Occupations of the future have been changing rapidly and the knowledge and skills acquired today are not foreseen to be sufficient while preparing our students for life. According to the researches, 65% of people will be employed in new fields of employment, which are not even known today. It is emphasized about these occupations that 21st century skills such as digital skills, critical thinking, cooperation, team spirit, innovative and analytical thinking are required. Building capacities and developing innovative ways of connecting science to society is a priority under the Europe 2020 strategy. Failure to encourage sufficient numbers of students to sustain their interest in science – into and through technical, vocational, undergraduate and graduate/ doctoral studies – could undermine the success of this strategy.
The skills gap between future jobs and actual STEM candidates or graduates is alarming in many European countries. Demand for STEM skills is on the rise and expected to grow until 2025: this is a reality that school teachers and school curricula have to take into account. Thus, in a time when STEM has become one of the most important values in European education, it is particularly important for Teachers to acquire the necessary skills set that will make them STE(A)M-ready.
In this context, and answering the purpose of the call, this project proposal aimed to contribute to innovative and cross-disciplinary approaches in implementing STE(A)M education by revising and strengthening the professional profile of the teaching profession. This was achieved first by identifying the necessary STE(A)M competences and the skills required for STE(A)M teaching and then by providing targeted teacher training together with a set of assorted tools. The training was implemented as a blended course that will include a MOOC. The tools included an instructional meta-methodology, STE(A)M body of knowledge, online activity templates, STE(A)M education good practices and a STE(A)M readiness self-assessment tool. A crowdsourcing bottom-up approach was put in place for the stakeholders of STE(A)M education (including teachers, researchers, policy makers etc.), resulting in peer learning and support in the design and implementation of STE(A)M education policies and in the development of open content.
Since the quality of education and the learning outcomes are the bedrock of the future society, it is important to ensure the systemic changes to teacher induction and pre- and in-service professional development as well as what happens in classrooms. It is important to shift the focus on how students and teachers teach and learn together. Many of these actions are within the direct control of individual teachers, course leaders and schools. The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers but schools and science teachers do not work in isolation. Where change is carried out with the support of others, through collaborative networks of educators, students, science education researchers and other stakeholders, it is likely to be more invigorating and successful for everyone. Research shows that engaging with colleagues in professional development programmes increases interest in improving teaching and in realigning its priorities to include the teaching of competences. Facilitating greater opportunities to exchange ideas with enterprise and civil society stakeholders brings real-life problems into science education preparation and continuous professional development.
In this context, STEAMonEDU researched how to strengthen STE(A)M education, providing an online environment with an assorted toolset to support the development of an evolving STE(A)M education eco-system, where different stakeholders work collaboratively to design, develop and implement STE(A)M educational content, practices, projects and policies.
This was a forward-looking project, which aimed to create a solid interdisciplinary research base for developing STEA(A)M related competences, which are the heart of technological revolution. The consortium adopted a bottom-up approach in involving stakeholders who are willing to contribute towards the 2020 EU target of
(a) inspiring more of young people to specialize in STEM during their education in order to undertake scientific and technical careers,
(b) motivating a multi-disciplinary STE(A)M approach, addressing gender gaps and stereotypes in STEM programmes and
(c ) supporting educator preparation for this educational reform movements.
The specific project objectives were:
a) to attribute to the community of STE(A)M education stakeholders (teachers, educators, researchers, policy-makers, education authorities, career consultants, content producers etc.) a central role in designing, implementing and assessing STE(A)M education policies
b) to develop online tools in order to support this community; these will be accessible via an online platform that will support peer learning, collaboration, crowdsourcing, indexing and access to resources, learning activity templates, project implementation, policy design, etc.
c) to collect and assess practices based on local and regional initiatives that support STEM and STE(A)M education,
d) to collect, analyse and index (using an IEEE LOM compatible meta-data scheme) evidence to substantiate innovative policies and practices,
e) to design a core STE(A)M education framework containing a STE(A)M instructional meta-methodology, the STE(A)M body of knowledge, a special focus on diversity issues (including gender and social inclusion issues), STE(A)M learning activity and course templates,
f) to develop and test STE(A)MComp, the competence framework for STE(A)M, along the example of DigComp for Edu,
g) to design the STE(A)M educator profile in an ESCO compatible manner,
h) to design a STE(A)M evaluation readiness test for Schools following the example of SELFIE,
i) to test STE(A)MComp by delivering an online course for the professional development of STE(A)M educators, including a cMOOC that implements the principles of Open Education, uses OERs and adheres to the MOOQ Quality Reference Framework,
k) to produce the STE(A)M Policy Influencer Toolkit containing recommendations for the uptake of STE(A)M education in Europe.