The practical workshops focused on stem education, planning engaging lessons, and using technology in the classroom effectively.

Learning by exploring, implementing interactive teaching methods, sharing best practices among teachers from all over Europe – these were some of the topics covered during the two-day training which was co-organized by European Schoolnet and Teach For Bulgaria and took place in Sofia on May 12 and 13. Thirty-six teachers from different schools and various locations participated in the training. Some of them were Teach For Bulgaria participants or alumni of the program who had the opportunity to take part in the training along with some of their colleagues at school.

Three experts from the Brussels-based European Schoolnet led the training – Dr. Anastasia Boyko, Doctor of Astrophysics and Mathematics, Victor Perez-Rubio, biologist and pedagogist, and Borbala Poje, sociologist and project coordinator. Prof. Toni Chehlarova and Dr. Evgenia Sendova from the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences gave presentations during the opening of the training. The Institute of Mathematics and Informatics is the point of contact with European Schoolnet for Bulgaria. The two researchers – Prof. Chehlarova and Dr. Sendova – are also part of the “Virtual Mathematics Classroom” – a platform with resources for teaching math for all grade levels.

The training consisted of practical workshops which gave teachers an opportunity to work on key questions such as how to plan engaging lessons, how to use technology purposefully in the classroom, how to develop functional literacy, and what tools to use when teaching STEM subjects. During the two-day training the participants learned more about European Schoolnet resource database. They had the opportunity to create their own lessons, and get feedback from the experts.

You can see some photos from the training here:

What is European Schoolnet?

European Schoolnet is a not-for-profit organization, a network of 34 European Ministries of Education. The mission of the organization is to support education stakeholders in Europe in the transformation of education in alignment with the requirements of the 21st century – both at the level of policy-making and relationship building with partners from the industry, and in practice at schools and among teachers and researchers. The network explores and tests innovatie methods. It also provides concrete evidence and data from their implementation, and facilitates the sharing of teaching and learning tools. European Schoolnet has three main focus areas – digital citizenship, evidence for innovation, and STEM education. The network also facilitates the sharing of best practices among teachers and supranational teacher communities.

One such community is created as part of the Scientix project which promotes and stimulates collaboration in STEM education among teachers, researchers, policy-makers, and other STEM professionals. An integral part of the project is also the organization of an online portal which stores information about EU projects related to STEM education as well as the results of these projects. The platform provides free translation of resources whenever a sufficient number of teachers are interested.

More free resources and tools for teachers are available on the portal of the research project Next-Lab which focuses on inquiry-based science education. It provides access to virtual laboratories, ideas for interactive teaching methods, and a tool which can help teachers create interdisciplinary lessons and share them with their students.

The training was made possible by the support of:

• Horizon 2020;
• The projects Scientix 3 and Next-Lab.