Damascus workshop on improving science teaching using locally resources
Syria, Education, 2/22/2001

A workshop was held in Damascus from January 23rd until 31st in cooperation the Syrian ministry of education and the Goethe Institute in Damascus, at the teaching production unit in Damascus.

The workshop was run by the German educational expert Hans Schmidt.

In a statement to Arabic News Schmidt said the specific objectives of this workshop are to contribute with new and functional product ideas and training concepts for pre- and in Ð service teacher training at the Teacher Training Colleges and Teacher Resources Centers; To train pre and in- service teacher trainers and technicians in the design and construction of new prototypes and the improvement of existing teaching materials; To prepare a pool of trainers and technicians for follow- up workshops and training activities and to find out which teaching materials could be produced in series for schools in the country.

He added the main target of the workshop was to make Syrian future teachers trainer and secondary school teachers familiar with easy to carry out activities, which can be performed with locally available materials at lowest cost.

He continued that the aim was also to promote learning and understanding by self doing, especially for abstract topics like genetics, biochemistry and civil division. He said lasting 40 working hours only more than 150 teaching materials for the above- mentioned abstract topics were constructed during the workshop. He added that this material can be duplicated later on by teachers and students to make science teaching more practical, more comprehensible and attractive, and thus improve cost- effectiveness of science- teaching in general and biology in particular. He continued that other activities to complement the approach of learning science with locally available resources, would be to compile a series of easiest to carry out experiments which can be perform even in a class room or wherever.

Concentrating on the advantages of this workshop Schmidt said that all experiments and activities can be carried out in any classroom.

The self assembling develops a proud sense of ownership and promotes more frequent use; repaid and replacement of broken parts or the replenishment of chemicals are possible locally without technical and administrative problems.

He indicated that searching and using locally available materials generates awareness of the resources found in the environment and stimulates the creative use of these. Teachers and students learn to look at their daily environment with the eyes of a scientist.

He said hand- experiments are not time consuming. They can be prepared even in a break or during the lesson, since all the materials needed can be easily collected from the environment and can be stored in any small container.

He commented that no long lasting training is needed, since the materials are known and the experiments are easy to perform. Teachers and students can be trained by standardized six-day training modules in the performance of hand- experiments and, or in the construction of models or in the assembly of the minilab and in the use of it. Students can be introduced at Teacher Training Colleges by a dual strategy in the use of sophisticated imported equipment as well as in the use of locally available materials. Thus they will be prepared for practical science teaching even there are no labs.

He said that 20 trainees are especially selected by the Syrian Ministry of Education. " Thanks to the very effective co-operation of the Ministry in the area of technical assistance and translation, we achieved results which filled at the exhibition hall with produced materials, which were exhibited in the government training center in Rukn eddine quarters in Damascus," Mr Schmidt said, adding the exhibition will be open for the educationally interested public, teachers and students and later on because of the importance of this approach it will be shown in other parts of Syria.

Schmidt expressed thanks to the ministry of education especially to Liaison officer Karim Philip Hanna, the technical co-ordinator, noting that the co-operation between the involved institutions was excellent and highly effective.

He continued that the objectives of this pilot project could be used to improve practical teaching in other subjects as well. He noted that the general target of this workshop is to prove that improvement of a teaching science could be achieved with existing resources, the existing infrastructure and the creativity of Syrian teachers for which the results of the exhibition are an example. He said some of the results of this creativity will be shown later on an exhibition in Germany.

He indicated that this workshop gives the teachers ideas for the daily teaching considering the daily problems they are facing, and that means not to present them unrealistic utopia of futuristic target of education but give them at their hands what they can apply tomorrow in the class room.

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