Poppy Bennetts, University of Glasgow
This nugget details what a week entails as a student attending the ESERA summer school, this year held at the University of Tartu, Estonia.
As a PhD student in Physics Education, it can often be hard to network and collaborate with other PhD students in a similar research field as the area still feels quite small. My research investigates meaningful and inclusive assessment in Physics and Astronomy where I am mainly focused on looking at the cognitive levels developed through physics and astronomy degrees at the University of Glasgow. In the second year of my studies I felt it would be a good opportunity to apply for a summer school, allowing me to meet fellow science education research students and develop my own research.
The European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) runs annual, week long summer schools for PhD students in science education with the aims of bringing students together and providing them with feedback on their research and its future prospects. Being in the second year of my PhD I felt is was a good time to try and apply for this summer school opportunity as I would have enough research to talk about, whilst also having enough time left to implement any interesting ideas and feedback. The summer school is a very competitive opportunity with roughly one in every two applicants getting accepted so I am incredibly grateful to have been chosen to attend. The school is held in a different country each year with this year being held at the University of Tartu, Estonia. Figure 1 shows part of the walk from the accommodation to the University of Tartu, where the University’s main building can be seen.
In advance of the summer school, each participant had to prepare both a poster and a presentation to deliver throughout the week. As this experience is a different environment to a conference, our presentations could be very informal if we wished as the main goal was to gain feedback and insights on our research so far. Before the beginning of the summer school we had a chance to meet our group – there were 49 PhD students in total, split into groups of approximately 6/7 students. Being able to meet my group before the summer school was very comforting and meant that when it came to actually arriving in Estonia I already knew and recognised some people there. Throughout the week there were opportunities to meet and collaborate with those from all groups, however it was within my group that I feel I made real friends who I have kept in contact with since the end of the summer school.
Although I was nervous on my way to Estonia (with a long 13 hour journey to add to the suspense!), I settled very shortly after arriving by being surrounded by such friendly and supportive peers and mentors. To initiate the week, we begun by visiting the AHHAA Science Centre where we were free to roam the exhibits after hours, experiencing cool science things with cool science people. This was a great way to introduce all of the students and mentors in a relaxed environment with the common ground of science all around us. After this, the rest of the week was fairly structured with a mixture of four session types – mentor group meetings, poster sessions, open discussions, and workshops.
The mentor group meetings were held twice per day every day and each session was centred around one of the group members. The student would give a 30 minute presentation followed by 30 minutes of one-to-one feedback with one of their mentors and then a further 30 minutes of feedback from their peers in their group. Figure 2 shows me presenting my research on cognitive level analysis of exam papers at ESERA. The mentor group sessions were the most valuable part of my summer school experience as they helped me to gain confidence with presenting as well as valuable feedback from both my mentors and peers. I also found it very interesting to hear feedback from those in other fields of science education rather than those just in physics education as they often had new and important perspectives I had not previously considered.
The workshops and open discussion focused on a range of topics however they generally had overarching themes of how to develop as a researcher, for example how to network and overcome imposter syndrome. While these sessions were interesting to attend, I perhaps did not get as much out of them as I would have done a bit earlier in my PhD – I felt that now over halfway through my PhD I had already been in situations overcoming a lot of the topics discussed. There were also three poster sessions where all students got to present their research in a very similar setting to what would be experienced at a conference. This consisted of each student giving a two minute poster pitch, followed by a large open room for viewing posters and asking questions. In addition to the more academic side of the summer school, we also met for social dinners each night and spent lots of time exploring Tartu which included taking a river cruise through the town.
In conclusion, the ESERA summer school was a really incredible experience which I would recommend to any PhD students in science education. Not only did I make an immense amount of professional connections all across Europe, I also made good friends with my peers. I felt that being roughly in the middle of my PhD was the perfect time to attend and now I’m back home and working hard on trying to implement a lot of the feedback received!