Our Family-based Open Science Schooling project is one of the first systematic European attempts to experiment with such challenges. The project’s most important mission is to develop practically useful guidance to secondary schools and science teachers on how to organize and facilitate family-based open science schooling with good quality, based on rich practical experimentation along the project and on co-creation with young students and their families.
Motivation
The project is motivated by the European Commission call:
Encourage “open schooling” where schools, in cooperation with other stakeholders, become an agent of community well-being; families are encouraged to become real partners in school life and activities; professionals from enterprise, civil and wider society are actively involved in bringing real-life projects into the classroom.
COMMISSION 2015, SCIENCE EDUCATION FOR RESPONSIBLE CITIZENSHIP
Home-school collaboration
Parents’ education and involvement needs teachers’ effort. So many things have changed, and we cannot expect parents to know every new dynamics of the education. Here are some recommended strategies to involve parents in their children education in general 1
When it comes to the science learning realm, research shows that it is of vital importance for teachers to invite parents to be actively involved through home-school collaboration (HSC) – hence it is critical for the parents to feel invited and welcomed by their child or the teacher and school to participate actively. Even when parents experience resource constraints, studies show that if they perceive that their participation is desired by teachers, they find ways to be involved. The project aims at achieving this!
1Teach.com. (2020). 3 Strategies to Involve Parents in Children’s Education – Blog. [online] Available at: https://teach.com/blog/3-strategies-to-involve-parents-in-children-education/ [Accessed 11 Feb. 2020].