STEAM Education for Teaching Professionalism (STEAM-TEACH)
Main funder
Funder's project number: 2020-1-ES01-KA201-082102
Funds granted by main funder (€)
- 38 738,00
Funding program
Project timetable
Project start date: 01/10/2020
Project end date: 31/05/2023
Summary
We propose the project STEAMteach on the strong foundation of recent research on the need to
prepare today’s students for:
a) The Technology-Led World of Work and the Knowledge Economy
b) To enhance the learning of the STEM subjects with Technology Enhanced Learning
c) To enable the integration of Art to enhance STEM through STEAM pedagogies
These are in keeping with the aims of the EU Priority 4 Promoting Innovative and Cross-Disciplinary
approaches to STEAM teaching and Education.
Through STEAM approaches in education, students not only operate technologies, but technologies
can be utilised to help students to understand and learn the more difficult abstract aspect of the
STEM subjects. In addition through Technology and Art students can learn new digital art skills and
develop creativity and innovation intuition to convert abstract ideas into tangible products. These are
the skills needed for future employment and global development. In spite of much investment in
providing new technologies in schools,Technology Use and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is
limited in the mainstream schools. We recognise that this will only happen when teachers have the
skills to embed the required new learning approaches. Therefore we propose a programme of
Professional Development for Pre-Service Teachers and Continued Professional Development for in
Service Teachers to reach these goals.
Our objective is to work within the existing teacher training infrastructure so that we produce a
programme which can seamlessly be rolled out to all training centres and implemented by all
teachers in each European country. Importantly that teachers are enabled to embed TEL in a cross
disciplinary way with STEAM.
Therefore we will:
1. Work with schools and teachers through the current teacher training system which is in place in
each country. This way we can leave the pioneering teachers to continue their good work and
concentrate our efforts on the mainstream.
2. Train teacher-trainers in their training centres in Technology Enhanced Learning.
3. Provide training centres with knowledge and skills to use the Open Access Online Digital
Technology Resources which already exist and are student-ready
4. Mentor pre- and in-service teachers in TEL and STEAM
We will achieve this by giving them a programme of a) learning by doing; b) enhancing prior
knowledge; c) sharing examples as well as experiences by participants.
Expected Results
From experience, we expect that results will be the proof of concept of a Cascade Model of
Professional Development – for each teacher- trainer in the programme 4 new teachers will be
trained and for each teacher trained, 25 to 30 times this number of students per class will benefit.
The Cascade Model also tests out the mentoring of trainers in teaching centres and the teachers.
Most importantly the continued mentoring with the teachers in the classroom tests the process of
Embedding TEL for STEAM learning and innovation.
Longer Term Benefits
The longer term benefits are:
· An international collaboration which is sustainable because we are using Open Access Resources
of Digital Technologies.
· As technologies continue to develop the Cascade model and the mentoring programme developed
will continue to function.
· The pace of change of Technology outstrips any other world change and this system will enable and
support teachers and trainers through this change.
prepare today’s students for:
a) The Technology-Led World of Work and the Knowledge Economy
b) To enhance the learning of the STEM subjects with Technology Enhanced Learning
c) To enable the integration of Art to enhance STEM through STEAM pedagogies
These are in keeping with the aims of the EU Priority 4 Promoting Innovative and Cross-Disciplinary
approaches to STEAM teaching and Education.
Through STEAM approaches in education, students not only operate technologies, but technologies
can be utilised to help students to understand and learn the more difficult abstract aspect of the
STEM subjects. In addition through Technology and Art students can learn new digital art skills and
develop creativity and innovation intuition to convert abstract ideas into tangible products. These are
the skills needed for future employment and global development. In spite of much investment in
providing new technologies in schools,Technology Use and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is
limited in the mainstream schools. We recognise that this will only happen when teachers have the
skills to embed the required new learning approaches. Therefore we propose a programme of
Professional Development for Pre-Service Teachers and Continued Professional Development for in
Service Teachers to reach these goals.
Our objective is to work within the existing teacher training infrastructure so that we produce a
programme which can seamlessly be rolled out to all training centres and implemented by all
teachers in each European country. Importantly that teachers are enabled to embed TEL in a cross
disciplinary way with STEAM.
Therefore we will:
1. Work with schools and teachers through the current teacher training system which is in place in
each country. This way we can leave the pioneering teachers to continue their good work and
concentrate our efforts on the mainstream.
2. Train teacher-trainers in their training centres in Technology Enhanced Learning.
3. Provide training centres with knowledge and skills to use the Open Access Online Digital
Technology Resources which already exist and are student-ready
4. Mentor pre- and in-service teachers in TEL and STEAM
We will achieve this by giving them a programme of a) learning by doing; b) enhancing prior
knowledge; c) sharing examples as well as experiences by participants.
Expected Results
From experience, we expect that results will be the proof of concept of a Cascade Model of
Professional Development – for each teacher- trainer in the programme 4 new teachers will be
trained and for each teacher trained, 25 to 30 times this number of students per class will benefit.
The Cascade Model also tests out the mentoring of trainers in teaching centres and the teachers.
Most importantly the continued mentoring with the teachers in the classroom tests the process of
Embedding TEL for STEAM learning and innovation.
Longer Term Benefits
The longer term benefits are:
· An international collaboration which is sustainable because we are using Open Access Resources
of Digital Technologies.
· As technologies continue to develop the Cascade model and the mentoring programme developed
will continue to function.
· The pace of change of Technology outstrips any other world change and this system will enable and
support teachers and trainers through this change.
