Ongoing Projects
The National Institute for Research on the Socioeconomic Impact of Diseases and Systemic Risks (SYRI)
Funded by European Union – Next Generation EU (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, NPO: EXCELES.
The project aims to establish The National Institute for Research on the Socioeconomic Impact of Diseases and Systemic Risks (SYRI). Its goal is to strengthen the Czech Republic’s research capacity in addressing major public health risks, including pandemics like COVID-19. By bringing together social sciences, economics, public health, and policy studies, the project will produce interdisciplinary research that will guide public policy and improve healthcare outcomes. The institute will focus on resilience systems, health inequalities, governance, and communication, ensuring a coordinated response to health threats. SYRI will serve as a national scientific authority, contributing both academically and practically to the management of future health risks.
Research Group Education and the impact of the pandemic (SYRI)
The goal of education systems, i.e., maximizing the potential of learners, implies ensuring equal educational opportunities. There are strong educational inequalities in the Czech Republic, which have been further reinforced by the pandemic-forced transition of schools to distance learning. The project will analyse how these negative impacts can be reduced in both normal and crisis situations and evaluate proposed intervention measures.
Mediated society (MEDIS:ON)
CZ.02.01.01/00/23_025/0008713
Funded by Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.
The Mediated Society (MEDIS:ON) project responds in its content and goals to the dramatic development of technologies that have become part of the everyday life of modern society. MEDIS:ON focuses on exploring the impact of artificial intelligence on society and sees AI as both a tool to expand human capabilities and a challenge related to the widening digital divide, the proliferation of conspiracies and deepfakes, and the lack of AI literacy. The primary goal of the MEDIS:ON project is to advance and deepen the understanding of processes related to the process of working with information at the individual, social and societal level through the perspective of selected social sciences and humanities disciplines (psychology, political science, theology, pedagogy) and in close collaboration with computer sciences.
The European Teacher Academy for Online Teaching and Learning – Fostering Online teaching Readiness and Competences in Education (E-FORCE)
E+ 101196237
The European Teacher Academy for Online Teaching and Learning (E-FORCE) aims to enhance online teaching proficiency among educators in early childhood, primary, and secondary education. This project will address the digital readiness and capacity of teachers and schools to transition seamlessly to online education, fostering a resilient and inclusive digital learning environment. By creating a structured network for collaboration and professional development across Europe, E-FORCE will support the exchange of best practices, influence educational policies, and promote inclusive online learning. Key outputs include professional development programs, policy recommendation letters, and a sustainable framework for ongoing teacher training and support in digital education.
Completed Projects
Collectivity in Dialogic Teaching: An Intervention Study
Funded by the Czech Science Foundation.
Dialogic teaching is a pedagogical approach utilizing the power of talk to engage students, stimulate and extend their thinking, and advance their learning and understanding. Several intervention studies have been conducted with the aim of establishing dialogic teaching in participating classrooms. However, these studies failed to consider whether dialogic teaching is collective, meaning whether all students participate sufficiently in the classroom. This point is essential as if the collectivity is disrupted, the inequalities in learning opportunities are increased. Silent students are disadvantaged compared to vocal students. The core of the proposed project is to conduct an intervention aimed at establishing collective dialogic teaching, meaning a state in which all students productively verbally participate. We will explore whether and under what conditions it is possible to change student participation patterns in order to enable all students to use classroom dialogue productively for their learning.
On the Relationship between Characteristics of Classroom Discourse and Student Achievement
GA17-03643S
Funded by the Czech Science Foundation.
The project aims to identify how the form of instructional communication and pupils’ educational outcomes are related in the lower secondary education (ISCED 2A). Pupils’ educational outcomes will be measured in the area of literacy, and the instructional communication in literary education.
The methodology of the proposed project consists of a quantitative and qualitative phase. In the quantitative phase, a structured observation of instructional communication will be conducted on a sample of 40 classes. We will mainly record the quantity and quality of student talk. The observation data will be related to the observed students’ performance on standardised literacy tests. In the following qualitative phase, we will examine in detail the patterns of participation of different types of students – in terms of their level of participation and in terms of their learning outcomes – in a sample of four selected classes. We will describe the different patterns of participation and how they are constructed in the classroom.
BOLD LAB 