IO1
Data collection with the common problems in STEAM
Elements of innovation: Teachers in the subjects like Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Natural Sciences face difficulties transferring the knowledge to students because of the fact that their material in class is nothing alike the other subjects. Students consider these as most challenging and difficult to acquire, and on the other hand they are very important for their future education. Another reason for the importance of these subjects are the results that students achieve (or don’t) in the PISA tests. All the schools in this partnership show results in this PISA test (in the last three years) that are below average, and all the teachers feel the need to take some action. We are not aware of anything of this kind being done on international level. Each partner school have identified needs for improvement of these basic skills and key competences, and this output will provide us a solid base for further development of the project. After the teachers make the analysis and collect the data that will involve all the units, topics, lessons, or parts of lessons in the above mentioned subjects that can be made into visual content, we will be able to get closer to the students’ patterns of learning and acquiring knowledge. Expected impact and Transferability potential: The goal of this intellectual output relates to identification of the contents in the books used in all the partner schools in these subjects and decide what topics and specific lessons are most challenging for the students. The most relevant and difficult units in their books will be part of the data collection; it will be comprised of different sections for each subject. Its design will help us develop the Toolkit, which is the second intellectual output. The expected impact relates to the identification of contents. We consider that all the schools in Europe face the same challenges with the students, and this output will help every teacher in the Natural Sciences subjects to identify the students’ needs and develop their own contents that will be used in their future work. The transferability potential mostly relates to the creation and development of the second intellectual output, but at the same time it can be used by all the teachers in these subjects. Namely, we suppose that teachers all over Europe have the same difficulties when students acquire knowledge and skills in their subjects, so this output can be used by them as reference for comparison of their curricula to the one used in the partner schools.
Annex 1 EN Data collection IO-1 final
Annex 2 MK База на податоци – ИП-1
Annex 3 PL Zebranie danych IO-1
Annex 4 GR Συλλογή Δεδομένων IO-1
Annex 5 RO Colectarea datelor IO-1
Annex 7 ES Recopilación de datos IO-1
Annex 8 PT Recolha de dados IO-1
IO2
Toolkit: Educational Info-graphics for STEAM
Elements of innovation: A practical and innovative Toolkit in all languages of the member countries of the project plus English, which explores innovation in all its aspects. When the concept of info-graphics is applied to education, the opportunities for experiential, self paced and lifelong learning expand exponentially. This intellectual output will consist of visualized presentations of the challenging lessons in the STEAM subjects. After the teachers define the key areas for improvement, together with the students they will develop teaching material that will be consisted of infographics, memes, comics and drawings. As we said, these generations of students find it difficult to concentrate on texts, and are used to communicate through emoticons and visual contents. With this toolkit the learners will be hooked by fun and then rewarded with knowledge and skills. This Toolkit is tailor made on a Booklet with real and digital info-graphics to enable design of new pieces of information that will improve the educational process related to STEAM considering the level of knowledge and style of visual or auditory learning that students present: examples and lesson plans letting students think critically in order to solve problems, using picturesque simulations to reinforce the real world applications of concepts.
Expected impact: The educational Info-graphics for STEAM is also expected to be developed in an electronic form to ensure its ease of use. The aim of the teachers participating in this output is to produce sample infographics with cartoon and drawing material, which can be used to create learning scenarios to be used for teaching STEAM to 14-18 year old students. An extended list of Info-graphics and designs will be developed and collected, which will form the sample booklet that will be used as a teaching material for reference and ideas by the teachers. The descriptions will be translated into the partner languages while most drawings will be attempted to be language independent. Such a toolkit involving this book does not exist in the form it is planned and its establishment will serve an innovative publication. The Toolkit/Guidebook will support the development of the Intellectual output 3 and the content will be easily transferable for teacher’s use, .
It will contain methods on how to: – gain skills and knowledge necessary to create and implement e-learning platforms, incorporate digital technologies into educational lessons with regards to interdisciplinary approach; – generate ready‐to‐use materials, practical ideas and current online applications to support school or organisational development in the field of ICT, promote universal access to education; – support open educational resources (OER) and open learning environment in education; – develop key competences such as critical thinking through media and digital literacy, promote use of ICT to enhance quality and relevance of mainstream education at all levels – revise and develop personal and professional competences, build confidence in promoting use of ICT in education, support innovative and active pedagogic responsive to social and cultural diversity; – gain broader understanding of practices, policies and systems of education of different countries; – exploit the educational potential of info-graphics, using picturesque as a powerful tool for catalyzing attention, focus and investment.
Transferability potential: As we described this output is expected to have greatest impact over the target audience (14 – 18/19). Not only teachers, students and schools, parents, but graduates, university students and any interested individuals would benefit from the use of the Toolkit: Educational Info-graphics for STEAM. Educational platform for non-formal learning will give innovative interdisciplinary approach of learning STEAM in classroom, and is useful in any environment and school. This guide will increase the access to, and quality of, students’ education and care; reduce early school leaving throughout all levels of education, including at secondary level and vocational training; consider the needs of individual pupils and address those accordingly.
IO3
Guidelines for the Toolkit: Educational Info-graphics for STEAM.
Description and Innovation: Since the Toolkit: Educational Infographics for STEAM is innovative, this Guidelines that will be developed for the purpose of better understanding and use of the Toolkit is innovative, too. It will be accompanied by a set of methodologies which will be developed and will be made available for use by teachers. The size of this guidebook is expected to be at least 100 pages. This Intellectual output – Guidelines will help any teacher (not necessarily teachers with STEAM background) to utilize the Info-Graphics Toolkit and Booklet in the best possible way for the benefit of the students and his own. These guidelines will include directions as for:
(1) how the Info-Graphics for STEAM Toolkit and Booklet can be used in the teaching process
(2) how the teacher can create his/her own info-graphics and other visual content according to their needs and the needs of the students
(3) how the teacher can motivate and inspire the students to create their own info-graphics based on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and art) concept they are taught.
The guidelines will contain also analysis for each example in the Educational Info-graphics for STEAM booklet of drawings. A pilot testing for the Guidelines as also described in this output will be organized in some schools in the partner countries as part of the evaluation process to determine its effectiveness, in parallel with similar testing for some parts of the Educational Info-graphics for STEAM Guidebook for info-graphics drawings. The Guidelines will be evaluated by various tests including questionnaires which will be given to teachers involved, in their own language. Similar questionnaires will be given to students, in their own language, for the assessment of the Booklet itself.
Impact and transferability: Such guidelines with access to the Toolkit and Booklet developed in IO-2, will provide a new innovative tool in the hand of teachers and the whole approach and methodology could be easily transferred and applied in other fields of Science, Mathematics, Art, Technology. It is meant for the teachers mainly to use them in their further practice as a teaching tool and resource with which they will engage the students and get their attention in a way that is understandable for them, and interesting at the same time. We see the transferability potential in this output as being used by all schools in Europe, not only by the teachers in the subjects mentioned, but also teacher trainers, graduates, university students, and the Ministries of education.
Guidelines for the Toolkit E-I-STEAM
IO4
Training course on how to use the Infographics for STEM booklet and guidelines.
Description and innovation: The description of this output is a course design and its piloting through C1. The course will be structured as a 5 days training with flexibility to be offered on minimum 3 days. The course will be addressed to teachers, teacher trainers and school managers. Main learning outcomes include:
1. Methodology understanding
2. Learning how through illustrations and info-graphics, to make subjects like Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, and Biology more approachable and interesting for the students.
3. Understanding the development of the info-graphics from the Booklet and the guidelines for using it.
4. Development of learning plans for school students related with STEAM.
The content of this structured course will use utilizing content from other outputs for supplementing the material of the course and prepare PPT and sample Learning Plans that can be used by teachers including the following: – identification and comprehension of the method and definition how it can be used in the classroom – suggested readings, discussions, assignments supporting the core curriculum, theoretical background and content of the course besides the Booklet, as this may be needed to satisfy the learning objectives (resources that are relevant to the method that would be presented within the training program and they will be available for use in the future; teachers would learn how some of the tools, Booklet and applications are used for solving low-attention disorder in students problems) – planned hands-on activities including classroom scenarios – evaluation methods for assessing students when they learn though this method – hands on activities on using the guidelines and the Booklet – discussion session for improving communication skills and self-reflections for contributing to their professional development as teachers – elements on becoming adaptive to upgraded technologies will be included.
During the project the intention is to announce the first European structured course under ERASMUS+ KA1 staff training mobility.