User:Phacias/sandbox

Please don't delete any of this. I'm preparing a Wikipedia entry as an academic assignment. This page contains my draft work and is being frequently reviewed by my supervisor. Thank you.

Phacias (talk) 01:00, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Academic Association for Science - University of Silesia (Polish: Uniwersyteckie Towarzystwo Naukowe - Wszechnica Śląska) is an institution convened in 2011 by the Centre for Lifelong Learning of the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland) to fulfill the general goal of popularizing science and improving education among teachers, parents and students. The main idea of the Association is to spread scientific methodology and modern education, utilizing modern tools, multimedia and the most innovative solutions proposed by neurodidactics. The methods include lifelong learning courses targeted towards teachers, workshops for primary school children and high school students, and annual lecture series covering a variety of scientific fields. Most of the actions undertaken by the Association aim to present how modern technology can enhance learning, thus improving the general state of education and public understanding of science.

Centre for Lifelong Learning
Centre for Lifelong Learning UoS is an outreach unit of the University that was formerly the only way it used to reach out to the non-academic public. It coordinated and held many courses, mostly targeted at teachers, in an attempt to keep up an appropriate standard of pre-college education. As the years passed, a more specialised section of the Centre was in demand. This is how AAfS was created.

Early existence
Primarily the Association was intended to host courses for teachers, spreading modern didactic thought, but very soon it took up a more bottom-up strategy. This is how the first Meetings with Biology were experimentally organised in 2012. The event turned out to be a success, attracting over 5000 students from the Silesian region. Encouraged by the outcome, the leaders of AAfS changed its profile, making it more students-oriented.

Structures
The Association does not have a completely fixed crew and few people are legally known as emploees. It is common for lecturers to participate in various initiatives as invited guests, depending on the topic and specific character of the event. The idea is to match the lecturer with current teaching conditions (lecture hall, laboratory or outdoors) in order to facilitate an effective and pleasant learning process. Some members however, through their systematic participation, have become an integral part of the organization. Caused by the structures being so limited, it is not uncommon for one person to play many essential roles simultaneously. Listed below are some of many cooperators.

Marek Kaczmarzyk Ph.D. - biologist, neurodidactician, Foreman of Academic Association for Science.

Dorota Kopeć M.S. - biologist, didactician, specialist in student activisation.

Jacek Francikowski Ph.D. - etologist, neurodidactician.

Łukasz Chajec Ph.D. - histologist, didactician.

Krzysztof Chyżak - biology student.

Joanna Guzik Ph.D. - physiologist.

Aleksander Lamża Ph.D. - computer scientist, specialises in modernised education such as polisensorial and multimedial teaching.

Mikołaj Cup - interfaculty biology student.

Armand Cholewka Ph.D. - biophysicist.

Jakub Janiec - biophysics student.

Neurodidactics
Neurodidactics is the main idea that drives all Associations actions. It's a field of biological sciences mingling the achievements of psychology, pedagogics, neurobiology and technology in an attempt to meet the demands for an effective education. The axiom of neurodidactics states that during learning, information cannot be transferred between two brains directly, but instead it has to be created de novo in the learners mind. Thus it requires a trained professional to optimally create an appropriate environment, motivation and stimuli around the learner to facilitate an uninterrupted birth of the desired thought in the learners mind. This idea is much in favour of the Association, which pays extensive attention to the selection of topics, aids and scenery of the lectures and workshops.

Regular Events
The Association exists to reach out to the public. This is why two times a year, in September and February, it holds two series of lectures called "Meetings with Science". Each series lasts about a week and offers several thematically integral 90 minutes long lecture blocks that take place simultaneously several times a day in 30 minutes intervals. This way learners arriving from distant areas can participate in up to four different blocks the same day. These events are targeted at school students of all ages and profiles, each time featuring a wide spectrum of topics. The lecturers seek not only to present the attendants with competent scientific knowledge, but also to emphasise the importance of receiving a good education and show attending teachers how technology and multimedia can be utilised to enhance education every day in schools and colleges.

Cooperation with companies
Academic Association for Science is the first party to use and promote SiLab systems. Such system is a high-tech computerised mobile laboratory, useful in teaching natural sciences. It consists of a motherboard enclosed in a box with a USB port for PC communication and four input ports, each allowing the user to connect one independent probe. At first the company offerred numerous probes for conducting various simple measurements, such as atmospheric pressure, temperature, concentration of gasses in the air and dissolved in water, but the Association helped develop a complete set of more advanced probes too, among which are ones useful in psychophysiological measurements, that allow teachers and lecturers to quickly and cheaply visualise phenomenons such as electrocardiography, Galvanic Skin Response (old fashioned lie detector) or electromyography (electric activity of skeletal muscles) right in every clasroom with only a PC needed.