Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Education
The Aristotle University, a "city" within the city of Thessaloniki, is the largest educational institution in the country and one of the biggest in Europe. It covers a wide range of cognitive fields and it offers education to 70,000 graduate and postgraduate students and, at the same time, gives the opportunity to 4,000 scientists, researchers and academics to work in their fields, to cooperate with other universities and public and private bodies, and to present the results of their research activity to the international scientific community. In the School of Education of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki both an undergraduate and a postgraduate programme for teachers for primary schools as well as a number of in-service teachers training programmes are carried out. The research group who will work on the current proposal consists of Prof. Panagiotis Koumaras, Dr. Fanny Seroglou and Giorgos Primerakis. Their work involves instructional design, the contribution of History of Science in Science Education, teaching science for the education of the citizen, the design and evaluation of transdisciplinary teacher-training courses and multimedia. The research group of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki will co-operate for the realization of the current proposal with Prof. Michael Matthews from the School of Education of the University of New South Wales.
http://www.auth.gr/
Brief biographical notes of the members of the research team:
Panagiotis Koumaras is a professor of educational material design and experimental teaching at the School of Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He graduated from the Physics Department of the same University in 1975. He taught physics in the secondary school for 10 years. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Didactics of Physics from the Physics Department of Aristotle University in 1989. His research activities focus on: a) The development, application and evaluation of educational material in compulsory education and teacher training. b) The study of pupils' conceptual models and their interaction with experimental teaching.
Fanny Seroglou is a lecturer in Science Education at the School of Education of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She graduated with a PhD in Science Education in 2000 and she got her first degree in physics in 1995 from the same university. Since 2001 she has been teaching a course titled ‘Science for the education of the citizen’ at the School of Education. She is currently carrying out a postdoctoral research in transdisciplinary approaches of teaching science for the education of the citizen supported by a schoralship by the Greek Scholarships Foundation. Her research is concerned with History of Science in Science Education and with teaching science for the education of the citizen.
George Primerakis is a staff member in the School of Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In 1983 he got his degree in education. From 1986 until 1999 he taught in a primary school. Since 2000 he has been working in the School of Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His current work involves laboratory teaching, in-service teacher-training and design and development of educational multimedia. His research interest is focused on teaching science with experiments with everyday materials, astronomy in education and designing multimedia for transdisciplinary science teaching.
Joint partner of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Professor Michael R. Matthews
School of Education
University of New South Wales
Sydney, 2052
AUSTRALIA
home page: www.arts.unsw.edu.au/education/matthews/
Secretary , International History Philosophy & Science Teaching Group
www.ihpst.org
Editor, 'Science & Education' journal
www.kluweronline.com/issn/0926-7220
Coordinator, International Pendulum Project
www.arts.unsw.edu.au/pendulum/
Michael R. Matthews is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales. He has degrees from the University of Sydney in science, philosophy, psychology, history and philosophy of science, and education. His PhD is in philosophy of education from the University of New South Wales. He has taught science in high school, and lectured in Education at Sydney Teachers’ College and the University of New South Wales. He was the Foundation Professor of Science Education at The University of Auckland (1992-93). He has published in philosophy of education, history and philosophy of science, and Science Education. His recent books include Challenging New Zealand Science Education (Dunmore Press, 1995), Science Teaching: The Role of History and Philosophy of Science (Routledge, 1994) and Time for Science Education (Plenum Publishers, 2000). Additionally he has edited The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy (Hackett Publishing Company, 1989), History, Philosophy and Science Teaching: Selected Readings (OISE Press/Teachers College Press, 1991), Constructivism in Science Education: A Philosophical Examination (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998), and Science Education and Culture: The Role of History and Philosophy of Science (with F. Bevilacqua & E. Giannetto, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001). He is Foundation Editor of the journal Science & Education (Kluwer Academic Publishers).
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