The ability to comprehend is probably one of the most important abilities of people. Comprehension can be worked on, developed, improved as any other ability we have. It is not only important but crucial for the education process, since it is responsible for the most difficult task - to pass on particular agreements, different notions, processes and concepts not as a formal text, but in a manner that these notions and concepts find their place among other concepts already existing in the students’ knowledge database, relate to them and most of all be understood in a way, which will allow them to be further applied in everyday life. Comprehension gives us access to know about the world around us. Our way to be and to behave is deeply influenced by our perception and how we comprehend the information that surrounds us.
The aim of the project is to develop youth culture of gaining comprehension in science subjects (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology) as well as to promote students’ creativity, thus making scientific knowledge better understandable and with higher probability of implementing it in real life.
The idea of the project is to develop methodology and pedagogical tools for science teaching and learning focused on coherence of the educational content with the comprehension model of students. This will allow science education in schools to be more motivating, open and students to have greater responsibility for their own learning process. The tools and methodology will combine the best of several pedagogical approaches (as constructivism, connectivism, peer-learning) and focus on comprehension which is usually not the central point of the currently used pedagogical tools and practices, since they focus on the role of the teacher and motivation of students.
The project aims at creating intellectual products that will allow teaching and learning sciences in any school, despite the curricula, type of school, grade the pupils are in, etc.
The project outputs will give the teachers the freedom to relate concepts in scientific subjects, which often are situated in different grades in the curricula for students to study, which make students forget and lose the connection between the different knowledge units, which decreases their comprehension and functional literacy and leads to serious underachievement in the science subjects, which also is a reason for students not having the ability to work on development of transversal competences in the future.
Under the project, teachers will acquire new competences and skills to address students' under achievements and work not only for the forming of basic knowledge and skill of sciences, but also for the forming of transversal competences - development of creativity, adaptation to the rapidly changing circumstances, intercultural competences, social development, “learning to learn” competences and an improved perception of one’s own capacity to solve problems.
