LOCAL WORKSHOPS IN GREECE

The NGSS Local Workshops were conducted by the Pedagogical Department of Preschool Education of the University of Crete during the winter semester of the academic year 2021-2022 with a total duration of 9 weeks.

Participants were students who were doing their teaching practice at the kindergartens of Rethymnon and professional teachers who were living and working in Rethymnon, Herkalion, Chania and Sparta (Peloponissos, Greece). A total, 52 students participated in the workshops (49 female and 3 male), 36 preschool/kindergarten teachers (34 female and 2 male), 1 primary school teacher (female) and 1 English teacher (female). Most of the workshops were held face-to-face while 2 workshops were conducted online in an effort to engage teachers who couldn’t travel to Rethymnon to participate in face-to-face workshops. The workshops presented the STEM methodological approaches to participants, such as inquiry-based learning, art-based learning, the SCAMPER technique etc. Dr. Zuhal Yilmaz Dogan presented the methodological approach of SCAMPER to the Greek teachers and students in an online workshop. A particular feature of the Greek workshops is that the project team monitored and supported classroom implementations that took place after the workshops.

The vast majority of the workshop participants claimed that they helped them to learn new and innovative ways to integrate science into their teaching practice, understand different teaching approaches and were encouraged to adopt more child-centered teaching practices. They also stated that their expectations had been met to a great extent, and emphasized the need for more training on these approaches”.