Professional STEAM skills are in high demand all over the world. The development of key competences related to STEAM, including data literacy and the so-called 21st century skills, plays a direct role in driving economic growth and is set high on the priority list of the European Commission. Challenges for STEAM education still exist, including the need to design inclusive curricula and evaluate pedagogical innovations to transfer successful experiences to European education systems. Also, STEAM curricula in Europe are still under development and often educators are restricted by time and the very rigid boundaries between the subjects and therefore cannot engage pupils in integrated STEAM activities, let alone those with learning difficulties. The motivation for this project comes from the recognition that especially primary school pupils with learning disabilities or any other particularities, linked to their sociocultural background and gender, face challenges in the formal education system and non-formal education can provide an alternative way for them to develop STEAM skills. Moreover, there are several reasons why non-formal settings may be more appropriate for teaching STEAM, such as flexibility and increased engagement, compared to formal settings. Also, non-formal learning is often more experiential, and more closely tied to real-world contexts, which can help to hold the attention of pupils and make STEAM concepts more relevant and meaningful for them. Finally, informal, and non-formal learning settings (e.g., science centres/museums, summer camps, afternoon clubs) provide a more flexible structure that is appropriate for integrating STEAM in terms of the methods, resources, and assessment techniques used, which can help to foster creativity and critical thinking in the students.
Yet, (prospective) educators, receive little to no training, on first understanding the interconnections in the STEAM approach, second on becoming competent in designing and delivering inclusive STEAM and science communication non-formal activities appropriate for all pupils. Given that extracurricular training courses offered voluntarily are often insufficient, the need to develop and provide more opportunities for training our future educators in STEAM, is imperative, while the importance of incorporating STEAM teacher training into official higher education curricula has been acknowledged by scholars. By equipping university students with the skills and knowledge necessary to design effective and meaningful STEAM activities for non-formal learning contexts, the project can help to increase access to non-formal STEAM education for these pupils, which can lead to improved educational outcomes.
Objectives
The aim of the Up-STEAM project is produce tangible and intangible outcomes that will provide learning opportunities to university students to develop their competences in designing and delivering inclusive and non-formal STEAM activities. The project’s main objectives (O) are:
Make STEAM topics understandable and approachable to university students and promote their increased interest in designing and delivering inclusive STEAM curricula for non-formal learning settings through innovative teaching practices.
Develop university students’ digital and transversal skills in designing inclusive STEAM curricula and applying them in innovative initiatives linked to their profession.
Raise awareness among university students across Europe of the applicability of STEAM curricula in out-of-school settings through different methodological and instructional approaches to engaging pupils, regardless of their particularities and special characteristics.
Encourage sharing of experiences from all the partners across Europe to identify best practices for the incorporation of ideas related to STEAM in non-formal learning contexts.
Facilitate the widespread dissemination and sustainability of resources and innovative pedagogical approaches to the wider EU community and internationally.
Target groups
The main target group of Up-sTEAm is comprised of university students who study in educational departments of Higher Education Institutions (either undergraduate or postgraduate levels) to becoming teachers in pre-primary or primary school teaching. The project is also targeting university students studying in the fields of science education and science communication, who are prospective teachers (generalists), STEAM teachers and science communicators.
A secondary target group of Up-sTEAm includes Higher Education (HE) instructors, academics, and researchers, and science museum facilitators and instructors, who will be involved in project activities. School students (i.e., pupils), are also beneficiaries of Up-sTEAm, since they will be involved in project activities during the implementation and piloting of innovative and inclusive STEAM curricula that university students will design, develop and test (WP4) in local contexts. Certain learning disabilities of pupils will be accounted during the process, so as to making the learning activities inclusive and appropriate for all. Moreover, the project’s topic addresses an important challenge for Higher education instructors in general, training organisations, policy makes, afternoon clubs, educational organizations, researchers interested in STEM, STEAM, and inclusive education, thus all these people will be targeted through a variety of dissemination means and channels.
Work Packages
The project has five Work Packages (WPs):
WP1
Project management and coordination
WP2
Training Package Development & Validation
WP3
Digital Toolkit
WP4
Training Implementation and Application of university students' creations in real-world settings
WP5
Dissemination and Communication