Science Bits, the first curricular educational project designed based on scientific evidence about how people learn, adds a new award to its journey, becoming the most awarded educational project for science teaching in the world.
With nine years of operation and currently used by educational centers in a total of 30 countries, benefiting some 250,000 students, Science Bits obtains the award as one of the Protagonists of Education 2021 by the Magisterio newspaper, which will present said award in November, during the XIII edition of its annual awards, for the educational significance of its project, and broad benefit to the teaching community.
Developed in Spain by the International Science Teaching Foundation (ISTF), Science Bits has been created by a multidisciplinary team made up of researchers in cognitive psychology, researchers in science education, science teachers and developers of multimedia resources from different countries. Designed around the 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) teaching model, its lessons use a wealth of interactive content to develop guided, discovery-based, and reasoning-based learning. the development of basic skills. It is the only curricular educational project whose effectiveness, in terms of learning, has been scientifically validated.
“For us it is an honor to receive the Teaching Award together with other initiatives and people who contribute our grain of sand to education. It is a recognition that makes us very happy and motivates us even more to continue working and learning about what most interests us. passionate,” explains Héctor Ruiz Martín, researcher in the cognitive psychology of learning and director of the ISTF.
Science Bits can be used as a substitute for textbooks or as supplementary material. Through the projector or the digital whiteboard, it promotes interaction with students through activities that are supported by a wide range of multimedia resources: 3D models, videos, audios, animations, simulators and virtual experiments.
The first scientifically validated method
A study published by the scientific journal International Journal of Science Education, and led by a team of researchers from the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), supports the significant improvements in terms of learning with understanding , which Science Bits provides to students of science subjects.
The study has analyzed, over five years, the short- and long-term conceptual learning of students at two schools that introduced Science Bits into their science classes, compared to two other schools that kept more conventional textbook-based methods while use. The conclusion reached by the study is that the conceptual learning of the students who studied with Science Bits improved by almost half a standard deviation, a fact that in educational research is considered a relevant effect, while the two schools that maintained the more conventional methods did not. experienced no change.
“With the humble exception of some programs that address specific learning difficulties, it is not usual for the educational materials offered in schools to have scientific research to support them. That is why our mission is to develop didactic proposals in the field of evidence-based science and mathematics. But, in addition to designing teaching resources based on the science of how we learn, we also regularly subject them to scientific scrutiny to assess their effectiveness and identify potential areas for improvement. This is why we that we have collaborated with a team of researchers from the UB and the URV, who have analyzed the effects of our Science Bits program for teaching science over the last five years”, explains Héctor Ruiz.
“If in the field of health we demand that any medical treatment be subjected to strict scientific control that guarantees its effectiveness and evaluates its risks before applying it, why don’t we ask for something similar in education? Why don’t we demand that the methods and educational resources that are offered in schools are based on research and are subjected to studies to verify their effectiveness?”, states Ruiz, before concluding that: “today we have scientific knowledge about what actions and circumstances promote lasting, transferable learning , functional and productive, as well as a huge amount of evidence obtained directly in the classroom with the collaboration of teachers of all stages and from very diverse educational contexts.It makes no sense that we do not take advantage of all this information to better base educational practice, and nor that we do not evaluate its application objectively to make the best decisions”.
And in 2021 mathematics arrives
In 2021, the foundation has gone one step further and has expanded its proposal by integrating a team of renowned researchers in mathematics didactics to shape Math Bits: a groundbreaking commitment to the current mathematics learning system due to the fact that it is based , also, in the scientific evidence.
“The joint proposal of Math Bits and Science Bits represents a key step towards integrated teaching and learning in the STEM field. Both projects share an environment, methodological approach and didactic management tools, and can be intertwined with each other to achieve a joint approach to science and mathematics”, explains Héctor Ruiz.
Math Bits offers various types of activities aimed at both the construction of meaning and the consolidation of mathematical concepts and procedures, through systematic practice and application in relevant contexts. In addition, it includes hundreds of interactive multimedia resources for active and cooperative learning, as well as easy-to-use tools to guarantee complete and personalized monitoring of each student’s learning.
A reference expert
Héctor Ruiz is a leading expert in education. Author of several books on cognitive psychology, he has taught both in high school and in college. His scientific career has been developed in research centers in the USA such as the University of Washington or NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (California).
In the last 15 years, he has led science teaching and communication projects, as well as educational technology, which have impacted hundreds of thousands of students in Europe and America. In addition, he has been an educational advisor to various governments and educational institutions in Spain, Asia and Latin America.
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