When and how to use SCY
A teacher can choose to use SCY in many different ways in the classroom. First of all, we built it to be self sufficient. A student may work through a mission with very little intervention from a teacher. This offers the opportunity to let a whole class work on a complicated subject at the same time, using motivating and active pedagogical work forms, while individually scaffolding each student according to his needs. Something that is nearly impossible for a teacher to do in a more traditional teaching setting.
A teacher may also use SCY to differentiate between students, for instance by using missions as extra material for faster students. The teacher can then give more attention to other students.
Instead of implementing an entire mission, one can also use only parts of it, or even single activities, to add pedagogical variation to lessons for example.
Regardless of the way SCY is implemented in the classroom, teachers can monitor the progress of students from the teacher environment. And finally, teachers may tweak SCY missions to fit specific needs, by setting parameters, such as the availability of specific scaffolds (yes/no) or the instructional tactics used by the system (scale from aggressive to laissez-faire). We will deal with the teacher environment and authoring possibilities in more detail in paragraph 3.3.
Characteristics and requirements of SCY in the classroom
SCY-Lab is a digital learning environment, so first of all, every student that will work with SCY-Lab needs a computer. Furthermore, a large part of SCY is online. The advantage is that not a lot of available memory space is needed to store learning data – but a working internet connection is continuously necessary. Third, to be able to run SCY, some SCY software has to be installed on local computers. The technical manual tells you exactly what (free) software this is, where to find it and how to go about it.
The time required to work with SCY depends on the mission that is chosen. The ‘DNA'- mission, for example, can be completed in 8 lessons, but it also offers a number of optional modules to choose from. The ‘Design a CO2-friendly house'-mission typically requires 20 lessons, whereas the "Run for your life" ‘can be done in 1 to 2 hours.
To conclude with, working with SCY will most likely imply that a teacher employs pedagogical techniques and educational practices that might be (a.) new to the teacher and the students and (b.) not equally suited to every student. That means that extra guidance and time might be needed the first time a specific teacher and class of students start a mission. The ‘Run for your life'-mini-mission was specifically designed for the purpose of introducing a teacher and his students to the world of SCY.
SCY for Teachers
Teachers, scientists, programmers and education specialists use and develop SCY together. The SCY for Teachers web pages (http://scy-net.eu/web/scycom/what-is-scy) is the online home of this open community of developers and users around SCY. On this site, you can:
- access all information about SCY that a teacher would need, from all the missions to the instructional videos
- upload, download and comment on educational materials
- chat and meet with colleagues and with other users
- communicate with peers on the forum
SCY for Teachers also offers this manual and news about updated versions of SCY-Lab, SCYSnippets (SCYSnippets are selected tools and components from SCY-Lab. They give an impression of the various tools available in SCY without downloading and registering in SCY-Lab) and SCY-Tools.