'Playing with Protons': a training course for primary school teachers at CERN

One of CERN's strategic missions is to help train tomorrow's scientists, engineers and technologists, by providing support to schools, students, teachers and educators. Since 1998, CERN is home to a now extensive training programme specifically designed for high school physics teachers from member and associated member states as well as other countries [10]. The premise of this programme is that training teachers is an effective way of reaching many students, since the former can act as sustainable multiplicative factors by promoting science in general and particle physics within and beyond the classroom [11].

While several initiatives at or in collaboration with CERN have occurred over the past decade to bring the excitement of science in general and particle physics in particular to primary school students [12, 13], no primary teacher training had taken place at CERN until December 2015 [14]. 'Playing with Protons' aims to build on previous efforts in a systematic and consistent manner. As has been the case with CERN's many educational activities, the course emerged out of a bottom-up project that was first implemented in a Greek primary school in 2013–14 [15, 16]. With the support of members of the CERN community, including John Ellis, a well-known theoretical physicist and initiator of CERN's high school teacher programme, the project was extended to a pilot training course for 10 Greek primary teachers that took place at CERN in the summer of 2016 [17]. This course was initially supported by the CMS and subsequently by the ATLAS experiments at the large hadron collider (LHC) in the framework of the CREATIONS EU project [18].

The pilot course was followed up systematically for the next school year, during which nearly 900 Key Stage two students from 17 primary schools in Greece took part in hands-on particle physics activities for an average of 30 didactic hours. The positive results and feedback of this initial implementation [19, 20] encouraged the continuation and gradual expansion of the course, which up to September 2018 has trained 50 primary teachers from Greece and the UK. Details of the individual courses including the names and institutes of all contributors can be found in the programme agendas [21].

The 'Playing with Protons' course has been inspired by the vision to enhance the educational footprint created by large research infrastructures like CERN through the provision of tailor-made training for primary school teachers by using experienced physics educators mainly from their country of residence. This has the advantage that, once the course is over, teachers will continue receiving support from the trainers they met at the course. As the primary curriculum differs from country to country, it is crucial that the trainers are carefully chosen to have proven experience in primary school education and are still active educators themselves, but equally important that they have a strong background in physics (University degree or above).

The aims of the course are to help primary school teachers:

• Experience the unique culture of cutting-edge science, technology and innovation at the world's largest particle physics laboratory
• Try out new physics teaching approaches, especially hands-on activities and experiments with everyday materials, to increase their confidence when teaching physics and science in general
• Develop creative educational scenarios and lesson plans that build on and enrich their primary curriculum with modern physics ideas to increase the interest, motivation and wonder of students
• Get inspired and motivated to share their newly acquired subject knowledge with peers, parents and their local community

The development of the 'Playing with Protons' course is further informed by the creativity-based pedagogical framework [22] established within the CREATIONS project. Strong emphasis is placed on the features of dialogue, risk, immersion and play, and interdisciplinarity, the application of which can help make the science teaching and learning process inspiring and engaging both for teachers and students.

The advantage of running the course at CERN is that its programme is enriched with talks and Q&A sessions by members of the CERN scientific community and with visits to CERN's experimental facilities and permanent exhibitions. The on-site venue chosen for the course is IdeaSquare [23] which provides a modern, collaborative and creative surrounding to the teachers who might feel slightly apprehensive about their visit to such an impressive establishment.

Due to the mathematical complexity of modern physics, the national curricula of primary and low secondary education are based on the physics of the 19th century. This gives an old-fashioned aura to the subject and inadvertently it loses out on image and attraction. Teachers who are unfamiliar with modern physics concepts, research and questions, are missing the tools to engage effectively their classes with the inspiring and creative world of cutting-edge physics. It is therefore crucial that any course that aims to help primary school teachers enthuse their students towards the subject must incorporate a level of specialisation. The teacher is brought in line with current developments in the field of physics, thus paying attention on how scientists, by using various research schemes, develop, evaluate and apply acquired knowledge [24]. In addition, this knowledge must be built slowly and in a conceptual way rather than a mathematical way that will be more challenging for primary teachers and their students. Concepts and ideas can be explained with simple demonstrations that go straight to the point and can be also understood by young students. For example, the process of science that involves observations, patterns, possible explanations, experiments, revisions and judgements is easily demonstrated using a 'black box' (figure 1); no one knows what is in the box but experiments on the box can lead to inferences and conclusions [25].

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Moreover, the talks, visits and workshops of the course are structured in an integrated manner to offer teachers a diverse and holistic picture of the new physics ideas and concepts they are introduced to. This is crucial for the future use of the materials in the classroom. Students will pay more attention to the firsthand experiences of their teacher when he/she describes the visit to the LHC or shows them a photograph with one of the most famous theoretical physicists at CERN.

Finally, an equally important aspect of being at CERN is that the primary school teachers become part of a large international collaborative community. This is a cultural aspect that many teachers would not have come across on other training courses in their native country. The CERN culture of working together towards a common goal, irrespective of political affiliation of its member, associate and non-member states, is the ethical base that CERN was built on. This message is a powerful one and is certainly worth taking back into the classroom, as a teacher's role is not only to educate students on subject knowledge but also to make responsible citizens in a diverse and global society.

At the beginning of every workshop, an interactive talk provides the step-by-step ladder of knowledge that is needed to bring the trainees to the required level, equivalent to A level physics for UK trainees and of Lykeion for Greek trainees. The mathematical analysis behind the physics concepts is kept to a minimum as it is mostly important to understand the new concepts themselves and have the time to digest the newly acquired knowledge. Only when a mathematical analysis helps this process the equations and calculations are shared with and worked through.

Following the introductory talk, a series of hands-on activities are completed by the teachers. These activities use cheap everyday materials that can be easily replicated in the primary school classroom, either as they are or modified by the teacher [26]. As one of our primary aims is to empower the teachers themselves, we try to inspire them with these activities and to actively encourage them to come up with their own ideas and modifications to use in their classroom. Our hope is that some of the primary school teachers who participated in the course will return as trainers in future years, as has been the case for the Greek edition of the course.

Equally important is that we do not restrict the training to syllabus related topics only, but we give a wide overview of the current knowledge in physics, the current questions that are investigated at CERN, as well as the big unanswered questions. By providing opportunities for dialogue between teachers, scientists and science communicators, we also help teachers to understand that the evidence-based thinking and doing of science is one of the foundations of human creativity and that CERN works for humankind.

The diversity and breadth of the follow-up activities completed by the teachers was immense. As mentioned above, many teachers engaged with more schools in their area as well as with their local community. They have become ambassadors for science, physics, particle physics and CERN and continue to engage with larger audiences' year after year. It is impossible to include in this paper the vast expansion of activities that continue to emerge. Table 2 gives a few examples of the subject areas, questions and type of activities that were used by the majority of teachers.

While the impact of the aforementioned follow-up activities on students' interest in science and creativity is currently under investigation, it may be worth noting that some of those activities have received awards and recognitions at national and international competitions. These are summarised in table 3.

In this subsection we present evaluation results based on quantitative and qualitative data collected with an online survey questionnaire from 30 teachers who participated in the following three courses: Greece 2016 (n  =  10); Greece 2017 (n  =  10); and UK 2018 (n  =  10). The survey included single statements rated on five-item Likert-type scales ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), or very poor (1) to very good (5), and open-ended questions to elicit richer feedback from the respondents.

In the first part of the questionnaire, teachers were asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with statements related to: (1) the relevance and usefulness of the course; (2) the organisation and running of the course; (3) whether the course met their expectations; and (4) whether they would recommend the course to colleagues.

As shown in figure 2, a staggering 100% of the teachers rated these questions with either 'strongly agree' or 'agree', demonstrating in a very clear manner the importance and value of this course. The only noticeable difference between the Greek and the UK teacher ratings was found in the relevance/usefulness parameter. This difference may be explained by cultural perceptions; for a UK teacher 'relevant' is understood as curriculum-relevant, where for a Greek teacher any knowledge that widens the horizons of their students is regarded as 'relevant'.

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The second part of the questionnaire allowed teachers to rate each activity individually. Yet as the UK and Greek programmes differed in the number and types of sessions, it was fairer to compare the overall rating given from each country rather than the individual ratings for workshops, visits and talks.

Figure 3 shows clearly that both UK and Greek versions of the course were an enormous success; % ratings for poor and very poor were zero while % ratings for neutral were very low in comparison. It is also clear that Greek teachers were more pleased with the course in comparison to their UK colleagues, perhaps because teacher training opportunities such as these could be less commonly available in Greece. It is therefore possible that the overall appreciation of the Greek teacher community was inflated for this reason.

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When comparing the ratings teachers gave to visits, workshops and talks, it was clear that teachers liked the balance between the three types of activities. The high ratings 'talks' received (figure 4) show the value teachers placed in interacting with CERN staff and listening from the experts, even though most talks were not directly linked to the primary school curriculum but aimed at giving an overall view of the current research at CERN.

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On the last part of the questionnaire teachers commented on: (1) the aspects they mostly/least enjoyed; (2) their plans to implement activities in their school community; and (3) ideas and suggestions for improving the course.

In the 'mostly enjoyed' aspects, comments included the good balance between theory and practice, the quality of the support given by the organisers, the visits, the quality of speakers, the change of role from teacher to student they experienced, meeting new people that are also passionate about science and recognise the importance of primary students and teachers, enhancing their subject knowledge, being in such an inspirational place, and many more.

In the 'least enjoyed' category, comments included the short duration of the course and the speed at which some concepts and discussions took place. Many teachers wanted the course to last at least 1–2 more days to give them the extra time needed to absorb the new material they were learning.

Finally, some very useful ideas for improvement were suggested that include: (1) the distribution of pre-reading material; (2) the set-up of a meeting prior to the trip to CERN so that team members have a chance to get to know each other before-hand; and (3) the possibility of including creative time-slots so that teachers have a chance to start putting their ideas into actions. The suggestion to make the programme longer and therefore less dense was again prominent in this part. Figure 5 shows the frequency of some of the words used by the teachers to describe the course.

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Overall the organisers are very pleased with the evaluation they received and are currently taking steps to implement some of the above suggestions in their future plans.

In August 2018 an invitation to a follow-up online survey was sent to 30 primary teachers from Greece (n  =  20) and the UK (n  =  10) who participated in 'Playing with Protons' courses at CERN in August 2016 and 2017. The aim of this survey was to measure changes over time in teachers' interest, confidence, creativity and knowledge sharing as well as to gather information on changes in their professional and self-development as a direct consequence of their participation in the course. The survey employed single statements rated on five-item Likert-type scales ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), and open-ended questions to elicit more details from the respondents. Surveys were fully completed by 25 teachers, with a response rate of 82.5%.

As shown in figure 6, the results indicate that the course not only increased teachers' interest in physics, particle physics and more generally in science, but also boosted their science teaching confidence. Importantly, as shown in the same figure, all respondents agreed strongly that they became more creative primary science teachers because of their participation in the course. In addition, 68% of teachers agreed strongly and 28% agreed that they shared what they learnt during the course and implemented in their schools with colleagues from their home country.

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Teachers' follow-up comments complement the above picture by illustrating the positive and, in some cases, transformative role the course has had on their teaching practice, professional development and even personal outlook. First, in table 4, we present selected teachers' qualitative feedback categorised along the evaluation dimensions of interest, confidence, creativity and knowledge sharing. To note that these dimensions are linked directly to the four core aims of the 'Playing with Protons' course. Second, table 5 presents additional quotes that depict the impact the course has had on teachers' professional development and personal outlook.