The Future of Education

Since the last decades of the XX century, we have witnessed a significant leap on learning and human development knowledge. However, little has changed in the structure of the educational systems and on teaching and learning methodologies used by teachers or trainers at schools. In this context, discussion is about the potentialities of school on promoting the 21st century skills (e.g. Ananiadou & Claro, 2009; Bell, 2010). And any change has to engage new learning models and different actors of the educational system. This is the general purpose for the development of the Scene project - ProfeSsional development for an effective PBL approach: a practical experiENce through ICT-enabled lErning solutions" -, a two year and a half project co-funded by the European Lifelong Learning Program (Key Activity 3: ICT), dedicated to the promotion of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in secondary and vocational schools and adult training centers. In this paper we present the development and experimentation of one of its main products: a continuous online training course for teachers, trainers and headmasters on PBL methodology. This methodology has been exponentially used in higher education, once it has been correlated to cognitive variables, such as school achievement, and motional variables, like motivation, engagement or social skills. The Scene project course involved 179 participants, among teachers, trainers and headmasters from six European countries - Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Turkey and United Kingdom -, as well as an expert from the United States of America, in two pathways of 64 hours. For teachers and trainers, four modules were developed: 1- Self-reflection and introduction to PBL; 2- Designing a Problem Scenario; 3- Assessing of a Problem Scenario; 4- Managing a Problem Scenario; and for headmasters and vocational school managers, five modules were developed: 1- Self-reflection and introduction to PBL; 2- Designing a Problem Scenario; 3- Assessing a Problem Scenario; 4- Managing a Problem Scenario; 5- Towards a "Constructivist School". These courses have been implemented in an E-Leaning platform, considering national and international forums, PBL learning objects, videos and reading cards, as well as face-to-face workshops in each country. From the participants, 147 completed their training. They have positively evaluated the course contents and its relevance for improving their pedagogical practices and for their insight on educational policy and new teaching and learning methods at schools and vocational education centers. Scene project course and the results are detailed as well as their implications for the exploitation of the project and knowledge to be transposed to schools and European educational systems.