Abstract:

The largest part of web production for science teachers is written in English. This seems to be an obstacle to make teaching materials available and utilized by Italian teachers, and this is particularly important when trying to improve the teaching of geosciences in the Italian schools. Thus, a preliminary questionnaire has been sent to a sample of Italian science teachers and on the basis of their answers geoscience topics have been selected to prepare teaching aids. The most interesting and useful Earth science existing web-tools have been selected, adapted to the Italian school system and organized into different sections to cover the chosen topics. The aim of this project, as part of my PhD program in “Teaching Earth Sciences”, is to investigate the response of the teachers to the availability of ready-to-use materials to be used in the class.

A dedicated website has been built as a repository for the teaching units, all of which including: a power point file, a pdf file, a MP4 file, a set of exercises and extra movies, relevant links and references:
• The power point file consist on a selection of the most significant images flanked by a key-point text. The important added value for this file are the links that drive the teachers directly to most of the teaching material they were interested about (as animations, movies and so on).
• The pdf file is the content of the whole lesson, which is a sort of a “guide” that support teachers, but could be also used directly by the students.
• The exercises are a suggestion for testing the students. Each item is followed by a set of multiple choice and of open answers questions.
• The mp4 is the slide show with a voice off explaining the whole content. It is thought for the teachers, but can be used also by the students in the “flipped classroom” approach.
• The extra movies are short MP4 file about specific didactical concepts thought for making them as clear as possible to the students.

The lessons are uploaded into a specific area of the Unicamearth web page http://d7.unicam.it/teachingearthsciences/, where teachers register themselves and get the access to the learning objects. Each learning object has its own comment space where teachers can record their opinion, but there are also feedback questionnaire on each unit, which provide a valuable information to determine the response of the teachers and improving the quality/effectiveness of the website.

Up to now the website contains the first two units and 49 teachers registered themselves; around 1/3 of the teachers already answered the first questionnaire, in spite of the fact that this is a very busy period for teachers. I expect that only during the summer the registered teachers would have time to analyse better the website and give a complete feedback about its effectiveness. On the basis of their answers, variations to the units would be carried out, new didactical units would be uploaded and new teachers will be engaged in the project.