Relevance

Demands and requirements for the workforce have been changing rapidly due to digital transformation, and the knowledge and skills acquired today will not be enough in future. At the same time, demand for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills is on the rise and expected to grow, and educators should take it into account. In the time when STEM has become one of the most important values in European education, it is particularly important for schoolteachers and trainers working in the informal education to acquire the skills that make them STEM and STE(A)M (including Arts in STEM programmes) – ready.

How to achieve this? How to make teachers and trainers STE(A)M-ready and help them develop and sustain students’ interest in STE(A)M? How to ensure the change when educators are eager to acquire new competences themselves, adopt the cross-disciplinary STE(A)M approaches and implement those in their work? And how to support educator preparation for this change?

The consortium of seven partners from six countries have designed the STEAMonEdu project to address this challenge.  We believe that if the change is carried through collaborative networks of educators, students, researchers, and other stakeholders, it is likely to be more successful.

In this context, the STEAMonEdu project will research how to strengthen STE(A)M education and will provide an online environment to support the eco-system, that will be based on a bottom-up approach, where  different stakeholders work collaboratively to design, develop and implement STE(A)M content, practices, projects, and policies. The project will develop and test the integrated modular training system that can be easily transferred and adapted at local, regional and national level.

 Partners

The partnership was set up considering the required expertise to realise the professional development of educators and includes:

• R&D state institute Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus” (CTI) with its expertise in project management and in ICT solutions for training;
• four non-profit organisations experienced in developing methodologies, community outreach and training: 21st Century Competence Centre in Germany, Stati Generali dell’Innovazione (SGI) in Italy, EOS Foundation in Romania, Colectic in Spain,
• The Regional Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education of Western Greece (PDEDE) bringing expertise in design and evaluation of methodologies, and
• a European network – ALL DIGITAL with its experience in advocacy, dissemination, and exploitation

The two-year project was kicked-off with the partners’ meeting on 21-22 January 2020 in Athens hosted by the lead partner CTI. During the meeting the partners reviewed all aspects of the project implementation. They explored the  plans for the roll-up and promotion of the project, considered carefully how to develop the STE(A)M repository, the learning materials, how to build and grow the community of practice, and carry out the STE(A)M policy evaluation. The pilot partners agreed on a number of following steps, and it was a valuable and productive start to the project.

Follow the project news on social media with the hashtag #STEAMonEdu

STEM education is getting higher on the Italian political agenda.

«The health emergency of these months has made it even clearer: promoting knowledge of STEM and financial subjects from an early age, particularly for young girls and students, is crucial. Inequalities start at an early age, let’s start again with education.»

With these words the Minister for Equal Opportunities and the Family Elena Bonetti announced on her Facebook page the launch of the call «STEM2020«, with which Italy invests 2 million euros from 1 July to 31 December 2020, to create courses for young girls and boys and students from 4 to 19 years of age.

The main objectives of the call are:

• to promote the empowerment of girls, stimulating them from an early age to become passionate about technical-scientific subjects, to study them, so that they can compete in the labour market of the future, taking up all the challenges;
• to overcome the stereotypes and prejudices, according to which the world of STEM subjects is exclusively for men;
• to stimulate the learning of these subjects also through innovative ways of learning the scientific method.

The project proposals are intended for schools of all levels, from pre-school to upper secondary school.

The educational areas are mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, coding, economics, robotics, animation, earth and environmental sciences, just to name a few, obviously chosen according to the age of the students and the type of school. 60% of the beneficiaries will have to be girls in order to guarantee an effective participation. Each project will be granted up to 15,000 euros and it is open to schools, universities and Third Sector organizations.

By SGI

The survey, which is addressed to teachers in primary and secondary education (students aged 3 to 19), aims to collect information on the educational technologies teachers used in the weeks that followed the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the problems they encountered, the solution they adopted as well as the recommendations they may wish to share.

This investigation is part of the Scientix Observatory, which aims to help the development and dissemination of different science education projects and document good practices in various aspects of STEM education.

The questionnaire, which is available in 24 languages, has been translated thanks to Scientix and the Amgen Foundation as part of the Amgen Teach project.

The survey is also supported by the STEM Alliance and can be easily accessed by clicking here.

Are you an Educator? A school principal? A VET provider? An educational policy maker? Or are you just curious, eh?

This workshop is for YOU!

Here is why:

STE(A)M education grew out of STEM education, where the “A” is a term that represents fields such as liberal arts, language arts, social studies, physical arts, fine arts etc. and its aim is to apply creative thinking to STEM projects, igniting students’ imagination and creativity through the arts. Although it is commonly accepted that basic STEM competences are critical for succeeding in most of the technical, engineering and even managerial jobs, several studies have shown that the without the “Αrts” it is impossible for students to reach their full potential!

The workshop «STE(A)M Education practices and competences» will be organised by the STEAMonEdu project consortium on 8 October at 10:00-11:30 CET as part of the ALL DIGITAL Summit.You need to register for the Summit to be able to join the workshop.

EOS Romania has worked in close collaboration with Microsoft Romania to achieve a support system so that, in terms of technology, teachers receive the support they need! Several guides have been developed in order to support teachers in the online teaching process, and they can be accessed at any time:

• Office 365 distance learning for education
• Microsoft Teams virtual classroom administration
• Homework with Microsoft Teams for Education

 Microsoft solutions for education also allow students to learn remotely for free. Content and homework / topics can be accessed online, and students and teachers can interact using online tools and collaborate individually or in work groups to meet requirements.

Why to use Microsoft Teams for Education? What are the advantages?

You can teach from anywhere, at anytime!

Teams online tool is a collaboration app which helps the team get organised and have conversations, all in one place.

You can learn from anywhere, anytime!

Publish the content of study materials online or deliver interactive courses online. Teachers and students can use a single interface through Teams platform to learn, collaborate and interact online, accessing information from any mobile device or browser. Using Teams, students can view the content of the study material, can collaborate with other students, interact with teachers, and transfer homework online. Teachers can review students homework and provide real-time suggestions.

Online classes

Teachers can take online classes, share presentations, or use the digital whiteboard. Teachers and students can interact using digital whiteboard, communicate via messaging, audio, and video.

The Office 365 plan for education and Teams application ensure a high protection of data and users privacy.

As a result of research and creative techniques that will be instrumental among the members of the community, the STE(A)M education framework will include competences, policies, methodologies, and educational objects.

In line with the STEAMonEdu project, this first version of the guide is also intended to fuel discussion among our community members, providing them with examples, ideas and a baseline for benchmarking their own practices and projects.

The aim is to summarize and evaluate good and not so good STE(A)M education practices, based on local and regional initiatives that support STEM and STE(A)M education.

The online platform

From the beginning of the project, the STEAMonEdu community members could join an online platform where good practices have been collected. Any person interested in joining the community can check it out and register.

The online community will be open during and after the project. It is a very useful tool to share and learn about other’s educational experiences.

25 evaluation criteria and principles that characterize a STE(A)M practice

The STEAMonEdu project refers to a “Good practice” such training and education initiatives that are built and implemented by schools, NGOs, and any education provider, incorporating some principles, including inclusive STEAM education, problem-based learning or integrated learning system.

Also, at the beginning of the project, partners agreed on 25 evaluation criteria based upon the principles listed in the previous section. Each criterium has been scored from 0 (not valuable) to 3 (good), the maximum score attainable by a  practice being then 75. Practices scoring over 65 are considered best practices.

Moreover, to be considered a STE(A)M practice, the practice should include Arts among the disciplines involved.

A list of educational and policies practices

Up to this moment, the platform has collected around 65 educational practices and 18 policies and any kind of implementations in the context of STE(A)M education.

The educational practice was split in five parts, to facilitate information input:

1. General Info, which includes the basic data of the practice, namely, title, language, abstract, STE(A)M area/topic of use in the practice, key terms, license information and any related source.
2. Author, presenting the leading author’s name, capacity and affiliation, together with names of any co-authors.
3. Audience and Educational Framework, where the characteristics of the targeting audience are provided (capacity, age range, competence) as well as the educational framework where this practice was designed and/or used for.
4. Educational Details, where the specific data of the practice are provided, i.e. the teaching topic where the practice was applied, its duration, difficulty, learning outcomes and specific use, the orientation/focus, the delivery mode, the pedagogical theory/mode/strategy followed, the necessary resources to be applied, and a full textual description that can be accompanied by any resources (documents or URLs).
5. Implementation, that is used to record data regarding the application of the practice, such as the country and organization, the type of education and audience size as well as details about the evaluation (if any) and the lessons learned by the application.

Similarly, educational policies are uploaded by the project partners that we can can organized in three parts:

1. General Info, which includes all the primary fields of interest that provide the identity of the practice, namely, the title, language, purpose, the key terms, the country and authority that issued the policy and a source (text or URL) that points to the original policy.
2. Applicability and audience, which includes specific information of the target audience, the coverage (applicability area) and the educational framework that the policy was created for.
3. Details, which allows a brief or extensive description of the policy (reason, implementation procedures, implementation structures, definitions) as well as monitoring and evaluation that is applied, related policies and the help desk (cognizant office) that can provide further details, if necessary.

We invite you to view it and delve into the contents of the guide, to participate in the forums discussion and to upload your contents! Let’s make the community!

By Colectic

You can find more information about the conference together with program updates and the links to join in the conference website: https://steamonedu.eu/el/steam2021conference/.

The Conference is held under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Education and is co-organised by the Regional Centre for Educational Planning of Western Greece (PE.K.ES. D.E.), Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus”, (C.T.I.) and Hellenic Open University (H.O.U.).

The Conference is co-chaired by Dr. Achilleas Kameas, Professor of H.O.U. and Dr. Spyridon Papadakis, Organizational Coordinator of PEKES Western Greece. It is supported by the project “STEAMonEdu: Competence development of STE(A)M educators through online tools and communities” (https://steamonedu.eu/).

The Conference is also supported by the Regional Directorate of Education (PDE) of Western Greece, the international teacher community Scientix (http://www.scientix.eu/) and the projects “STEAM-IT” (http://steamit.eun.org/), «CHOICE» (https://www.euchoice.eu/) & «GEMIN» (https://gem-in.eu/en/), which are funded by the European Programme Erasmus+/KA3/Forward Looking Cooperation Projects in the fields of Education and Training, the Hellenic Education Society for S.T.E.M. (E3STEM) (http://e3stem.edu.gr/), the eTwinning Hellenic National Support Service (http://www.etwinning.gr), the Greek School Network (https://www.sch.gr/), as well as 14 Greek Regional Centers for Educational Planning (PEKES).

The Conference is addressed to scientists, teachers and educators of all levels that occupy themselves or are interested in getting occupied with STE(A)M education, researchers and post-graduate students, education executives, professional education and vocational training providers, as well as any person interested in becoming aware of the most up-to-date scientific developments, experience and results regarding the application of the STE(A)M educational approach.

The conference will take place in seven (7) parallel rooms extending over fifteen (15) zones. The programme contains 11 invited talks, 52 presentations of scientific papers, 50 STEAM education practices and 28 special sessions (workshops, panels, round tables etc.). Every day, one room will be fully dedicated to English speaking participants.

Participation to the Conference is free, but registration is required here: https://bit.ly/3rC95je. Join the more than 4.000 people from all 5 continents of the world who have already registered!

To communicate with the Conference organizers, please send an email to steam2021conference@gmail.com

Read the programme of the conference here.

The 4th Scientix International Conference is one of the major science education networking events in Europe and will take place online 18 to 19 November 2022.

With only 2,000 places available, the goal of the conference is to provide an overview of the challenges and opportunities in science education in Europe and highlight the potential and possibilities that the Scientix community can bring about. Participation in the conference is free of charge and by registration only. Registration will be opened early September 2022. For more information about the conference please you visit this page: http://www.scientix.eu/conference

The Call for Contributions is now open to four different types of contributions:

• Plenary online presentations for STEM education projects
• Parallel online presentations on different topics related to STEM Education
• Digital Posters on different topics related to STEM education
• Hands-on online workshops

The submission deadline for the call for papers is 17 August 2022.

You can find more information on how to submit your contribution here: http://www.scientix.eu/conference/scx4/call-for-contributions