ICS - a platform for the implementation of educational and scientific projects
For almost forty years of holding International (Interregional) Computer Schools (ICS), none of them has repeated the other. Three key features of this year can be considered:
- return of the School to the classical (and for a number of reasons - optimal) organizational model;
- a new format for developing programme content for participants;
- speaking in English by some participants at the final conference.
In the first two changes, JINR Information Centres played a key role, carrying out significant educational activities in the regions of their deployment with the assistance of the University Centre. In the third - the distribution of the UC educational programmes to foreign partners (JINR Member States) that have been organized since this year with the participation of Dubna high school students.
The optimal model was developed by trial and error during the first five years, however, due to objective external circumstances, its implementation became impossible in the second half of the 1990s of the last century. This model assumed:
- a special type of educational activity of students - group educational, research and engineering activities on one project throughout the School and building an auxiliary curriculum for each project for the success of such a process;
- high "concentration" of mentors and their assistants (for five listeners there are two mentors and assistants);
- total number of participants within 80 people;
- membership of the school on the basis of delegations of schoolchildren from various regions of the Russian Federation and its neighbors representing partner organizations;
- different ways of "mixing" (socialization) of participants, aimed at increasing the ability to work in groups of different structures and different numbers.
Eight delegations of the Arkhangelsk and Rostov Regions, Primorsky Krai, Kamchatka, North Ossetia, the cities of Samara, Dmitrov and Dubna took part in the 38th ICS. Nonresident delegations were formed with the participation of JINR Information Centres or partner organizations and consisted of an average of six people - the head of the delegation, a physics and/or mathematics teacher and five students that passed the competitive selection. The most numerous was the delegation of Dubna - 18 people, consisting of schoolchildren of the city, that showed themselves during the year in various educational programmes of JINR. They represented schools No. 3, 5, 7, 11, Lyceum No. 6 and Lyceum named after V. G. Kadyshevsky. The total number of listeners was 56 people aged 12 to 16 years (the total number of participants was 80 people). The international status of the school was provided by the only foreign participant from Uzbekistan, a student of Lyceum No. 6 named after G. N. Flerov.
Like the last two years, the ICS was preceded by the 5th School-Seminar “Teacher of the future” that was actually extended for the whole ICS and ended with the final reflection of the mentors on 2 August after the departure of its participants. Unlike the spring similar schools "Teachers of the future" for students of physical and mathematical specialties, the summer version was focused on mastering an approach that is still unconventional for the school system, based on modeling methodologies.
In total, 15 people took part in the School-Seminar “Teacher of the future”. During the week, the representatives of Russian universities - North Ossetia, Rostov‑on‑Don, Primorsky Krai, Moscow and Dubna, under the supervision of experienced mentors from JINR and MAI, developed content and teaching support for five projects in the field of experimental and applied physics, modern engineering and applied mathematics. Intensive immersion in project education by the students of the School‑Seminar allowed them not only to actually take a kind of continuing education course, but also to become co‑instructors of projects for students of the ICS. The students of the School-Seminar, together with the heads of delegations, visited the NICA Accelerator Complex (lecturer-guide - Dmitry Dryablov).
During the School-Seminar, the following projects were prepared:
- "Rainbow" (supervisor - Rostislav Dorsky, one of the "elders" of the ICS, a senior lecturer at the Moscow Aviation Institute) - on geometric optics and computer modeling of optical phenomena in the atmosphere;
- "Applied ballistics" (supervisor - Petr Shirkov) - on experimental physics and computer modeling of meeting the inverse problem of ballistics;
- "Space navigator" (supervisor - Petr Shirkov) - in applied mathematics: construction by means of geometry and algebra of sets with given properties - trajectories and surfaces;
- "Robot-researcher" (supervisor - Pavel Luchinin) - an introduction to the basics of engineering and robotics using the example of creating a prototype of a fire robot;
- "Automation of a physical experiment" (supervisor - Pavel Luchinin) - the development of simple facilities for processing the results of a school experiment on the Arduino platform.
The distribution of listeners by projects passed during the first day and turned out to be close to uniform - an average of 10–12 people in the group; the most popular was "Robot-researcher". Heads of delegations - teachers that accompanied schoolchildren, also joined the projects, playing the role of assistants in them and thereby acquiring new professional skills.
At the final conference that was held on 1 August, the project participants spoke about the progress of work and presented the results. The representatives of three projects ("Space navigator", "Robot- researcher" and "Rainbow") made part of their speech in English. The JINR employees Marina Donets and Ramin Barak helped them to prepare for this form of project defense at the ICS (it happened for the first time in the history of the School) during the Scientific English special course.
In addition to intensive work on projects, the School participants had to take part in a rich leisure programme containing:
- prolonged intellectual investigation of a numerical rebus concerning one of the key research areas of JINR;
- sports and intellectual team competitions (team olympiad in natural sciences and engineering; games "Guess the scientist", "What, where, when?", "Enigma", "Economics");
- a bus tour of Dubna (guide - Maria Pilipenko) and on the ship, as well as a lecture programme (lecturers - Dmitry Kamanin and Petr Shirkov).
To participate in leisure programmes, the School students were "mixed" in six teams, taking into account geographical affiliation (that is, representatives of one delegation got into different teams), age and gender. Every morning, at the planning meeting, based on recommendations for special merits, on the day that passed from among the listeners, the candidates were nominated for the title of "Man of the Day of the ICS". Open voting was chosen worthy of this title. In total, over the entire period of the School, 16 people were awarded this title. On the last day of the ICS, the "Man of the year of the ICS" was determined from among the winners by closed voting. It was the representative of the delegation of Dmitrov Andrey Razumovsky that traditionally became the first of the participants in the next, 39th ICS.
The organizers of the School are grateful to the staff of the D. I. Blokhintsev Universal Library, the Dubna Hotel and Restaurant that did everything possible to serve the programme participants.
In conclusion, here are some statements of the programme participants made at the closing of the School and during the interview.
Makar Pustovoy (Lyceum named after V. G. Kadyshevsky): "The most difficult thing at School is teamwork."
Komiljon Kattabekov (Lyceum named after G. N. Flerov): "I went to School with doubt and it returned my faith in my own abilities."
Nina Amelkina (Head of the Primorsky Territory delegation): "Projects – that is teamwork; and our wards are faced with the fact that everything should be done not on their own, but together with colleagues, which they are not accustomed to...”
Lev Kuznetsov (Head of the delegation of Samara): "There is a very diverse activity: there are sports events and intellectual events of a game format and the projects themselves and special courses, and there is still time for communication and rest."
Valentina Turysheva (Head of the delegation of Arkhangelsk): "I have been here for the first year and I would like to thank the organizers for the hospitality which we are greeted here with, for their care to all the details and all the requests. And the second thing that I really liked was your pride in Russian science."
Polina Trigub, Viktoria Ovsienko (the participants of the School-Seminar “Teachers of the future”, the co-leaders of the project “Robot-researcher”, Physics Department of SFU): "The School was useful in showing the union between physics and robotics. We figured out its basis, as well as programming. Having noticed how the students are engaged in the automation of a physical experiment, we realized that it would be useful to us in our lessons in the future. And of course, the School helped a lot to build cooperation with children."
P. L. Luchinin, M. S. Pilipenko, P. D. Shirkov,
photos by L. A. Krylova