About the talk:

Dagmara is an enthusiastic physics lecturer at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. When her own children started exploring the world around them, she quickly realised how poorly physics is taught in Poland. There was none of the passion or enthusiasm she had for this fascinating subject so it became her goal to change how physics and natural sciences are taught in Poland.

Recorded during: TEDxKraków 2012

About the speaker:

She is the founder of the Świetlik competition, which has grown to include over 30,000 children since it was started in 2007. It brings together children, parents and teachers in a fun and educational project.

Dagmara also conducts research on various forms of science education, from nursery school to college degrees. She's an advocate of the “active learning” approach in which children are encouraged to develop an analytical approach to problem solving – she believes that this is the way that we need to educate our children for the future. She is also involved in physics teacher training, the development of motivational teaching techniques, writing of physics tests and physics short exams for upper secondary school and the respective guides for teachers. She is working on educating teachers (usually women who come from a biology background and a learning by heart tradition), developing assessment programmes for this method and persuading the education ministries to take this seriously.

In her talk, Dagmara describes her passion – physics and teaching – and her dream – universal education that develops natural abilities, interests and teaches life competence, rather than rote learning – and her plans for achieving this within the Polish educational system.