Effective Teacher's Professional Development: the case of School of Rock in Italy

Alessia Cicconi (1,2), Claudia Lupi (3) & Angelo Camerlenghi (4)
(1) School of Sciences and Technology, University of Camerino. (2) Liceo Classico "F. Stabili - E. Trebbiani", Ascoli Piceno. (3) Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia. (4) Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e Geofisica Sperimentale di Trieste. Corresponding author e-mail: claudia.lupi@unipv.it

School of Rock is a summer school for science teachers during which they become familiar with the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and Earth Sciences through the interactions with IODP scientists and Education/Outreach Officers. The European School of Rock 2018 was held in Italy at the University of Pavia and was focused on “Understanding the Climate System through ocean sediments”. The summer school included scientific lectures, practical hands-on activities on IODP cores and databases and was based on the immersion in the process of doing science alongside researchers. Sixteen Science teachers from Italian junior high schools (students 11-13 year old) and high schools (14-18 year old) attended the School of Rock. Our research aimed to understand if School of Rock could improve the confidence of teachers in Earth Sciences and in the use of an inquiry based science education approach in their classes. We collected information from the participants through ex-ante and ex- post surveys. The participants outlined the acquisition of several benefits such as a general improvement of the content knowledge and new ideas for their teaching practice highlighting that School of Rock represented in the teachers’ perception an effective professional development.

Science Education, Teachers’ Professional Development, Laboratory training.