SIBUR will hold intensive training courses for Nizhnevartovsk teachers as part of its STEAM School project

13 august 2021

On August 27, Nizhnevartovsk, with the support of SIBUR, will host STEAM School’s intensive education-themed training sessions for teachers of physics, mathematics, robotics and computer science. The goal of the sessions is to introduce teachers to modern methods of teaching these subjects, helping them to adapt the school education system to the requirements of the labor market. The project is being implemented as part of SIBUR's Formula for Good Deeds, a social investment program.

At the sessions, the teachers will be introduced to the interdisciplinary approach known as STEAM (an acronym derived from the first letters in the names of five disciplines: science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics). It helps students acquire engineering competencies necessary to be able to work in modern high-tech industries and companies. Classes for teachers of relevant subjects will be held at A.S. Pushkin Lyceum No. 1 in the face-to face format while observing all pertinent anti-COVID safety precautions. Teachers representing adjacent education fields will be able to participate in the event remotely by connecting via their own devices.

Andrei Peshkov, Director of the Moscow Academy of Robotics and a certified Lego Education instructor, will give a lecture on educational robotics and effective incorporation of STEAM methods into a standard school curriculum. He will highlight the key trends that are shaping education of the future and will review prevalent educational challenges that students and their teachers face these days. The lecture’s key goal is to demonstrate how the science of robotics could and should be put to good use in elementary and secondary school in order to successfully train future professionals who would possess a broad range of technical skills and be capable of creative thinking.

Yuri Mikhailovsky, a physics teacher at Khoroshkola, a Moscow-based innovative educational institution, and developer of programs for science festivals, will give a talk about the prospects and advantages of the individual approach to education. He will show teachers how they can make use of improvised tools to stage vivid demonstrations of various physics phenomena to their students. Such skills help teachers build up their students' motivation to learn physics and introduce a new topic in a non-standard way by relying on visual presentation techniques.

Yuri Podkopayev, Deputy Principal for Educational Environment at New School, will discuss current problems of effective learning in high school. He will talk about the impact of an educational program that includes the development of critical and creative thinking on a child's development and productive activity skills.

The lecture by Evgeny Shiryayev, a representative of the Science Workshop project, will focus on elective geometry topics: parqueting, tessellation, and self-supporting domes.

Yuriy Bobrinov, an honored worker of the Russian Federation’s general education, a winner of the 2009 edition of the Moscow’s Teacher of the Year contest, and a two-time winner of the contest of Russia’s best teachers held within the framework of Education, a priority national initiative, will share his experience with setting up dedicated school-based engineering and technology education programs at school. As a practical case, he will introduce attending teachers to Arduino, an engineering and technology platform, and will talk about how its potential can be used in project work and in study groups. The "Arduino in project activities" session will feature a payload compartment designed and tested by 8th grade students for the second stage of the Cansat Junior Championship’s rocket, a working model of a balancing robot, the underlying concept of the intelligent Segway system, and an electronic light ("hourglass") clock for lecturers.

In addition to offering lectures and practical activities, the class will feature a booth session showcasing devices and materials that will be covered at the lectures. Here, the participants will be introduced to the called Math Suitcase that helps with unconventional teaching of the eponymous subject, the structure of a self-supporting dome and other items of this kind.

The upcoming training sessions present an opportunity for our colleagues to meet fellow teaching practitioners like themselves, and not just some theoreticians. The bulk of our curriculum is focusing on hands-on cases and assignments, since the best way to acquire and retain new knowledge is through applying it in practice, making in tangible, Yuri Bobrinyov, the project’s expert, commented.

STEAM School is a great opportunity for teachers to learn through practice new approaches that are critical to education and development of the new generation of professionals. There is never too much knowledge, and our teachers are always ready to learn something new. We are akin to the characters in Alice in Wonderland who need to run twice as fast because our students are future employees of high-tech industries, they are our region's human capital. Our city’s development will depend, among other things, on the level of their competences, flexible thinking and ability to handle non-standard challenges, Inna Svyatchenko, Director of Education Department at Nizhnevartovsk’s Administration, noted.