=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2356/experience_short3
|storemode=property
|title=An Exploration based Pedagogical Framework to develop a MOOC on Nuclear and Radiochemistry
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2356/experience_short3.pdf
|volume=Vol-2356
|authors=Francesca Concia,Elena Macerata,Susanna Sancassani,Maddalena Negrin,Mario Mariani
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/emoocs/ConciaMSNM19
}}
==An Exploration based Pedagogical Framework to develop a MOOC on Nuclear and Radiochemistry==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2356/experience_short3.pdf
Proceedings of EMOOCs 2019:
Work in Progress Papers of the Research, Experience and Business Tracks
An Exploration based Pedagogical Framework to develop
a MOOC on Nuclear and Radiochemistry
Francesca Concia1, Elena Macerata2, Mario Mariani2, Maddalena Negrin2, Susanna
Sancassani2
1 METID, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza L. da Vinci, 32, 20133 Milano, Italy
2
Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza L. da Vinci, 32, 20133 Milano, Italy
francesca.concia@polimi.it
elena.macerata@polimi.it
mario.mariani@polimi.it
maddalena.negrin@polimi.it
susanna.sancassani@polimi.it
Abstract. One of the outputs of MEET-CINCH project (A Modular European
Education and Training Concept In Nuclear and radioCHemistry, Horizon 2020)
is a MOOC on the applications of Nuclear and Radiochemistry with high societal
impact, such as nuclear medicine, radiation technologies, environmental
preservation, nuclear decommissioning and forensics.
This MOOC (online by the end of 2019) is characterized by an international
dimension: it is the result of a collaboration among universities, research entities
and institutions located in nine different European countries. Because of the
variety and diversity of contributions, the design phase had to be preceded by an
alignment about peculiarities of the target group; scientific level of contents and
lexicon; methodology for designing, writing, sharing and reviewing the contents.
The paper is intended to explain process and methodological choices, and
difficulties encountered during the design phase due to the high number of
partners, their different approaches in teaching, and the common mistrust towards
nuclear issues by general public.
Keywords: Nuclear and Radiochemistry, Methodological approaches,
International dimension, Pedagogical Framework
1 First Challenge: the international and multi-actors dimension
1.1 The project and the partnership
In 2010–2016 two “CINCH projects” (CINCH-I: Cooperation in Education in Nuclear
Chemistry, and CINCH-II: Cooperation and training in Education in Nuclear
Chemistry, supported within Euratom FP7) had been developed with the aim at
mitigating the special skill-based deficits within nuclear chemistry at master and
doctorate levels and the decline of number of staff qualified in this field.
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MEET-CINCH [1] is the third project in the CINCH series, involves 12 partners
from 9 EU countries including universities, research institutions and partners from
industry [2], and aims at proactively bringing the results - achieved with the previous
CINCH projects - so far to the end-users, at significantly contributing to attracting new
talents and increasing the nuclear-chemistry awareness, and at investigating the
applicability of some innovative pedagogical approaches in the nuclear-chemistry
teaching and training field.
1.2 A MOOC on the applications of Nuclear and Radiochemistry
One of the main outputs of MEET-CINCH project is a MOOC that promotes the
awareness about the usefulness of nuclear and radiochemistry (NRC). The partners,
filling in the proposal form, identified some essential topics to demonstrate and high
light how NRC is essential for our modern society and its development:
decommissioning of nuclear plants, nuclear medicine, nuclear forensic and
proliferation, tracer technology and industrial use of radionuclides, producing and
handling nuclear fuel, creating new elements.
The designed approach is the result of an analysis of target and context and aims at
attracting new students to study a discipline that has become fundamental for humans;
designing a completely online path, able to involve students from different Bachelor
degrees in science and different countries; presenting to the general public a discipline
currently still often marginally known, that risks arousing fears related to environmental
disasters or the illicit use of nuclear materials; guaranteeing the achievement of an
effective and durable knowledge, necessary for a university choice and for a civic
awareness.
However, at the beginning of the design phase led by Politecnico di Milano, although
a full agreement was reached about objectives, themes and tools, partners realized to
have very different ideas regarding how deep to explore contents, the use of a specialist
and technical lexicon, the prerequisites and previous knowledge required to users, the
teaching styles and tools, and the target-group needs. An alignment – not easy and not
quick – has been also necessary about Massive Online Open Courses’ terminology and
characteristics, because only people from Politecnico di Milano had experience in
MOOC designing and production.
The attempt was to guarantee the diversities and enlighten the specificities of
everyone, concerning teaching style, but to weave a strong plot that would ensure
formal and structural uniformity.
The difficulties due to different experiences and background, branches of research
and approaches in teaching, but also objectives were partly overcome by giving the full
responsibility of the process to a unique leading partner that supported colleagues in
identifying learning objectives and in the drafting of the Table of Contents, reviewed
every single content to ensure uniformity of lexicon and style and avoid repetition and
is now managing the activities of recording and post-production of teaching materials.
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1.3 The design process
After the identification of the target needs, the design team formulated teaching goals
and learning objectives. This activity required a joint effort in finding a common
definition of radiochemistry and identifying the main topics.
Didactical goals go back to the main issues of the project:
- to let users discover a largely unknown discipline, stimulating interest;
- to let users be aware of the possibility and the progress of this branch of
science;
- to let users be able to make choices as citizens and explain their decisions and
motivations;
- to help users developing a scientific attitude for applications of basic science;
- to stimulate users toward experimental activities and applications.
Specific learning objectives range from understanding to remembering, from
recognizing to be aware and be able to distinguish, catalogue, describe, list, compare,
differentiate.
A focus group was designed in order to collect information about students’
preferences and attitude related to learning tools and channels, learning methodologies
and approaches and has been proposed to some groups of students in Czech Republic,
Finland, and Great Britain.
A specific Pedagogical Framework has been designed by Politecnico di Milano
expert in methodologies to meet target-group needs, didactical goals and learning
objectives; then a Table of Contents has been filled in, according to the logic of the
application areas: Radiochemistry “for the environment”, “for health”, “for industry”,
“for nuclear energy”, “for society”, so that it could be easier for users to understand
why NRC is useful, in which fields it is applied, which are the consequences of each
application in terms of advantages and disadvantages.
Before going on in describing the challenges in designing and implementing the
MOOC, it is interesting to focus on the focus group activity, the pedagogical framework
and the prototype implementation.
MEET CINCH Focus Group. The activity has been structured according to the
Flipped Classroom approach, with a phase to be hold by single students at home and
two activities in classroom:
Table 1. Focus group phases.
AT HOME IN SMALL GROUPS ALL TOGHETER
Each student explores 4-5 4-6 students discuss individual
Each group presents to the other
learning resources and chooses choices and select the best
ones the favorite resources and
which is his/her favorite and resources according to the
motivates its choice. At the end
the best in terms of learning following criteria: clarity,
all the pupils vote and rank
effectiveness perceived learning effectiveness,
resources
engagement
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The role of the school teachers during the Focus Group was to clearly explain the
activity stages, the duration, the rules; to observe how the groups arrived at the result;
to collect all the motivations provided by individuals and groups; to collect information
about the use of mobile devices or laptops at home, about the real interest created by
the activity, about any conditioning factors and, finally, to motivate students in giving
their useful contribution to an European project.
The collected results gave a wide and broad overview. Beyond their personal tastes
and previous knowledge level, the participants appreciated: the well-designed video
explanations, in terms of number of concepts and alternation of theoretical parts,
examples, cases, repetitions; animations, when and if they support and exemplify the
explanation, proposing alternative points of view; music, if it does not distract and is
not too prevalent on speaker voice; a good rhythm in speech, but not an excessive speed;
the possibility to see real environments or laboratories; an average duration of 4-5
minutes.
From partner’s perspective, the Focus group has been also an opportunity to
experiment flipped classroom approach, engaging activities in the classroom,
individuals’ reflection about own learning, gamification.
MEET CINCH Pedagogical Framework. The Pedagogical Framework has been
designed on the basis of the analysis of the context, the shared outcomes and the
identified target, in order to lead teachers in organizing contents in single lessons.
Thanks to an “immersion” in a typical everyday situation, at the beginning of each
macro-theme, students can intuitively get the core concepts and then could complete
their knowledge through systematic contents explanations, exercises, self-assessments,
articles and links (see Fig. 1).
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Fig. 1. MEET-CINCH MOOC Pedagogical Framework
Reflections of some well-known pedagogues have been a source of inspiration for
the elaboration of this framework. Just to name a few, Jerome Bruner’s “Discovery
Learning” [3] suggested to start from current knowledge and awareness of learners,
letting them select and transform information, construct hypotheses, and make
decisions, because learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas
or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. John Bigg’s “Constructive
Alignment” [4] has been a strong reference in supporting teachers in defining teaching
goals, designing the learning path, aligning evaluation to learning objectives.
During the brainstorming phase, the need to attract and involve people constantly
emerged among partners, but also the wish to tell stories: not only environmental
disasters, but daily stories of solved troubles, effective treatment, management and
monitoring of air, water, soil for the collective well-being.
The Video-Prototype. With the implementation of a prototype, some doubts and
difficulties - regarding possible outcome - have been resolved. The prototype has been
developed on the introductory topic: “The natural radioactivity and the
radiochemistry”. To create it, Politecnico di Milano experts have prepared a storyboard
and, thanks to a continuous and intense dialogue among teachers, visual and
instructional designers, the prototype video has been recorded, produced and shared.
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Fig. 2. Three sequences from the Video-Prototype
2 Second Challenge: the engagement of the target-group(s)
2.1 Bachelor Students
Partners needed not few debating meetings to agree about target group at the beginning
of the design phase. The target audience selected for the MOOC on NRC is “Bachelor
students in chemistry/physics/engineering/other scientific areas with a background
knowledge deriving from high school and higher education, in particular in Chemistry,
Physics and Math; supposed to have availability of free time and flexibility and to be
used to studying with web tools; being keen on increasing the knowledge about nuclear
themes and their applications, as possible university career and job opportunity”.
2.2 General Public
As that the Nuclear field is often source of perplexity or fear, MEET-CINCH partners
oriented the whole project to the general public, aiming at providing the basic
information for an active political life as citizens. Taking into account these issues, they
decided to design some lessons of MOOC for non-experts, with the specific scope of
offering an opportunity to discover some issues related to energy production, nuclear
waste management, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and all those activities that
have become essential in the life of humans of twenty-first century, but which are still
often marginally known.
2.3 Two levels
A learning path must have a primary target audience: this is the only way to guarantee
the user can understand, be engaged and achieve the planned outcomes. MEET-CINCH
MOOC is designed for Bachelor students, but some lessons are labelled as “popular-
scientific” ones, so that some lessons for each topic explained could be enjoyed by a
general public. The MOOC is organized in the typical structure of weeks, modules and
lessons. The first Lesson of each week or, in some cases, of each module is a daily
situation: according to the Pedagogical Framework, users watch some characters who
sit at a bar table, go down to the garage to get the car, eat a banana, buy fertilizer for
plants, and so on (see Fig. 3).
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Fig. 3. Two sequences from “Diving” - Lessons 1
In Lesson 2 an expert explains why all these activities deal with radioactivity.
In Lesson 3 a teacher introduces the specific topic.
From Lesson 4 of each Module the level of scientific knowledge becomes higher,
the lexicon is more specific, the notions become more complex.
3 Conclusion
MEET CINCH MOOC is under construction: teachers from different universities and
research bodies are well engaged and soon will converge to Politecnico to record their
lessons.
The next challenge will be to take the MOOC out of the university "classrooms" and
to get it to the general public: our responsibility is to shape the future in building a civic
awareness, so that every citizen could choose independently about his own and future
generations’ life.
References
1. A Modular European Education and Training Concept In Nuclear and radiochemistry –
Horizon 2020, funded by the Euratom research and training programme 2014–2018.
2. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover, Czech Technical University in Prague,
Chalmers University of Technology, University of Helsinki, University of Cyprus,
Jožef Stefan Institute, University of Leeds, National Nuclear Laboratory Ltd., Politecnico di
Milano, Evalion Ltd., Commissariat à l´énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives,
Réseau Européen pour l'Enseignement des Sciences Nucléaires.
3. Bruner, J.S.: The Process of Education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (1960)
and The act of discovery. Harvard educational review (1961).
4. Biggs, J.: Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. Springer (1996) and
Constructive alignment in university teaching. ERDSA Review of higher education (2014).
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