Abstract:

This work describes the Open Course Black Holes in My School (BHIMS) developed under the scope of the Multilateral KA3 Project SoNetTE: Social Networks, as well as tutors evaluation. Sonette is developing online educational open courses and using international collaborative research as a core strategy to promote teachers’ professional learning communities that analyze and research educational questions faced by teachers when developing their teaching activity.

As teacher is increasingly considered a complex and challenging activity, it becomes also crucial to understand which competences characterize a good teacher and which strategies promote teacher professional development. This challenge is even higher to science teachers due to students are giving up from science courses and careers, despite the importance and interest they attribute to them. Previous research calls attention to the diversity of strategies that have been used until now to promote teacher professional development and also to the importance of collaborative reflection about teaching and learning processes ((e.g.Day, 2008; Darling-Hammond, 2009), and also to the need to empower teacher to use enriched technological teaching and learning environments (e.g. OECD, 2009, 2014).

BHIMS involves the online teacher training workshop to introduce teachers to basic aspects of black holes and how to integrate the use of virtual tools and resources, as robotic telescopes in their daily lesson and to understand the necessary steps to ensure a good team dynamics in classroom for applying an inquiry based science teaching methodology. It also aims to analyse the impact of the use of such methodology and evaluate the possibility of spreading the example to other topics or fields of expertise. In this scope, teachers participate in a study group to gather research data about their pupils understanding of the scientific method: planning an investigation, building and analyzing data, communicating their ideas to others and participating in peer review process.

In this paper, BHIMS structure and resources will be characterized, as well as the main features of its implementation and evaluation from the tutor’ perspective. Preliminary results from content analysis of the tutor logbook, interview and also the SWOT analysis point to the potential of international online study groups and collaborative research to promote teacher professional development, but also to the challenge to manage online communication and motivation to develop the tasks proposed. The degree of directivity and structuration of the learning activity in a science inquiry method is also discussed.