The results of the TECCHED project are:
– a technology-supported climate change curriculum for teacher education programs aiming at fostering character and values development,
– a technology-supported climate change enriched book, and
– a digital learning platform for educators.
These resources aim to create an increased level of TPACK self-efficacies, cognitive structures about teaching climate change, improved views of faculty members on the roles of character and values in teaching climate change will result.
The resources including the learning platform and e-book were created in English and translations into other languages are made using an auto-translation tool.
Technology Enhanced Climate Change Curriculum
TECCHED has created a technology-enhanced climate change curriculum to meet the need for a greater emphasis on the importance of affective domains in decision-making processes, this embraces emotions, attitudes towards socio-scientific issues and epistemological beliefs.
Previous technology-enhanced curriculum initiatives mainly focus on increasing students’ content knowledge about climate change. However, according to Choi et al. (2011), ‘character and values’ are fundamental tools for socio-scientific reasoning and decision making. A curriculum that incorporates ‘character and values’ to support educating responsible citizens that mitigate the effects of climate change needs to be created.
Furthermore, the number of open resources available to faculty members in teacher education programs for teaching and developing the ‘affective aspects’ of climate change is scarce. These resources tend not to be suitable for distance learning with technology.
This work package will drill more deeply into the needs of target groups, mainly faculty members of universities and pre-service teachers, to understand their background knowledge and skills and to evaluate which new skills and competencies they need to gain with the TECCHED program. Such a technology-enhanced climate change curriculum will increase the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) of faculty members teaching this subject.
The specific objectives have been to:
– Conduct a needs analysis to determine the curriculum development methodology
– Collect data to formulate information and requirements on the climate change subject and prepare the draft curriculum.
– Review the curriculum through focus group interviews
The curriculum includes a theoretical background as well as information about climate change issues. It proposes modules about the scientific background of the subject and explains the theoretical background of character and values education in the context of climate change education.
The curriculum provides sample activities that explain how to incorporate character and values sub-dimensions when teaching this subject.
The outcome aims to increase the TPACK by eliminating the resource difficulties in the distance education processes in climate change education of faculty members working in education faculties.
Enriched Book
The objective is the design of an enriched-book dealing with the previously prepared curriculum. With this book, the needs of faculty members will be met by the creation of open access teaching materials.
The enriched book content could also be used by teachers in their own classrooms and by pre-service teachers in their lessons at their internship schools, both in technology-supported face-to-face environments and through distance education.
The innovative aspect of this output is that it will serve as interactive materials for educators to teach the topic of climate change by explicitly targeting the development of character and values, while increasing TPACK of faculty members for teaching climate change.
The objectives of this Work Package have been to:
– select and edit content for the enriched book
– determine learning opportunities and experiences and useful technologies
– present the content of the book to faculty members.
Digital Learning Platform
The curriculum and enriched book content will be prepared and integrated with tools and resources into a digital learning platform. The learning program then is applied with faculty members and evaluated. Faculty members from each partner organisation were trained. They then train other faculty members at their own university. Local faculty members will be asked to implement what they have learned.
A catalogue of learning technology tools has been created in the learning platform. The tools have been reviewed and are classified as generic and climate-specific.
As there is increasing attention to the hybrid models in teacher education, this resource can be used by many related departments in both hybrid and online education models.
The specific objectives of this WP are:
– Preparing an instructional design document for planning the creation of a digital learning platform
– Developing the prototype of the platform
– Revising and finalising the platform
– Providing faculty training to train trainers.
– Piloting the digital learning platform with other local faculty and preservice teachers
– Finalising the platform
– Disseminating the platform and project results through a closing activity.