Following the recommendations of the "Science Education Now: A renewed Pedagogy for the Future of Europe" report (Rocard, 2007) , the PATHWAY Supporting Action brought together experts in the field of science education research and teachers’ communities, scientists and researchers involved in pioneering scientific research, policy makers and curriculum developers to promote the effective widespread use of inquiry and problem based science teaching techniques in primary and secondary schools in Europe and beyond (non-European partners in Russia and the US).

The project has set the PATHWAY toward a standard-based approach to teaching science by inquiry, to support the adoption of inquiry teaching by demonstrating ways to reduce the constraints presented by teachers and school organisation, to demonstrate and disseminate methods and exemplary cases of both effective introduction of inquiry to science classrooms and professional development programmes, and to deliver a set of guidelines for the educational community to further explore and exploit the unique benefits of the proposed approach in science teaching. More than 10,000 teachers were introduced in the PATHWAY methodology in the participating countries. Numerous best practices were used to facilitate the introduction of the inquiry approach to real school environments. Numerous teachers have populated the project portal with materials that were developed for classroom use. More than 50% of the participants were involved in an extended evaluation process before and after the training, and after a period of 2-4 months following the implementation of the inquiry activities in the classroom. The PATHWAY project has developed the most active and engaged teachers community in Europe and it aims to continue this work by exploiting further the PATHWAY training framework. The core of the PATHWAY exploitation strategy is the European Science Education Academy (ESEA). The training framework that is delivered by the ESEA is focusing on science teachers and instructional leaders. Facilitating the PATHWAY main outcomes (a series of guidelines, scenarios of practice, tools and show cases from the numerous PATHWAY teachers) the programme can support participants to introduce innovative aspects in their school settings.  The programme is offered in the form of webinars, interactive online sessions, 2 to 6 day lasting courses and field visits as well as observations in PATHWAY schools all over Europe. 

PATHWAY Project Management
Ulla Diener (M.A.)
University of Bayreuth
Universitätsstr.30, NWI
95447 Bayreuth
Phone: 0049-(0)921-55-2593
Fax:   0049-(0)921-55-2696
Email: pathway@uni-bayreuth.de

www.pathway-project.eu