Teachers at the European training course

European teachers training course was a success

The European teachers training course on tangible programming, held last week in Aveiro, finished last Saturday and participants are motivated with what they have learned and can use in primary school education.

For five days, 16 teachers from Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria and Latvia attended the European teachers training course on tangible programming promoted in the framework of the TangIn project. The course aimed to promote teachers’ competences in using tangible programming concepts and tools to foster student’s inclusion and computational thinking in STEM based subjects.

Together, trainers and participating teachers learned how to use attractive and funny pedagogical exercises on STEM-based subjects, using physical interfaces (e.g. controlled robots by blocks or incorporated buttons). Teachers were also introduced to the TangIn project resources, such as the toolbox of educational activities and the teacher’s handbook,

The course was a success! Teachers were engaged in the activities and provided very positive and enthusiastic feedback. Several comments support this outcome and focus different benefits that the use of tangible programming can bring.  The following aspects were shared in the last session of the course:

  • “…it can be used in science, mathematics to stimulate students to learn and to be more active in class.”
  • “…the lessons are more interesting, more fun and it’s easily for students to learn by playing, and they also learn how to work in groups.”
  • “All the activities can be used in real classrooms. The new resources will enable the use of new working strategies for teachers.”
  • “It allowed us to know several digital tools that can contribute to the design of innovative educational resources, that will promote student’s imagination and creativity, critical thinking, computational thinking and problem-solving skills.”
  • “It allows students to solve problems in a ludic and attractive way.”
  • “The tools are important to promote the cooperative work in the classroom and that will support students’ inclusion.”

 

Suggestions were given by the teachers, namely the creation of an online repository of lesson plans for all the teachers and where teachers could also share new activities and lesson plans in new subjects.

The participants in the teachers training course will now train other colleagues at their schools and create a working group that will use the TangIn toolbox of educational resources in their classes for an experimentation period. This pilot test period will last from March until the end of the school year.

To learn more about the TangIn project or if you would like to know how to participate in the project activities or have access to the resources produced, you can do so by contacting Pedro Costa through the email pedro.costa@inova.business or by consulting the project website (www.tangin.eu) or the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/tanginproject).