On the 22nd of April 2022, a group of 14 secondary education and vocational training teachers from Colégio S. Gonçalo in Amarante (Portugal) completed the tenth and final workshop of the Illumine Professional Development Programme.
During a period of six months, participants attended a series of workshops for teachers on evidence-based teaching practices about Neuroscience in Education around the topics of Science of Learning, Teacher Inquiry, Retrieval Practice, Stress Mindsets, Interleaving Practice, Distributed Practice and Brain Breaks. Teachers were invited to explore and discuss evidence-based teaching and learning strategies and, by following the ‘Teacher as Researcher’ approach, designed and implemented their own research projects with students.
Participating teachers commented that “having the time to reflect on their professional practice was the main takeaway from the workshops” and also “understanding the pros and cons of the strategies was very interesting and important”. Teachers stated that “experimenting new strategies in class led to students being more engaged and motivated”.
