Developing an Out-of-School Learning Curriculum for Teacher Education Programs (DOSLECTEP)

The low success rates of students in science courses and the negative attitudes and perceptions
towards these courses are frequently mentioned in the science education literature.As a solution of
this problem,out of school environments can provide important contributions as a complementary tool
in formal education.In this project,it is aimed to develop an out-of-school curriculum for teacher
education programs by following these steps:(i)finding out about different out of school learning
environments,approaches and resources used in countries where out-of-school education has been
successfully conducted over years,(ii) acquire and possess high-quality skills,
competences,knowledge and skills related to strategies,methods and techniques that can be used in
out-of-school activities,(iii) collaborate with partners to construct scaffolds which will help us to
develop an out-of-school curriculum,and(iv) test and refine the curriculum first in Hacettepe
University (the applicant university)(v) translate and apply the curriculum in participant countries.The
curriculum will consist of following aspects:interdisciplinary connections, STEM education,using
mobile applications,virtual museums,augmented reality, assessment.Although in service and preservice
teachers (PSTs) know some out of school environments such as science centres,they have
difficulty in planning how to follow a methodological way in these environments and learning how to
use them as a complementary tool in their teaching.As a result, these kinds of trips are often an
ordinary sight-recognition visits.To overcome these deficiencies,teacher education programs need a
structured curriculum which will provide pre-service teachers opportunities to experience and
implement out-of-school lesson plans.The goal of this curriculum is to combine the theoretical
background with applied activities by creating on-site learning environments. The theoretical
knowledge will be developed via intensive collaboration with the input emerged from national and
international out of school practices and examples given by the teacher trainers and project
experts.In order to support theory with practice,pre-service teachers will create learning
environments by choosing one of the out-of-school learning environments (e.g.
planetarium,museum,zoo, etc.)
The project will start with a need analysis collecting input from different stakeholders (e.g.
academicians, teacher educators from formal (private school [Sinav Koleji] and public schools
[Etimesgut District National Education Directorate]), and informal institutions (Mugla BILSEM). The
need analysis will inform us what teacher educators, pre-service and in-service teachers
expectations are from a new curriculum, what they believe that is important to focus on out-of-school
learning.
The project will be carried out by four program member countries (Germany, Czech Republic,
Slovakia, and Turkey) and three associated partners from Turkey. As a result, a common training
content will be developed with the participation of each member. In this process, each country will
hold a meeting and prepare a visit to out of school learning environments in that country. During
these visits,out of school practices will be experienced in the European dimension.These meeting will
facilitate to establish the theoretical infrastructure of out-of-school curriculum, and the team members will have access to reliable sources of information.

The project will produce two major outcomes:
(1)Out-of-School Learning in European Countries as an ebook,
(2) The out-of-school learning curriculum for teacher education programs.To measure the
effectiveness of the project; the quality of the out-of-school learning environments developed by
PSTs during the implementation of the newly developed curriculum will be analyzed. Additionally, we
will have different assessments for PSTs to help us identify how their ideas about out-of-school
learning developed.These assessment tools include interviews during the course, documentation
which presents PSTs’ experiences during the course (e.g. pre-service teachers’ journals),field trip
evaluation form, lesson plan evaluation rubric, and course evaluation survey. Totally 7 partners will
organize appropriate dissemination activities and meetings with relevant institutions.At these
meetings, outputs of the project will be discussed in detail and detailed analysis will be carried out
along with stakeholders in all participant countries.This last meeting of the project will host an Out-of-
School Learning Conference including invited paper and poster presentations.The purpose of this
conference is providing an opportunity for researchers to make connections with the practitioners
and enable dissemination of the curriculum and the ebook.The project will be followed up on the
webpage after the project ends with an