Strategies – The “Teacher-Led Outreach-Laboratories” (TLOL) Strategy
This strategy has been investigated with biology teachers in the outreach laboratories, which are offered to science teachers and students at the University of Bayreuth (https://www.bayceer.uni-bayreuth.de/didaktik-bio/?lang=de). In contrast to most outreach laboratories, in which the academic personnel teach visiting classes, the program offers a unique setting in which the high-school biology teachers themselves teach their own students at university laboratories, following appropriate professional training. The TLOL project offers biology teachers one-day-long teaching units of contemporary molecular genetics experiments that conform with the current syllabus of 12th-grade biology and biotechnology majors and a continuous process for professional development. Participation in the TLOL project starts with a workshop in which the school heads and the teachers can experience the activities hands-on and learn the molecular biology methods as learners similarly to their students (following the “Teacher as learner” paradigm). Following the initial workshop, the school heads and teachers can participate in other workshops as many times as they wish, they are invited to observe other teachers, and they can ask questions and exchange pedagogical materials with other teachers and with the researchers via an electronic forum on the internet. Thus, providing the teachers with sufficient time, structure and support to think through the experience, allowing them to observe and be observed, to engage with their “community of practice” and develop sustained and ongoing communication with the PD facilitators as well as with other teachers. By incorporating the tools and using the knowledge the teachers have acquired during and following the workshop, the teachers design and plan their own laboratory activity, and prepare worksheets, assignments and presentations that suit the knowledge level of their students. They prepare their students before the activity and eventually, put what they have learned into practice by teaching the laboratory activity to their own students in the university laboratories. An individual school head or teacher can come several times with different classes to the Institute’s laboratories and teach the activities to suit each class’s level. The teachers analyse the final results of the experiments and conduct discussions with their students once they are back in their classrooms. Subsequently, the teachers can include questions regarding the TLOL activity in exams. Some teachers ask their students to submit laboratory reports for each experiment performed. During instruction in molecular genetics, the teachers make connections between the learning materials taught in class and the activity. Moreover, since the TLOL setting provides a hands-on inquiry experience, it is often the only opportunity for high-school biology teachers, especially those who finished their studies many years ago, to practice inquiry in molecular biology. Therefore, the contribution of the TLOL platform is way beyond the specific laboratory activity and is influential in their entire teaching of contemporary biology.