A very successful clustering session took place during our STEAMonEdu project meeting on 25 June. We were very excited to have representatives from two other Erasmus Plus projects: CHOICE and STE(A)M IT.

First, Achilles Kameas of CTI presented our STEAMonEdu project and emphasised the importance and potential of collaboration and synergies among our three projects.

CHOICE project was presented by Chiara Venturella of the co-ordinating organisation CESIE. CHOICE, which has the same timeframe as our STEAMonEDU for 2020-2021, aims to promote and improve STEM education at schools by designing innovative Open Educational Resources (OERs) collected in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that will increase the professional competences of teachers by equipping them with a STE(A)M approach of teaching.

The main outputs of CHOICE include:

• State of the Art study, Reflective practice case-study compendium, Framework for reforming STEM curricula & Comparative Piloting Analysis.

• Working guidelines “Non-formal education for promoting co-production of educational resources”, OERs & MOOC.

• Good practice tool CHOICE@SCHOOL, Policy recommendations.

Then Evita Tasiopoulou of European SchoolNet, coordinating organisation of the STE(A(M) IT, talked about their project, which started a bit earlier than the other two – in November 2019 and which already has had first results and is preparing to launch their MOOC.

STE(A)M IT project aims to strengthen the educational landscape by promoting innovative and cross-disciplinary approaches to STE(A)M teaching in education. The outcomes to promote innovative integrated STE(A)M practices at school level include:

So what do we have in common and what differentiates the three projects?

STEAMIT and STEAMonEdu both strive to define the competences of STE(A)M educators by investigating and engaging educators of formal and non-formal education. CHOICE differentiates by taking into account the needs of the students in STEM and STE(A)M Education and actively involves them along with educators in Creative Leadership Teams keeping them close to the labour market and STEM/STE(A)M career oriented approaches during the implementation of the project. Many common elements were also identified under our common goal, and partners discussed how the three projects complement each other. For example, all the three projects will create MOOCs, however, STEAMIT MOOC is aimed at  educators and starts in October of 2020, STEAMonEdu’s MOOC for educators is planned for 2021, and CHOICE MOOC will address students, so all interested  participants will be able to follow all of them.

We discussed the outcomes of our projects so far, our very first impressions regarding the future of policy reform in STE(A)M education, and our common findings regarding the continuously arising interest of all education professionals and policy makers across Europe.

We also had an extensive conversation on possible future synergies, potential collaboration, and how our projects complement each other something that unites us under the main common goal – to boost STEAM education!

We look forward to working together! Our highly regarded researchers’ team strongly believes that Team Work makes the Dream Work.

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You have a CHOICE to STEAMIT with STEAMonEdu!!!

Stay tuned – a lot of interesting things are being planned for the near future!

By RDWG and ALL DIGITAL