Innovating the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) by emphasising the need for interdisciplinarity, building on the STE(A)M approach to STEM education, connecting STEM with Arts and All the other disciplines.
CHOICE makes STEM subjects more appealing and tangible for students, encouraging them to pursue academic studies and careers in this field. Thus, the project strives to contribute to a new generation of STEM experts capable of tackling complex societal challenges.
Context
Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) education is currently facing significant issues in the European education systems mainly due to the low attractiveness of STEM studies and careers among pupils and students. At the same time, it should deal with the unmet labour-market needs in STEM-related sectors that are expected to grow in the future (European Schoolnet, 2018). The urgency to improve STEM education is even intensified by the pressing needs of the 21st Century (Niewint-Gori, Gras-Velazquez, 2020).
Objectives
- Involving teachers and students in a cross-disciplinary bottom-up learning process promoting the use of innovative pedagogies focused on a constructive interaction between STEM and non-STEM subjects.
- Promoting coordination and collaboration among education institutions, business, and local authorities as key stakeholders able to support the reform of STEM curricula at school, turning them into multipliers supporting critical career choice of students.
- Supporting transnational cooperation and mutual learning among and within education institutions promoting innovative STE(A)M approaches to STEM education entailing a systemic impact on education systems.
- Increasing young people’s motivation to choose STE(A)M careers through a practice-oriented approach, thus contributing to produce a workforce capable of tackling complex societal challenges.
Activities
- Desk research, mapping existing local, regional and national initiatives to reform STEM education and contributing to closing the skill mismatch in the current labour market, and identifying best practices regarding the use of STE(A)M approaches to STEM education in partner countries as well as on a European level.
- Field research, analysing students’ attitudes and teachers’ approaches towards STEM learning and teaching, and analysing the existing approaches to STEM education with stakeholders during reflective groups.
- Design, development and pilot-testing of STE(A)M-based Open Educational Resources (OERs) in cooperation with teachers, students and external experts.
- International and local training course for teachers on the use of the STE(A)M approach and the CHOICE resources.
- Design, development and pilot-testing of the CHOICE MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on STE(A)M education.
- Organising field visits to leading companies, universities and research centres in the STEM field, providing students with an opportunity to experience the practical application of STEM disciplines in a real-file context.
- Developing and sharing policy recommendations to support the reform of the school curricula on regional, national and European level.
Resources
- National reports on local and regional initiatives, best practices, students’ attitudes and teachers’ approaches to STEM education
- State-of-the-arts study comparing all partner countries’ results
- Reflective practice case-study compendium
- Framework for reforming STEM curricula
- Working guidelines “Non-formal education for promoting co-production of educational resources”
- MOOC on STE(A)M education with OERs based on a STE(A)M approach
- Comparative Piloting Analysis
- CHOICE@SCHOOL Good practice tool
- Policy and advocacy recommendations
- Cross-country Comparative Analysis of MOOC Evaluation Data
Impact
- 691 students and 167 teachers involved in the analysis of their attitudes towards STEM subjects and education (A2.2);
- 33 professionals from academia and labour market as well as representatives of local authorities involved in reflective groups (A2.3);
- 44 teachers and tutors trained in International training on co-production of educational resources (A3.2);
- 103 students, 35 teachers and 32 role models involved in the OER co-production of innovative STE(A)M-based OERs during Design & development workshops (A3.3);
- 80 secondary school teachers trained in local trainings (A3.5);
- 763 students and 66 teachers piloted-tested the CHOICE MOOC and OERs (A3.6);
- 775 students and 61 teachers participated in STEM-oriented field visits, involving also 32 external experts and role models (A3.7);
- 82 stakeholders including representatives of schools, public authorities, STEM companies and policy-makers involved in round-tables (A4.3);
- Over 1200 students and 150 teachers and representatives of educational and public institutions involved in local multiplier events CHOICE@SCHOOL (A4.4);
- Over 100 participants, including school directors, teachers, policy-makers, non-profit organisations, education institutions, and advocacy networks from the EU attending the CHOICE final conference in Brussels (A4.5);
- 648 students and 58 teachers involved in the impact assessment (A5.3 and A5.4).
Partners
- CESIE (Italy, coordinator)
- Liceo scientifico Benedetto Croce (Italy)
- GrantXpert Consulting Ltd (Cyprus)
- Grammar school Nicosia (Cyprus)
- ΕUROTraining (Greece)
- Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece (Greece)
- Blue Room innovation (Spain)
- Institut de Maçanet de la Selva (Spain)
- Lifelong Learning Platform (Belgium)