We are building a selective network of university-based teacher education programs across India that enable students to persue our unique online learning module for using computer simulations in teaching and learning about evolution, behavior, and sustainability science. Focused on our unique collection of NetLogo Agent-Based Models – this module provides new perspsectives for cultivating interdisciplinary competencies in teachers and students. 

The module contains 6 short units, and can take 2-3 hours to complete, at the students’ preferred pacing and schedule (see more information here). Participating students will receive certificates of completion jointly issued from our OpenEvo Lab of the Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and the collaborating University partner, opportunities to develop educational research and thesis work with NetLogo models, and a professional network of others using these tools for interdisciplinary science education!

We are building a network of teacher education students and researchers interested in developing innovative approaches to exploring evolution across biological, human, and computer science contexts. 

Introduction to Human Origins and Cultural Evolution

• OpenEvo is interested to collaborate with teacher education groups that would like to develop a stand alone module, or a part of an existing module, focused on teaching introductory foundational concepts for the scientific understanding of human origins through the interaction of biological and cultural evolution.
  
  
• Thesis work for pre-service teacher education students can be developed in this area, with advisory supports from OpenEvo as requested.

The Origins of Science: Lesson materials development

• Integrating concepts across the evolution of language, nature of science, history of science, primate archaeology, evolutionary anthropology, computational thinking, and other related fields of science to contribute innovative lessons to a global database of approaches to engaging students of all ages in big questions about the origins and evolution of science as a centrally important human social construct.
  
  
• Thesis work for pre-service teacher education students can be developed in this area, with advisory supports from OpenEvo as requested.

EvoFlex: Translation and classroom testing

• Creating Hindi and Bilingual versions of the EvoFlex instrument, and testing across English-only, Bilingual, and Hindi-only versions across educational contexts.
  
  
• Thesis work for pre-service teacher education students can be developed in this area, with advisory supports from OpenEvo as requested.

The Evolution of Language: Indian context adaptations

• Translation of the basic Evolution of Language guide into the full diversity of languages spoken across India.  
  
  
• Development of specific supplemental topics specifically linked to linguistic diversity and cultural evolution across Indian contexts and histories.
  
  
• Thesis work for pre-service teacher education students can be developed in this area, with advisory supports from OpenEvo as requested.

Compared to the cultural evolution of scientific understanding, the design of general education curricula has remained relatively stagnant since the origins and spread of public schooling in the last two centuries. The rise of AI technologies presents new challenges and opportunities, not simply to how teachers develop lessons, but to the deeper underlying structures of knowledge which form the basis of the learning pathways that the majority of the world’s population are required or encouraged to engage.  We are building a network of students and education researchers across ages at selected schools and universities across India to help us advance the emerging field of Computational Curriculum Studies.

Topics in development:

• The Nature of Science and Information Compression: We are working with key partners to create a flexible collection of online and in-class activities for studens to understand the fundamental concept in computer science of Information Compression, and it’s relevance across the life sciences, and interdisciplinary human sciecnes. 
• Machine Culture-Coevolution: Empowering students to become evolutionary anthropologists and computer scientists, studying the dynamic role of AI in the educational systems of India.