the first point, Nathan commented on how the landscape of students and teachers has changed, considering the challenge of an entire semester through the virtual mode, and how this accelerates the challenges of further increasing skills, delivering tools and infrastructure and acquiring learning that allows rethinking the new education.

As for the second, Javier explained that the focus must be on education to give a much better future to students around the world, but do not forget that this experience is totally different from the regular circumstances to which the students were adapted. 

A solution with an answer that considers everyone in society and that allows the discussion among various actors in education of the commitment that means a common effort to deliver better skills and tools to teachers to face a difficult context such as the current one.

Helping teachers and knowing is what we need

Accompanying teachers in the educational process is part of what we do at Lab4U, that is why it is so crucial to hear opinions about how the content, educational skills and teaching process is being delivered to teachers and how they are taking it to the virtual classrooms.

Nathan, points out that working in communities and maintaining processes in a way that builds equity in education is key to facing moments of crisis. Double’s challenge! 

Understanding what is happening and bringing it into the educational process is a task that requires a lot of attention. Therefore, one of the themes of this episode is how we refocus education from a model that considers the 4Cs (critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity).

One of the difficulties teachers are facing, Javier emphasizes, is generating spaces for face-to-face dialogue with students, since the lack of physical distance that should exist today to protect us can be a risk factor in how we will face education in the future.

It is not easy to bring the most sensitive emotionalities or abilities of the human being to the current context in which students live, often running the risk of losing the imaginary of community that emerges in schools.

The challenge of the virtual classroom and the lack of skills

The new codes of education or distance work in educational communities have accelerated the challenges of having adequate infrastructure and content to continue the professional development skills of educators and promoting communication with their students.

Teaching in person is totally different from teaching through tele-education, so the links between teachers and students are experienced in another perspective. Nathan and Javier agreed on this point, which shows how difficult the daily learning has been, the way of evaluation and the search for questions that arise in the classroom.

Educational experiences are based on relationships and that is the great challenge of how we imagine education will be in a few more years, if it will deliver a future in which both educational learning and distance communication can be developed, in an environment with a focus on the digital.

In this sense, the opportunities for teachers and students must be at the center of the policies of deconfinement, being fundamental how the disease develops in the future, since it will allow the gradual return of students to their schools and of teachers in their work spaces.

This should be a task that unites families, students, teachers, directors and all kinds of individuals in the educational chain, since this process is structured from a joint effort, supporting teachers in the delivery of skills to meet future challenges.

So, in Lab4U we present you this episode that seeks to give opinion about the recommendations that education should live in the future, the rethinking from the sciences and how the conversation of the educational communities should go in the right direction of the creation of skills, support tools and search of knowledge that allows to face the changes and new realities of the pandemic.

Related post

Science education in times of COVID-19

You can listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Anchor.