In the Dinosaur' Steps through IBL Scenario: A Way to Overcome

Prejudice for Career in STEM

Eliza Stefanova, Albena Antonova, Dafinka Miteva and Nikolina Nikolova

Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Sofia University, Bulgaria

Keywords: Inquiry-based Learning, STEM, IBL Scenario, Science Career.

Abstract: The Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a powerful learning approach, especially in the field of science,

technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This paper presents the implementation of an IBL scenario

for teachers’ competence development aiming to overcome students’ and their parents prejudice for scientists

and scientist’s profession, and to encourage them to get interested in STEM career. In the Dinosaurs’ steps

experiment students have to become researchers in a Paleontological museum, taking part in different training

activities and sharing impression about the scientists’ profession. In parallel, observing actions of the students,

teachers had to acquire professional competences for design of learning activities so to find a way to overcome

the most popular bias and prejudices toward the career in STEM. How scenario succeed to convince future

scientists to continue in Dinosaurs’ steps is presented through participants’ answers of the questions. The

most valuable result of the experiment is the IBL scenario, developed by a teacher, who transferred her

experience from the experiment into her own classroom. Finally, the paper summarizes some opportunities

for applying IBL in STEM teaching – joining the efforts of educational, scientific and cultural institutions and

bringing together teachers, parents, scientists and experts.

1 INTRODUCTION

The recent debates about the jobs of the future raise

the issue of the tremendous gender disproportion in

STEM jobs, noticing that more girls have to be

encouraged to join the science career. The recent in-

depth studies of Microsoft in EU (Microsoft, 2017)

and USA (Microsoft, 2018) reveal the key factors

influencing the girls’ interest in STEM – having

practical, hands-on experiences, female role models

and exposure to STEM jobs, encouragement and

support from teachers and parents, possibility to

explore creativity and real-world impact in STEM.

On the other hand, the jobs of the future will raise

the demand for complex competences such as critical

thinking, creativity, complex problem solving,

teamwork and mastering innovative technologies

(Caena, 2011). In this context, students have to be

stimulated to be pro-active, building knowledge from

first-hand. Therefore, teachers should be able to take

a new role of mentors, supporting students’ learning

via more innovative active learning methods.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is an active learning

methodology, empowering students to take the role of

researchers and scientists (Nikolova, et al., 2018),

driven by their curiosity. In IBL, teachers organise the

learning process in a meaningful context scenarios,

where students can build new knowledge and skills

from their own personal experiences, reflections and

insights.

It is important to highlight that successful

implementation of active learning methods depends

on the teachers’ attitudes, professional and social

competences, and experience (Nikolova and

Stefanova, 2014). Therefore, the application of IBL

approaches requires new teaching skills and

competences. Teachers should develop competences

to adapt and apply new technologies in the teaching

process, to assess critically new learning resources

and to be able to evaluate creative and non-standard

ideas of the learners, to conduct pedagogical research

in their classrooms, to organise / participate in

professional discussions and analysis of their work.

Another important issue is the ability of the teachers

to interpret the complex competences and to teach

learners how to acquire these key competences

(Nikolova, et al., 2018).

This paper aims to present and discuss an IBL

scenario as an effective teachers’ meta-training -

involving them in an IBL experiment, encouraging

Stefanova, E., Antonova, A., Miteva, D. and Nikolova, N.

In the Dinosaur’ Steps through IBL Scenario: A Way to Overcome Prejudice for Career in STEM.

DOI: 10.5220/0007731104010408

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2019), pages 401-408

ISBN: 978-989-758-367-4

401

students orientation to research career in STEM. The

IBL scenario In the Dinosaurs' Steps has two goals

addressing teachers’ competences and students’

attitudes. By observing and reflecting on their own

experience, students had to investigate what are the

key aspects of the researchers’ career. On their turn,

teacher’ inquiry focuses on approaches and activities,

promoting gender equality and fostering girls’

interest to science. The experiment is organised in the

framework of the event "European Researchers’

Night 2018”. It took place in the Museum of

Palaeontology and Historical Geology at Sofia

University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Bulgaria. The

name of the scenario In the Dinosaurs’ Steps aims to

provoke both students and teachers, making a parallel

between the objects in the Palaeontology museum –

fossils, footprints, and skeletons from the past and the

dinosaurs – the scholars whom children often portray

as elderly people from nineteen century with obsolete

concepts and methods.

2 METHODOLOGY

Inquiry-based learning has been identified as one of

the most powerful innovative teaching approaches for

raising scientific literacy of the learners, as well as for

teachers’ competence development, stepping on

inquiry and reflective practice (Earl and Ussher,

2016). The reflective practice in education is usually

characterized by 1) looking back to own practice and

thinking about the experience and possibilities for

improvement or going closer to the desired state; 2)

exploring possible solutions and alternatives; 3)

taking evidence-based decision and 4) evaluating

results of its implementation which is actually the

first stage of the new reflective cycle. The term

‘reflective practice’ can be used as a synonym of

‘reflection’, defied by Barnett and O’Mahony (2006)

as a learning process examining current or past

practices, behaviours, or thoughts in order to make

conscious choices about future actions. This

definition implies that reflection is the combination of

hindsight, insight, and foresight (Barnett and

O’Mahony, 2006).

The critical reflection allows learners to learn

from their own mistakes, examining actions,

evaluating them against prescribed norms, alter them

for success, repeat successes, revise and plan

continually (Krishnamurthy, 2007). In addition,

critical reflection promotes developing networking

opportunities, making friends, building confidences

and self-esteem, enhancing team working skills and

developing leadership skills.

According Earl and Ussher the IBL approach,

enhanced by a group reflective practice, is much more

powerful, because the inquiry covers variety of

qualitative pedagogical research methods such as

self-study, auto ethnography, action research,

teaching as inquiry, and spiral of inquiry. An inquiry

process, along with learning from this process, is

intentionally designed to be shared (Earl and Ussher,

2016).

Among the main difficulties for teachers to

implement IBL in the classroom, is the lack of own

experience in it. Usually, the teachers’ training

courses are conducted in a traditional way via

lectures. Therefore further attention should be paid on

using inquiry and reflective learning model for

teacher’ training as the teacher teaches in such a way

in which he/she was taught.

The presented IBL approach consist of design and

implementation of specific learning scenario,

following the weSPOT IBL six-phase model:

Problem/Topic, Operationalisation (realisation of the

idea with the aim to measure), Data collection, Data

Analysis (processing), Interpretation, and

Communication (Mikroyannidis at al., 2013).

The described IBL scenario interweaves formal

and informal learning, involves different stakeholders

- parents, scientists, experts, museum workers, etc. It

provides opportunities for learners to meet scientists

and STEM experts, to find role models among them

and to get better understanding of the impact of the

scientific work.

An important part of implementation this

approach is the reflection, the self-observation, the

group sharing and reasoning the new knowledge and

skills acquired on each stage. For presented

experiment it is chosen the DojoIBL (https://dojo-

ibl.appspot.com) platform, which supports IBL in

general and particularly feedback sharing, group

reflections, surveys and queries, allowing scenarios’

further analysis and replication.

For teachers, training on how to design and

conduct STEM IBL scenario through IBL

pedagogical scenario cares significant added value –

real, experienced by themselves, model; possibility to

extract good practices for their own audience, raising

attitude and awareness to own professional

development by self and group reflection.

3 EXPERIMENT AND CONTEXT

The experiment was designed and organised as an

IBL scenario In the Dinosaurs' Steps. Its objectives

were to explore how an IBL scenario can put students

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

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and teachers in the role of researchers during the visit

of Palaeontology museum and a science fair-type of

event. Therefore, both teachers and students had to

observe and investigate different elements while

taking part in the tasks and activities organized during

the event "European Researchers’ Night – 2018". The

experiment covered part of the IBL scenario phases:

data collection, data analysis, interpretation of the

results, and the communication phase, which was

partly addressed – mainly through questionnaire

which results are presented later. Due to time

limitations and organisational setting, the phase of

problem/topic definition and operationalisation were

pre-defined by teachers’ educators (the activities,

stands, games, surveys, data collection models and

techniques were designed beforehand). Teachers also

took the position of learners, who together with their

students received their tasks on place.

More than 130 children took part in the

completion of the In the Dinosaurs’ Steps IBL

scenario. The majority of the pupils were

approximately 10 years old. There were organised in

groups, accompanied by 7 teachers in total. In

addition, children who came accompanied by their

parents also took part in the scenario.

3.1 Students’ Activities

The scenario for students aimed to improve the

pupils’ perceptions and attitudes for the profession of

the scientists. The students had the task to reflect on

the researchers’ career and the opportunities that the

scientific path give to acquire valuable knowledge

and skills for the future.

Before entering in the museum, the children had

the opportunity to take part in biology experiments

measuring bones, putting down their own fingerprints

and observing them through the microscope. Before

the museum visit, they received also additional

material (Fig. 1, 2, 3). The educational activities in

the museum were organised based on the children’s

age. The primary school pupils had to find out more

information about the Deinotherium, and to discover

the specifics of its diet and its natural environment.

They had to choose the relevant pictures and to write

down the scientific name of the Deinotherium in the

provided to them worksheet (Fig. 1). The fossils of

the Deinotherium were discovered in Bulgaria and it

represents the biggest skeleton in the University

Palaeontology museum.

Figure 1: Worksheet for the task about the Deinotherium

diet and living conditions.

Another task (and relative worksheet) for students

(Fig. 2) was to walk around the museum and to

choose an object or artefact (bone, skeleton). Then,

they have to sketch the artefact, and to investigate

more information about its story, as for example the

fossil name, its diet, its way of movement, natural

environment, ecosystem and threats.

Figure 2: Worksheet for a task for making a sketch and

investigating fossils’ living conditions.

The students had the task as well to imagine and

design an artificial creature based on the real fossils.

On the worksheet (Fig. 3) they had an example

illustrating how palaeontology fossils inspired people

to figure out ancient mythology creatures like

dragons. Students can draw their own magical

creature and decide how to transform its real features

into magical ones.

Figure 3: The worksheet for making a sketch and inventing

a new mythology creature.

Finally, students could figure out a story about

this creature composing a short storyboard, a comics

or computer game. All students had the possibility to

consult researchers and scientists in the museum, to

work together and share experience, to ask questions

In the Dinosaur’ Steps through IBL Scenario: A Way to Overcome Prejudice for Career in STEM

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and investigate information in Internet. All of them,

who succeeded to fill their worksheets, received small

gift. It has to be stated that all these activities and the

tasks before and during the visit of the museum

influenced to a large scale of questions and answers

of the researchers’ career.

After taking part in the Researchers’ night event,

including numerous games, experimentation stands in

the museum and university, meetings with scientists,

lecturers and demonstrators, pupils had to write down

their observations and impressions in a prepared in

advance picture questionnaire. In this perspective, the

students’ scenario did not addressed building specific

STEM knowledge, but mostly – building inquiry

skills and attitude to the science and scientific career.

However, in correspondence to teachers’ training

scenario, it draw their attention on what is to be a

researcher; what are students’ associations, relate to

the scientists’ characteristics; are there some patterns;

is there a significant difference in the boys’ and girls’

views; are there obvious prejudice, still prevailing

after the event, challenging teachers future work.

3.2 Teachers’ Activities

The focus of the teacher’s scenario is on pedagogical

research on design, delivery and evaluation of IBL

STEM out of the classroom, so to overcome some of

the popular biases and misconceptions about the

career perspectives in STEM sciences. Teachers had

to observe and investigate if their students find the

STEM sciences boring or not and what activities

provoke their conclusions, did the students share the

gender prejudices that STEM are only for boys or not

and what they did or see to take such decision.

Teachers’ activities included also hands-on practice

on students reflections and discussions management

– they had guides on how to develop questions for

discussion and reflection, and how to manage it such

a way, that lead students to awareness and evaluation

of the experience and the lessons learned during the

event. At the end, the teachers had to reflect on which

of the activities and games in the museum help to

overcome these most popular stereotypes. They

should also reflect on the way of their own

professional development through live participation

in an IBL process.

In order to complete their mission, in the

beginning of their visit to the “Researchers’ night”

event, teachers received instructions about the IBL

scenario (preliminary designed by authors as

teachers’ educators), supplemented with materials

about different aspects of the competences of the

future, the role of critical thinking and creativity for

the professions of the future, as well as resources

about the impact of the IBL for acquiring new

knowledge and skills. Before starting the training, the

teachers had present informal pre-survey, as a

experience and opinion sharing, about their

understanding and knowledge on the main prejudices

and misconceptions about STEM, both for students

and parents. Then, during the conduction of the IBL

scenario, the teachers had to observe the attitude, the

interest and the behaviour of the students and what

activities provoke them so to form positive attitude to

science.

After completing all the activities by students,

teachers had to share, using DojoIBL system,

reflections and feedback about this experience. This

time, they had to reflect on their understanding of the

origins of the biases and the main methods and

approaches for overcoming students and parents’

misconceptions and prejudices for STEM sciences.

Teachers had to evaluate their competences to use

interactive teaching approaches, including IBL

approach, assessment models of the students’ learning

achievements during the application of IBL approach

and effective methods to overcome gender prejudices

and misconceptions about the career in STEM. At the

end, the teachers had to evaluate their attitude on

collaborating more intensively in the teacher-student-

parent triangle, working in teams and involving more

stakeholders in these interactions such as scientists,

other teachers, or parents’ communities.

4 ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS

The analysis of the experiment’s results is based

mainly on participant’s feedback. It reveals the effect

of joining the In Dinosaurs Steps IBL scenario.

4.1 Students’ Results

The questionnaire for collecting the students’

observations (Fig. 4) consists of ten open picture-

questions, where students have to answer with their

own words.

Figure 4: A questionnaire filled-in by student.

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Data is presented below. The blue (left) wordless

reflect the boys’ perceptions, and the red (right) – the

girls’ ones.

The data analysis shows that on the question What

do scientists love, most of the children answered that

scientists primarily love to learn, to study, to explore

and to discover new things. Boys are impressed

mostly by the ability of the scientists to make

inventions and to experiment. Girls want ‘like them’

to travel around the world and to make

archaeological discoveries (Fig. 5).

Figure 5: What do scientists like to do?

After the talk with scientists in the museum, it is

not surprisingly that the question Scientists speak

on/talk on ... received the most responses ‘Bulgarian

language’, but there are also answers like ‘Scientists

know English, Latin and German’. In rare cases, boys

find scientific language difficult, secret and

incomprehensible, while for girls it remains

understandable. Boys describe the scientists’

audience divided on interested, colleagues and

ignorant. For girls, the audience includes curious

children and visitors, friends and tourists. Girls are

impressed by the low and calm voice of the scientists.

All students are confident that the scientists speak on

phone and write short messages (Fig. 6).

Figure 6: The scientists speak/talk on...

Students’ answers on question “What tools do

scientists use in their work?” are linked, in most of

the cases, to the tools used by themselves during the

activities in the IBL scenario. According to

participants, the scientists use in their work various

equipment. Most of the students find that the

microscope is the main research instrument, but there

are other tools like modern technologies, telescopes,

appliances and magnifiers. There are bones, imprints

and periscopes among boys’ answers and among the

girls’ ones there are telescopes, books and apparatus.

According to the boys, the scientists use their mind,

and according to the girls: many words (Fig. 7)

Figure 7: What tools do scientists use in their work?

According to the students understanding after

finishing IBL scenario activities, scientists study

dinosaurs, bones of extinct animals, natural

phenomena, history and biology, the world around

them. Among the boys’ responses are science,

phenomena, artefacts, Universe, and among the girls'

answers, more interesting are students, lost creatures,

ruins (Fig. 8).

Figure 8: What do scientists study?

Based on the observation and work done by

students in activities of IBL scenario, scientists can

primarily write and read, discover interesting things

and make experiments. They can observe, study, think

and take important decisions. Boys think that

researchers can observe everything and gather

knowledge while girls are impressed that scientists

can take fingerprints, can solve problems alone and

can educate children (Fig. 9).

Figure 9: What scientists can do?

A part of the activities in the scenario leads also

to the answer of the question What do scientists write

about? According to students, scientists write papers

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405

and books, scientific articles and reports, essays, and

homework. According to boys, scientists describe

their scientific theses, ideas, topics and secrets, and

according to girls, they write about mathematical

problems, discoveries and scientific theories.

The presentation of scientists in the museum, lead

the students to answer as follow on the question

Where do scientists travel? – scientists can travel

everywhere around the world, in Europe, in the

jungle, on the pole, in the space, even in the past.

They can choose an interesting point on the map and

organize an expedition to it, to explore nature and

distant lands (Fig. 10).

Figure 10: Where do scientists travel?

As the IBL scenario took part in university and its

museum and laboratories, naturally students

answered that the scientists work mostly in a

laboratory, university or museum. It is interesting to

observe that the pupils find that teachers in schools

and colleges are also scientists. Scientists can work

everywhere; according to the boys – at the Bulgarian

Academy of Sciences, in an agency, in an office or

even in a garage, and the girls’ focus on teamwork in

scientific group, in the classrooms, or even on the

field. After completing activities in IBL scenario,

students thinks that scientists talk about dinosaurs and

mammoths, animal bones, about science and

interesting discoveries they have made, about history

and the past. These students understanding is

naturally formed because a large part of the activities

took part in the Palaeontology museum and they link

it to the question. According to the boys, the most

attractive topics cover archaeology and future, space

and Universe. For the girls, the main topics of interest

are the curious facts, the electricity and the

experiences with life sciences and new objects

(Fig. 11).

Figure 11: What do scientists talk about?

It is very interesting to see that according students

observations, the main super power of the scientists

is the mathematics. Other distinctive skills are the

ability to discover new things, an extraordinary and

sharp mind and a lot of knowledge. Boys mention the

creativity, technological progress and fame while

girls appreciate the curiosity, memory, magic and

fearlessness of scientists (Figure 12).

Figure 12: What is the superpower of the scientists?

Overall impression of the answers of all the

questions is that through them students clearly

demonstrate the respect to the scholars, the positive

attitude to scientist profession and even willingness to

follow the steps on Dinosaurs. In most of the cases

boys and girls used one of the same works or words

with the same meaning, which shows that all of them

have common look on career in science, which makes

us, as authors of the IBL scenario, happy with its

result – overcoming prejudice for scientists and career

in science. Some slightly differences in answers of

boys and girls only confirms that both genders could

contributes in science with their point of views. For

teachers differences in boys’ and girls’ answers

provide a clear pictures which points of view and

gender specific characteristics to explore in the

STEM classroom to attract all of the students

neutralizing the potential impact of parents or society

prejudice.

4.2 Teachers’ Results

Seven teachers took part in the IBL teachers’ training

scenario. They filled-in online questionnaires and

provided feedback and reflections in the DojoIBL

system.

Observing the students work on scenario, teachers

should think about what type of activities need to be

performed by them in order to design such a scenario

as well as what competences needed to poses so to

organize it. With this in mind, teachers did the

competence self-assessment on a scale ranging from

1 (very weak) to 5 (very good), and every question

required two answers – before and after the

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experiment. Teachers’ results show significant

increase of their professional competences in terms of

knowledge, abilities and attitudes. (Figure 13).

Figure 13: Self-assessment of teachers’ competences.

During the delivery of the In Dinosaurs Steps IBL

scenario, the teachers took part in different types of

activities.

The other question asked teachers to evaluate how

useful were different type of activities for them. In

this category, the most appreciated were the practical

and hands-on activities, followed by inquiry-based

learning, reflection and metacognition, learning with

peers and self-regulated learning (Fig. 14).

Figure 14: Activities evaluation. Usefulness.

The teachers evaluated the inquiry skills that they

have developed in this scenario setting. The most

experienced were communication skills, followed by

analytical skills, metacognitive and reflection skills,

information literacy, digital skills, critical thinking

and other research skills.

All teachers manifested a strong interest to take

part in further IBL trainings on similar topics.

The data, collected through the questionnaire does

not provide enough information about the extent to

which teachers are ready to design similar IBL

scenario, promoting the science career for their

students. But our team was happy to understand that

two weeks later one of the teachers, participated in the

activities, designed her own scenario during her

classes at school. That was our most visible result and

it is presented in the section below as the follow-up.

5 FOLLOWER OF DINOSOURS

STEPS

The most valuable outcome of the IBL experiment In

the Dinosaurs’ Steps was designed and conducted by

the STEM teacher Mrs. Tanya Dimitrova. She

developed her own IBL scenario for presenting the

researchers’ career to her class of third grade students

in the Primary School “Pythagoras”. The first phase

of the scenario aimed to provoke pupils by asking

them to assume what it is to be a scientist. The pupils

had to fill the same questionnaire, but without visiting

the “Researchers night” event, museums or discuss

beforehand.

Analysing the pupils’ answers, the teacher

discovered some interesting findings. For example,

some of the children believed that scientists love to do

miracles, think logically, speak on their native

language, but with many difficult and complex words,

speak on many languages, work in special clinics for

scientists, and work in houses full of inventions. Some

of the kids mentioned that scientists experiment and

do extraordinary things, like mixing DNA or mixing

some potions. Scientists talk about the space and

about what they learned from their discoveries, use

chronoscopes and other special tools. Scientist write

a lot, about very complicated things in special

notebooks for failures and successes, making huge

tables with different English numbers. Scientists

travel often around the world, use many boxes for

strange things and many other.

The next phase of the IBL scenario consisted of

invitation and class visit of scientists – prof. Ana

Proykova and assoc. prof. Nikolina Nikolova from

the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at Sofia

University "St. Kliment Ohridski" (note that both of

them are female, and this fact was not expected by

some of the children). Prior to meeting the pupils, the

scientists together with the teacher investigated the

children's responses and attitudes and prepared

suitable examples and experiments. During the

meeting in class, the pupils had the opportunity to ask

many questions like how the telescope works, is there

a chronoscope device, is there a common language

In the Dinosaur’ Steps through IBL Scenario: A Way to Overcome Prejudice for Career in STEM

407

reserved only for scientists, are there smaller

particles than the nano-particles, is there a

’teleporting machine’ and others.

In result, after reflecting on their experience of

knowing real scientists, most of the children have

admitted that being a scientist is not scary but fun,

interesting and exciting, and express a wish to

become scientists when they grow up.

In its final phase, the typical IBL scenario

includes communication and presentation of the

results. In this case the teacher described and

presented the children’s experience on the official

webpage of the school, which allowed other teachers

and parents to learn about it. Furthermore, the story

was published on social media, it was shared with

other teachers from the IBL learning community,

researchers and scientists at the university, and others.

The IBL scenario of Mrs. Tatyana Dimitrova

invoked further interest and motivation of the

children to take part in other scientific experiments

and initiatives. They took part in a practical lesson of

planting an acorn, getting excited about future active

learning scenarios.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The implementation of the IBL scenario In the

Dinosaurs’ Steps opened many questions and showed

new possibilities to encourage students for scientific

career. Although the challenges and the efforts, needed

to raise awareness and implement active learning

approaches in class, IBL scenarios can be applied in

both – formal and informal learning. This open the

doors for active collaboration of teachers, scholars,

scientists, curators, museum workers and gallerists in

design of IBL activities and experiences for students.

Furthermore, collecting and implementing different

practical scenarios from a variety of application areas

can increase the possibility of STEM teachers to

design, plan and implement appropriate active learning

scenarios in their own classes. In addition, the data,

collected by students, reveals what kind of activities

and / or perspectives are more engaging for boys and

which ones – for girls.

The presented scenario can be easily adapted for

students of different age groups and STEM subject

areas. By allowing students to gain personal

experience and reflecting on it, teachers can play a

crucial role for motivating the new generation of

professionals, both boys and girls, overcoming

prejudice for career in science, with lasting interest

toward STEM, following the Dinosaurs’ steps, and

ready for the professions of the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research is: done with financial support of

Enhancing Learning In Teaching via e-inquiries

(ELITe) project, Erasmus+, KA2 - Cooperation for

Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices,

Strategic Partnerships for school education, Project

2016-1-EL01-KA201-023647; Conducted during the

“Researchers Nights”, organized in the frame of the

Researchers in Knowledge Triangle (K-TRIO 3)

project, H2020-MSCA-NIGHT-2018-818757,

financed by the European Union, program Maria

Sclodovska Curie.

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CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

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