Funded by the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union...Tsvetelina Ventsislavova Kostinbrod Dr....

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Funded by the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union Created by JA Bulgaria in collaboration with JA Greece, JA Latvia, Ungt Entreprenorskap Sogn og Fjordane (Norway), and JA Romania This publication has been created with the financial support of the European Union through the Erasmus+ Programme. It reflects only the author's view and the National Agency and the European Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Transcript of Funded by the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union...Tsvetelina Ventsislavova Kostinbrod Dr....

  • Funded by the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union

    Created by JA Bulgaria in collaboration with JA Greece, JA Latvia, Ungt Entreprenorskap Sogn og

    Fjordane (Norway), and JA Romania

    This publication has been created with the financial support of the European Union through

    the Erasmus+ Programme. It reflects only the author's view and the National Agency and

    the European Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it

    contains.

  • I. Teacher feedback after individual lessons delivery

    A total of 14 lesson activity reports were submitted by teachers from Bulgaria. The 7 different

    lessons piloted by Bulgarian teachers are:

    First

    Name Last Name City / town Name of school

    Name of the GREENT

    lesson you delivered

    Hristiyana Tsenovska Vratsa

    Nikola Vaptsarov

    Technical Vocational

    School

    4. Natural cycles and flows –

    material and energy

    Hristiyana Tsenovska Vratsa

    Nikola Vaptsarov

    Technical Vocational

    School

    4. Natural cycles and flows –

    material and energy

    Katya Zamfirova Varshets Ivan Vazov High School 22. Circular economy

    Katya Zamfirova Varshets Ivan Vazov High School

    5. Biodiversity and natural

    systems

    Mariyana Vasileva Pazardzhik

    Georgi Benkovski High

    School

    16. Sustainable solutions

    and their importance for the

    environment. Climate,

    energy and waste handling.

    Petya Peeva Sofia

    23rd High School "F.J.

    Curie"

    16. Sustainable solutions

    and their importance for the

    environment. Climate,

    energy and waste handling.

    Rozalia Dimkova

    Veliko

    Tarnovo

    Vela Blagoeva High

    School

    4. Natural cycles and flows –

    material and energy

    Rumyana Aleksieva Plovdiv

    St. Paisiy Hilendarski High

    School

    16. Sustainable solutions

    and their importance for the

    environment. Climate,

    energy and waste handling.

    Shizen Izet Kostinbrod

    Dr. Petar Beron High

    School

    18. Examples of sustainable

    businesses

    Shizen Izet Kostinbrod

    Dr. Petar Beron High

    School

    17. Sustainable solutions in

    everyday life – global and

    local impact

    Shizen Izet Kostinbrod

    Dr. Petar Beron High

    School

    16. Sustainable solutions

    and their importance for the

    environment. Climate,

  • energy and waste handling.

    Tsvetelina Ventsislavova Kostinbrod

    Dr. Petar Beron High

    School

    5. Biodiversity and natural

    systems

    Tsvetelina Ventsislavova Kostinbrod

    Dr. Petar Beron High

    School

    4. Natural cycles and flows –

    material and energy

    Vladimir Donov Pazardzhik

    Georgi Benkovski High

    School

    4. Natural cycles and flows –

    material and energy

    The students to whom the lessons were delivered ranged from 9th to 11th graders. According to the

    information submitted in the forms, a total of 276 students participated in the lessons. The actual

    number of unique students may be lower because teachers who piloted more than one lesson may

    have piloted it to the same group of students. The teachers who delivered the lessons are teachers

    in Geography, Biology, Physics, English, Entrepreneurship, Economy, History, as well as

    specialized subjects such as Biomass Energy Production Systems, Technologies for Using Wind

    Energy, etc.

    Almost all teachers used 1 school hour to deliver the respective lesson, although in 4 cases

    teachers used 2 or more school hours to teach the lesson. They focused equally on delivering the

    introduction, the theory, the practical activities, the case studies and the reflection sections of the

    lessons. They did not focus so much on the entrepreneur profiles and the homework.

    In terms of timing, the feedback from the teachers is that in general the time is not enough to deliver

    all parts of the lessons and they had to skip some parts, although several teachers managed to do

    all core sections of the respective lessons. This may be due to the fact that lessons 4, 5, 16 and 17

    that several teachers chose to pilot are among the most voluminous in the GREENT course. Almost

    100 % of teachers thought that the indicative timings proposed for each section in the teachers’

    manual is a good reference for them when planning the lesson.

    The overall assessment presented in Chart 1 below reveals the high appreciation that Bulgarian

    teachers give to the relevance and appropriateness of the overall content and level of difficulty of

    the lessons, including their theoretical sections, entrepreneur profiles, and case studies. Moreover,

    teachers think that the lessons they piloted provide opportunities for real blended learning (4.46 out

    of 5).

  • Chart 1. Assessment of Bulgarian teachers related to GREENT lessons’ content, difficulty, age

    appropriateness and relevance of presented information.

    Results show that teachers in general are not comfortable with the fact that the online videos that

    the lessons link to are in English and have no subtitles in Bulgarian. This was a problem in 8 of the

    cases, while it was not a problem for 6 of the cases. The situation becomes even more complicated

    when teachers are asked whether the English language in the videos is a problem for their students

    – according to teachers, this was a problem for their students in 10 out of 14 cases.

    An important aspect of the GREENT lessons is their influence on fostering and/or changing

    students’ attitudes. The teachers were requested to give their assessment of whether the lessons

    they piloted have an impact on students’ creativity, environmental responsibility and willingness to

    generate their own sustainable business idea. The scores are presented in Chart 2 below:

    4.77

    2.85

    4.38

    4.3

    4.46

    4.46

    THE CONTENT OF THE LESSON IS APPROPRIATE FOR THE AGE OF THE STUDENTS

    LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY OF THE CONTENT (LANGUAGE AND TERMINOLOGY)

    THE THEORETICAL SECTION PRESENTS RELEVANT AND APPROPRIATE INFORMATION ON THE TOPIC

    THE EXAMPLES PRESENTED IN THE CASE STUDIES AND ENTREPRENEUR PROFILES ARE RELEVANT

    THE PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES REINFORCE THE THEORY IN AN APPROPRIATE WAY

    THE LESSON PROVIDES OPPORTUNITIES FOR REAL BLENDED LEARNING

    GREENT lessons’ content, difficulty, age appropriateness and relevance of presented information according to Bulgarian teachers

    Average Score N = 14 (1 = No, 5 = Yes)

  • Chart 2. Assessment of Bulgarian teachers related to GREENT lessons’ ability to foster attitudes and

    creativity.

    In terms of skills that piloting teachers thought were mostly developed by the GREENT lessons

    piloted in Bulgaria, reflection and self-assessment stands out as the leading skills. Critical thinking,

    analysis of information and environmental responsibility were also among the leading skills to be

    developed by the GREENT lessons. Data is summarized in Chart 3 below:

    Chart 3. Skills developed by GREENT lessons piloted in Bulgaria, according to piloting teachers.

    4.3

    4.46

    4

    3.7 3.8 3.9 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

    Lesson develops students' creativity

    Lesson inspires students for environmentally responsiblemindset

    Lesson inspires students to think about their ownsustainable business idea

    GREENT lessons' ability to foster attitudes according to Bulgarian teachers

    Average Score N = 14 (1 = No, 5 = Yes)

    Reflection and self-assessment

    Critical thinking

    Analysis of information

    Environmentally responsible mindset

    Creativity

    Empathy and emotional

    intelligence

    Teamwork

    Decision making

    Holistic thinking

    Digital skills

    EntrepreneurshipSynthesis of information

    Presentation

    SKILLS DEVELOPED BY GREENT LESSONS PILOTED IN BULGARIA

  • It is reassuring to see that the teachers who piloted the content saw a number of cross-curricular

    links of the respective piloted lesson with the other subjects from the compulsory educational

    curriculum. English language teachers, for instance, saw good connections with vocabulary

    practice, listening and reading comprehension, speaking skills. Lesson No. 4 was thought to make

    very good interdisciplinary connection with the “Biosphere” section from the Biology textbook for the

    9th grade. In general the content was seen to link particularly well with general subjects such as

    Geography, Entrepreneurship, Biology, Chemistry, as well as with more specialized subjects such

    as Facilities and installations for biomass energy production.

    A lot of the more general recommendations focus on the English language in the videos. Several

    teachers requested that we subtitle the videos so that they are more easily understandable both for

    the teachers and the students.

    One of the good practices in Bulgaria was the delivery of a public lesson from the GREENT course

    during an extracurricular educational day organized by 23rd High School in Sofia. Students and

    teachers from 4 other Sofia schools were invited too. One of the sessions during the day was

    devoted to piloting Lesson 16. Sustainable solutions and their importance for the environment.

    Climate, energy and waste handling. The public lesson was initiated and delivered by Petya Peeva -

    teacher at 23rd High School "F.J.Curie" in Sofia. The GREENT team is grateful for the flexible way

    in which the lesson was presented, using our materials as a foundation from which further activities

    were initiated by the teacher. The students learned about sustainability, unsustainable extraction of

    natural resources, the impact of their everyday decisions on the planet, plastic-to-fuel technologies,

    etc. In the end, every student made a pledge of one thing they would change in their lives starting

    from tomorrow so that they decrease their negative footprint on the planet.

  • II. Teacher recommendations on individual lessons

    Lesson 4. Natural cycles and flows – material and energy

    The visualization of natural cycles and flows is really helpful.

    Students could cooperate and share, the lesson gave the opportunity for students with

    different types of intelligence to be actively engaged.

    The lesson gives a good opportunity, provided every student can be seated at an individual

    computer desk, for self-paced learning.

    For some students in specialized vocational schools the content was too easy and a

    recommendation is to add schemes and definitions that would increase the complexity of

    the lesson and make it more attractive for students on a more advanced level.

    The practical activity and the reflection part went particularly well.

    Lesson 5. Biodiversity and natural systems

    As I liked all of the three cases, I divided the class in groups and let the students go over

    their case study and then the three groups shared what they had learned.

  • The practical activity went particularly well.

    Lesson 16. Sustainable solutions and their importance for the environment. Climate, energy and

    waste handling.

    The lesson gives a lot of opportunities for team work and ways to link theory with practice

    and everyday life.

    Case study 2 is quite difficult to solve, it requires specific knowledge.

    The best part were the case studies.

    It was difficult to do the quiz with all students.

    The practical activities were really interesting and the answers to the questions were very

    creative. The group discussion were very good.

    The theoretical part was a bit difficult for the students and took longer to deliver.

    Lesson 17. Sustainable solutions in everyday life – global and local impact

    The video in the theoretical part was very interesting for the students. They also thought the

    concept about Gross National Happiness was quite interesting.

    The time was not enough to reach the practical activities part.

    Lesson 18. Examples of sustainable businesses

    Students created a very good poster as a homework. They were impressed by the videos in

    the lesson and definitely started thinking about their actions and impact on the environment.

    Lesson 22. Circular economy

    The students easily understood the idea behind circular economy and came up with ideas

    how they can be part of it.

    The entrepreneur section is too long to be carefully read and discussed. Maybe, it's a good

    idea to give it as a homework assignment.

    III. Overall teacher self-assessment after delivery of all planned lessons

    Apart from the feedback and recommendations teachers gave after piloting each lesson, they were

    asked to fill in a short self-assessment survey designed to gauge their perception regarding

    possible improvements in the level of their teaching skills and knowledge as a result of participating

    in the pilot. A total of 6 teachers filled in the survey although more teachers participated in the pilot.

    Although by no means representative, the results show a marked improvement in the way teachers

    see their green entrepreneurship and blended learning knowledge and skills after the end of the

    pilot:

  • Chart 4. Before & After delivering pilot lessons teacher self-assessment for Bulgaria

    Teachers evaluated positively the fact that blended learning helps students understand topics that

    they are not familiar with in an accessible way and makes them think critically on subjects they have

    never heard of before. They also thought the lessons present useful and up-to-date information

    which helps develop their environmentally-friendly mindset and culture. The video materials were

    assessed as appropriately chosen and interesting for the students. The lessons in general are well

    structured and innovative, they manage to “catch” the students’ attention. Even if a difficulty arises

    with the English language in the videos, therein also lies an opportunity for cooperation in the

    classroom because the students with more advanced levels of English comprehension translated

    for the others.

    All teachers expressed their desire to implement the full GREENT course in the 2017-2018 school

    year.

    IV. Student pre- and post-test results

    In order to gather information on the improvement of students’ knowledge and perceptions, we

    designed a test with 10 closed- and open-ended questions which teachers were asked to distribute

    to students before and after the piloted lessons. The results should not be treated as too reliable, as

    some students who took the test were exposed to only 1 pilot lesson while other were exposed to 3

    and more, thus the level would undoubtedly vary because the test questions cover aspects from

    several of the GREENT lessons. Also, mainly due to the fact that the piloting was done at the end of

    the school year, many students did not fill in the post-test (and filled in only the pre-test) which does

    not allow us to compare like for like. However, we believe it is useful to present the results as a

    vantage point.

    In Bulgaria, a total of 113 students completed the pre-test and 58 completed the post-test.

    4

    4.2

    4.4

    4.6

    4.8

    5

    5.2

    5.4

    Level of green entrepreneurshipknowledge

    Level of entrepreneurship teachingskills

    Level of knowledge and skills in usingonline digital platforms for blended

    learning

    Before & After delivering pilot lessons teacher self-assessment Bulgaria

    Average score (N = 6, scale of 2 to 6) BEFORE Average score (N = 6, scale of 2 to 6) AFTER

  • 4%

    2%

    9%

    9%

    26%

    17%

    49%

    50%

    13%

    22%

    0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Stro

    ngl

    yd

    isag

    ree

    Dis

    agre

    e

    Ne

    ith

    erag

    ree,

    no

    rd

    isag

    ree

    Agr

    eeSt

    ron

    gly

    agre

    eI am responsible for waste recycling.

    3%

    2%

    2%

    3%

    23%

    19%

    54%

    47%

    19%

    29%

    0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Stro

    ngl

    yd

    isag

    ree

    Dis

    agre

    e

    Ne

    ith

    erag

    ree,

    no

    rd

    isag

    ree

    Agr

    eeSt

    ron

    gly

    agre

    e

    I take care of the surrounding environment.

  • 4%

    2%

    7%

    5%

    29%

    22%

    45%

    48%

    15%

    22%

    0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Stro

    ngl

    yd

    isag

    ree

    Dis

    agre

    e

    Ne

    ith

    erag

    ree,

    no

    rd

    isag

    ree

    Agr

    eeSt

    ron

    gly

    agre

    eI am interested in finding out about the

    sustainability problems our society is facing.

    4%

    2%

    8%

    7%

    23%

    19%

    50%

    48%

    15%

    24%

    0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Stro

    ngl

    yd

    isag

    ree

    Dis

    agre

    e

    Ne

    ith

    erag

    ree,

    no

    rd

    isag

    ree

    Agr

    eeSt

    ron

    gly

    agre

    e

    At this moment, I understand the drivers and consequences of global natural resource changes.

  • 4%

    2%

    8%

    5%

    20%

    28%

    46%

    41%

    21%

    24%

    0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Stro

    ngl

    yd

    isag

    ree

    Dis

    agre

    e

    Ne

    ith

    erag

    ree,

    no

    rd

    isag

    ree

    Agr

    eeSt

    ron

    gly

    agre

    eAt this moment, I am willing to introduce changes in my daily life so that I become more sustainable.

    7%

    2%

    23%

    19%

    39%

    34%

    23%

    36%

    8%

    9%

    0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Stro

    ngl

    yd

    isag

    ree

    Dis

    agre

    e

    Ne

    ith

    erag

    ree,

    no

    rd

    isag

    ree

    Agr

    eeSt

    ron

    gly

    agre

    e

    At this moment, I feel I am prepared if I want to start my own sustainable green business.

  • 7%

    0%

    19%

    12%

    35%

    40%

    27%

    34%

    12%

    14%

    0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Before %

    After %

    Stro

    ngl

    yd

    isag

    ree

    Dis

    agre

    e

    Ne

    ith

    erag

    ree,

    no

    rd

    isag

    ree

    Agr

    eeSt

    ron

    gly

    agre

    eAt this moment, I feel inspired and willing to start my own green business sometime in the

    future.

    29%

    46%

    46%

    16%

    19%

    65%

    36%

    52%

    53%

    28%

    38%

    72%

    0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

    Solving complex problems like climate changerequires the action of:

    It is NOT true that waste:

    How do our current lifestyles impact the naturalresources of the Earth today:

    It is a condition for a sustainable society that:

    If a company is part of the circular economy:

    Green entrepreneurship is different fromentrepreneurship in that:

    Correct answers on knowledge questions Bulgaria

    % correct answers after % correct answers before

  • 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

    Strongly disagree

    Disagree

    Neither agree, nor disagree

    Agree

    Strongly agree

    Students' perception of the value of GREENT Bulgaria

    This program helped me adopt a more eco-friendly attitude.

    This program connected what I learned in the classroom to real life.

    In this program, I learned things that will be important in the future.