Nurturing Critical Minds: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Education and the Workforce
Nurturing Critical Minds: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Education and the Workforce
We are delighted to invite you to our upcoming international conference on “Nurturing Critical Minds: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Education and the Workforce”. The conference is interdisciplinary, it will cover a diverse range of fields and perspectives on the development of critical thinking skills in different academic fields at universities and labour market institutions. Showcasing the holistic approach, the conference aims to explore the vital role of critical thinking in diverse academic disciplines and its significance in the ever-evolving landscape of labour market institutions.
The conference aims to bridge the gap between universities and labour market institutions, fostering a culture of critical thinking that thrives in the classroom and enhances professional growth in the workplace. This conference will serve as a platform for educators, researchers, and labour market professionals from diverse fields to explore innovative strategies, and share best practices and collaborate on integrating critical thinking skills into educational curricula.
Keynote speakers
Alistair Starling
Co-Founder and Managing Director of the European Diplomats
Luís Sebastião
Associate Professor in the Department of Pedagogy and Education, Director of the Center for Research in Education and Psychology, University of Évora
Dimitris Pnevmatikos
Professor in the Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Western Macedonia
Erika Vaiginienė
Associate professor in the Department of Business, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Vilnius University
Inga Jončienė
Head of Business Development at Alliance for Recruitment
Adam Mastandrea
Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Language Teaching and Research, Institute of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University
Daiva Penkauskienė
Director of Modern Didactics Center, Associate Professor in the Institute of Educational Sciences and Social Work, Mykolas Romeris University
Sandra Kairė
Associate Professor, Director of the Institute of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University
Kay Hemmerling
Dr Kay Hemmerling, Chairman at the Institute for Moral-Democratic Competence (IMDC e.V.)
Programme
Programme
Guillaume Caillaud
The Disco+ Project and Critical Thinking
The Disco+ project and critical thinking
Guillaume Caillaud
University of Caen, France
Abstract
The Disco+ project is an Erasmus+ project for the initial and in-service training of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) teachers in various European countries (Lithuania, Romania, Hungary, Spain, Italy and France). The objectives of this project are to train teachers to include students with special needs, to focus on science teaching and to implement an intercultural approach. The cooperative practice of teachers working in transnational teams to design their teaching situations is at the heart of the project.
Teaching science, even with the aim of including as many pupils as possible, must involve the development of critical thinking, because teaching science and getting pupils aged 8 to 14 to do science means making them understand that data can be questioned, and that methods can also be questioned. Including students does not mean lowering standards.
The project is divided into four phases:
- four eTwinning training sessions involving around 100 participants (and 12 trainers), culminating in posters (STEM, inclusion, critical thinking, gender equality) which were presented in Vilnius last week.
- the production and testing of a serious game designed to question inclusion in STEM situations.
- the production of STEM sessions that will be tested identically in the six countries, in order to extract comparative analyses in which the question of critical thinking will be an important focus of analysis.
- the production of a MOOC combining all the work carried out to offer open-source training.
We are currently at the stage of summarising the posters, which show that critical thinking in science applies both when initial representations are made and processed, and when the experimental results obtained are discussed. The game is currently being tested and will be improved in mid-June 2024.
Keywords: Critical thinking, science, inclusion, teacher training, teaching.
Biography
Guillaume Caillaud studied natural sciences and then began his career teaching in primary schools for several years. He then passed a competitive examination to teach life and earth sciences to young people aged 11 to 18, which he did for around ten years. He was then recruited as a trainer to prepare Master's students for the job of life and earth sciences teacher at the University of Caen, which is done in France via a Master's degree and preparation for a difficult competitive examination. He is now involved in international science teaching training through projects such as Disco+.
Email: .
