Tag Archives: teachers

Investing in People and STEM – CHOICE project final conference

Education as a public good Events Investing in education LLL Week News - 1st December 2022

The CHOICE Project intends to innovate STEM education and contribute to the policy reform of STEM curricula in European secondary schools by providing teachers and students with tools and resources promoting the STE(A)M approach, connecting STEM subjects with Arts and All the other disciplines. The project’s partnership is composed of non-profit organisations, business and private sector, education and training institutions, from five European countries: Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Belgium. 

The project’s final conference, ‘Investing in People and STEM : Innovative Cross-disciplinary STE(A)M approaches to education’, held on the 29th of November 2022 in Brussels in partnership with the European Economic and Social Committee, was attended by more than 90 participants (teachers, students, educators, policy makers, representatives of EU institutions and representatives of civil society organisations in the field of education and training, general public interested in the topic). The event, opened by  Monica Verzola (vice chairman of LLLP and member of the board of EVTA, was the concluding moment of the 3-year project CHOICE, where the project and its results were presented, and student and teacher testimonies heard. 

The main outcomes presented during the event were the state of the art analysis on existing initiatives, best practices, attitudes and approaches towards STEAM education and the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) promoting STE(A)M education for students, educators and teachers which collects Open Educational Resources (OERs) co-created with the students and teachers involved in the project; the project recommendation on how to promote the STE(A)M approach. 

The CHOICE MOOC is composed of five different modules which address five macro-areas: STEM& arts; experiential projects; STEM & teaching languages; using technology in social sciences; STEM & sports. The project’s success is measured by the positive impact it has had on student interest in STEM: following the project’s implementation, student’s interest in STEAM increased by 10%. Students and teachers from the Italian, Cypriot, Greek, and Spanish schools presented the OERs developed in the framework of the project, as “The Starry Night”, where students covered Van Gogh’s renowned painting with origami and studied the mathematics behind each shape. 

The conference ended with a fruitful panel discussion around the topic of “Innovative approaches on the promotion and improvement of STE(A)M education at school,” with a focus on EU policy development. The panel, composed of Michael Mcloughlin (European Economic and Social Committee | Youth Work Ireland); MEP Victor Negrescu (European Parliament), Leonie Bultynck (European Commission, DG EAC), Evita Tasiopoulou (Science Education Department, European Schoolnet), was moderated by Jon Harding (Vice chairman I treasurer, LLLP). 

The panellists emphasised that the different STEM/STE(A)M initiatives in Europe should be interconnected across regional and national levels. In this way, STEM education can grow and evolve, and build on different practices and approaches. It is important to involve local authorities and ministries, support institutions, and listen to students in a learner-centred approach. STE(A)M education touches upon many sectors and should involve all of them. Industries could be more involved and integrated into school curricula, to stimulate STEM careers. 

The panel particularly focused on STEM and gender equality. Currently, far more men than women are pursuing STEM careers: STEM education should be more fun, more ‘attractive’, related to everyday life, and provide more female role models to be truly inclusive. There are other inequalities in STEM education, such as those related to socio-economic status, belonging to national or ethnic minority, etc. Overall, all speakers agreed that, at local, national and European level, STEM education and careers should take a more intersectional approach, be adapted to the needs of students and schools, and receive more resources.

The project’s final conference raised important action points on how to sustain the project’s results with time, and, thereby, how to promote and improve STE(A)M education at local, regional, national and European levels. In this regard, it would be important to have a European network for STEM education that would act as a reference in the field, allowing individuals to connect and share best practices in teaching STEAM disciplines, encouraging and promoting them.

Readers are invited to read the project’s Policy Recommendations document, which deepens the lessons learned from “CHOICE” on how to support the reform of the school curricula by making the shift from STEM teaching in silos to a more interdisciplinary and practice-oriented approach of STE(A)M education.

Schools involved in the project:

Other project partners are: Lifelong Learning Platform, CESIE (Italy),  EUROTraining (Greece), Blue Room Innovation (Spain), GrantXpert Consulting (Cyprus).

The acronym STEM derives from Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, and it is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach.

LEAD! – PROJECT PILOTING PHASE

EU Projects News - 29th March 2022

The project Specific Learning Disorder no more! (LEAD!) is well underway, ready to launch the pilot program. 

With training materials in English, Romanian and Italian, the pilot testing will take place in Italy and Romania. The process of reviewing educational resources will be conducted both internally and externally.

The internal pilot test leader, IC2 Policoro (“ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO2 “GIOVANNI PAOLO II“), will carry out, through March-April 2022, a pilot test within the consortium where at least 2 people from each project partner, who were not directly involved in the development of the training material, will participate in testing the functionality of the platform.

The piloting with Schools (external pilots) will be implemented through a Challenge Jam, where pupils, schools, and associated partners will be invited to the testing phase of the project’s training material.

The Challenge Jam is characterised by a series of events organised in the classrooms where students with and without SLD (Specific Learning Disorders), under the guidance of their teachers, will have to solve a problem related to a challenge that a young SLD faces every day at school*. This methodology allows an effective comparison of experiences between different realities, without pushing for competition.  Through May-June 2022, each partner will be responsible for involving 5 classes (of 20 people) for a total of 500 people.

The pilot program seeks to engage the entire classroom, thus gaining the transversal function of raising awareness on SLD. Through implementing this pilot program, not only do we aim to increase standards of education for those with SLDs, we are also committed to promoting diversity and greater social inclusion. This avoids separating classes and accentuating the feeling of “diversity” experienced by children with SLD,

The pilot test will also serve the classmates of students with SLD by raising awareness on the topic and allowing students to step into “the shoes” of a child with SLD, thus increasing empathy and involvement.

All the feedback that the partners will receive during the pilot phases will be analysed and then updated in the project platform.

The LEAD! Project partners will meet in Iasi (Romania) this 29th and 30th of March to discuss the next steps: the train the trainers programme, as well as the #MySkills platform design.

* More specifically, a ‘jam’ can be understood as team-based, loosely structured exercises conducted in a face-to-face environment designed to bring out participants’ creativity for developing innovative solutions to complex problems (Morrison, 2009).

Morrison, K (2009). Outcomes Report: CCi Mainstreaming and RHD Jams. Cultural Science Journal, 2 (1).  

 
   

LLLP Reaction to the ET Monitor 2019 – Is Europe reaching the ET2020 goals?

Education as a public good Erasmus+ ET2020 Investing in education Learning environments News - 30th October 2019

The Lifelong Learning Platform reacted to the publication of the European Education and Training Monitor 2019, which focuses on teachers and educators, as well as on their roles in the European education systems.

The Lifelong Learning Platform – European civil society network for education welcomes the 2019 Education and Training Monitor published by the EU Commission on September 26th, the European Day of Languages. This year’s report highlights the achievement of the target on tertiary education attainment and the general progress towards the rest of the goals established in the ET2020 framework. Nonetheless, the percentage of early leavers seem to have come to a worrying standstill and the number of adults receiving education or training is still far from the EU objectives.

Read the full reaction here

ATEE to define the concept of entrepreneurship education

From the network - 28th May 2019

The RDC ENTENP-ED – Enabling Teachers for Entrepreneurship Education- is currently working on the definition of Entrepreneurship from the perspective of teacher’s trainers.

If you would consider helping us to define this concept, please
complete this Google Forms: https://forms.gle/Cwem8pBLpt22NDqHA (It
will take a minute to complete it).

The link will be active until 30/06/2019.

After this date, we will provide you with a questionnaire to define the concept of Entrepreneurship.


Teachers training on intercultural learning with EFIL and ESHA

From the network - 20th March 2019

The European Federation for Intercultural Learning – EFIL is offering a training course for secondary school teachers and school leaders based on the model of the training ‘Intercultural learning at School’ developed in the Erasmus+ project Intercultural learning for Pupils and Teachers: www.intercultural-learning.eu

The training course will be in English and will take place on 21-24 August (including travel) in Berlin, Germany. The participation fee will be approximately 550 euro including accommodation in a double room and meals. For a single room there is a 100 euro supplement.

By filling in this form you show interest to attend the teacher training. At the beginning of April you will be contacted to confirm your participation. The training will take place only if a minimum of 20 people confirm.

Please fill in this form by 31st March.

By filling in this form you agree that the data provided will be used only for the purpose of informing you about the teacher training ICL@School.

For more information, please contact marieceline.falisse@afs.org and valeria.di_muzio@afs.org