Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) in an Academic Institute for Science

This article offers a comprehensive and in-depth guide to the implementation of Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) in academic institutions, emphasizing its critical role in ensuring the quality and safety of scientific research. It provides a detailed overview of the key principles and benefits of GLP while elaborating on the specific responsibilities and roles of various laboratory personnel, spanning from administrators to students. Furthermore, the article furnishes clear and actionable directives for the enhancement of overall laboratory safety measures. It serves as a valuable resource for institutions seeking to foster a culture of excellence and responsibility in their scientific endeavors

What Teachers Need for Orchestrating Robotic Classrooms

Educational Robots are gaining popularity in classrooms but can increase the load on teachers compared to the use of more traditional technologies. Providing support to teachers can make teachers confident in including robots in their teaching routines. In order to support teachers in managing robotic activities in the classroom, it is important to first understand the challenges they face when engaging with these activities. To investigate these challenges, we observed three teachers managing robotic activities across fifteen standard school sessions, followed by retrospective interviews. In these sessions, students performed group activities on assembling and programming different robotic platforms. The results highlight a) how managing the additional technical complexity of the robotic activity is challenging for teachers b) teachers interventions focus on supporting students make connections between their programs and their robot behaviour in the real-world. Building on our results, we discuss how orchestration tools may be designed to help alleviate teachers challenges and support teachers interventions in robotic classrooms

From northern China to hazelwood wetlands : navigating place and identity through science education

This chapter highlights an emergent self-study or professional inquiry that sits within wider longitudinal research examining the impact of a science teacher education university-school partnership in Latrobe Valley Gippsland. Partnership stakeholders in this particular study included the two authors (Hongming and Monica-Federation University Gippsland Education (FUGuE) researchers and science teacher educators), pre-service teachers and teachers/students from a local primary school. The chapter explores a number of complexities pertaining to our redesign of a science education course in the Bachelor of Education (primary) teaching programme. Central to the changes we made was a transition from universitybased lectures to place-based science lessons conducted by pre-service teachers in a local wetland. As part of the self-study, we met regularly throughout the semesterlong science education course to discuss course preparation, implementation, design and delivery. These recorded and later transcribed conversations became the main data collection source of the study.We also generated personal autobiographies as a way of reflecting on our personal, professional and collective learning journey within the science education course.Our analysis of this overall process brings to light emergent levels of complexity and uncertainty in our attempt to reshape science education through a partnership model. While we each had and shared very different experiences of the science education course, the chapter pays attention to the strengths of our differences, and in particular, its contribution to our collaboration. The impact and implications of the self-study are discussed, and in conclusion, we highlight the contributions of place-oriented approaches and collegiality that supported us to undertake science differently. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019. All rights are reserved

Assessment on-the-fly: promoting and collecting evidence of learning through dialogue

International audienceInquiry activities generate rich opportunities for STEM learning and for assessment. When teachers pay attention to assessment information collected during the course of learning, they are able to interpret and make decisions about such assessment data in a timely fashion that can drive future planning and support student learning, for example through feedback. This chapter focuses on how classroom talk can generate evidence of learning and how teachers can utilise this to enable assessment to guide inquiry learning. It looks at several vignettes from different countries of on-the-fly interactions in inquiry settings and unpacks how teachers organised, facilitated and assessed learning in inquiry classrooms. Finally, the chapter considers opportunities, dilemmas and constraints that occurred as teachers attempted to integrate on-the-fly assessment into their existing assessment classroom practices