STEAM-Active

The motivation of STEAM-Active was deeply linked to the effects that technological evolution generates on companies and their constant need of innovating products, services and processes. STEAM-Active project was grounded on the consequential need of Higher Education to produce more meaningful STEAM learning, and engineering learning in particular, by reinforcing students’ preparedness to apply knowledge within real and problem based situation so to be able to meet market needs. Within this context the project identifies the following target groups: - University engineering teachers who need to reinforce their expertise on how to tackle low achievement in engeneering degrees and on how to promote vocations in STEAM with a special attention to gender inequalities - Engineering Students in need of an improved educational offer able to prevent underachievement and drop out and of a better capacity to adapt to the needs of the job market through a stronger link between theoretical learning and practical implementation - Women potentially interested in STEM studies and careers and who need teaching methodologies and study programmes more tailored to their strengths to prevent underrepresentation in engineering degrees and jobs.

The aim of STEAM-Active was to design and implement a set of interdisciplinary and innovative teaching-learning sequences, tailored to the needs of higher education engineering students, in order to address underachievement and dropout and make them better prepared to respond to the expectations of the labour market. All this aims to make future workers capable of managing and applying knowledge, skills and competences from various disciplines to solve real and complex problems. STEAM-Active also aimed to contribute to tackle the inequalities in terms of female gender representation in scientific academic courses. For the purpose the specific objectives were: SO 1: Provide Universities with a complete methodological framework of STEAM based approaches and active teaching strategies to improve educational offer in STEM and engineering and tackle gender inequality SO 2: Provide university lecturers with STEAM based methodological approaches and teaching tools to answer to students lack in adapting their theoretical learning to a more practical, problem solving and interdisciplinary mind-set SO 3: Provide universities with consistent, re-usable and up-scalable Teaching-Learning Sequences based on the STEAM education methods

STEAM-Active project produced three main concrete outputs: - Project Result 1: Protocol for teachers illustrating the methodological framework of STEAM based approach with active teaching strategies - Project Result 2: E-learning course for engineering teachers on STEAM methodology and active teaching solutions - Project Result 3: Collection of STEAM based Teaching-Learning Sequences The three results are available and accessible on the STEAM-Active Portal (https://steam-active.pixel-online.org/index.php) each through a dedicated Section. As planned Project Result 1 was built to provide academic professors and lecturers of engineering with a direct access to set-theoretical and pedagogical foundations to support them in designing teaching-learning sequences and develop, implement and evaluate STEM interventions for higher education students according to a complete and consistent STEAM methodological framework. For the purpose the Result includes: - A Database of relevant publications / articles addressing in depth the aspects related to the STEAM methodologies and academic debate. Each item is presented outlining the main concepts and/or approaches and/or methodologies to reimagine higher education and according to the answers of a number of relevant qualifying elements such as: which are the disciplines and contents? Which type of integration? Which methodologies were used? How was the evaluation performed? Which are the main results and conclusions? In addition the theme of gender inequality, students difficulties, sustainability and circular economy tackled (if any), as well as what interpretation of STEAM framework has been done is explored. The Database includes offers, indeed, a very complete collection of tools for educators to explore in full the possible changes in teaching approaches. The Database is available at: https://steam-active.pixel-online.org/methodologies.php - A Protocol, available at: https://steam-active.pixel-online.org/protocol.php providing a comprehensive theoretical presentation of the definition of STEAM education according to the agreed paradigm of the Consortium as a teaching method that integrates content, skills and beliefs from at least two disciplines that form the acronym and that focus on real-world contexts. The document continues by mentioning the different types of integration that STEAM-Active proposes to use when implementing the TLSs and the relationship that these have with the different educational contexts. The three integration types proposed are; Interdisciplinary, Transdisciplinary and Metadisciplinary. The second part of the document discusses the design, implementation and evaluation of the Teaching Learning Sequences. Project/problem-based learning is proposed as the implementation methodology for the sequences. The process is then specified for the case of proposals in engineering, which is the focus of this project. This second part of the document concludes by specifying the steps to follow for the design of a STEAM proposal that complies with the definitions and methodologies proposed above. In the third part of the document, the transversal elements of the STEAM-Active project are addressed: Circular Economy and Gender issues exploring why and how they must be included in the designing sequences as a transversal axis. Project Result 2, that is the eLearning course, was designed and now targets teachers and professors in engineering faculties to be trained on the defined STEAM teaching approach, preparing them to plan and design their own teaching materials and use them with their students to overcome their underachievement and better prepare them to use a problem-solving mindset and respond to the needs of the labour market. The E-learning package is available on the dedicated section and accessible for free, at: https://steam-active.pixel-online.org/index.php As expected the E-learning package contents are organised in 3 Modules and implemented making full use of ICT based solutions, integrating hypertexts, bibliographic links, videos and media, interactive tests and supplementary suggested activities and documents. At the end of each of the 3 sections, there are activities to help teachers test what they have learnt. Module 1 provides basic knowledge about STEAM and its application in practice allowing learners to differentiate STEAM definitions and approaches one from another. The different levels of STEAM integration are also discussed guiding the learner in choosing the appropriate level of STEAM integration in the implemented teaching scheme. Module 2 deals with the ingredients of STEAM-Active methodological approach, ingredients of STEAM-Active teaching techniques approach and with Teachers’ characteristics/ingredients to be good applying STEAM-Active approach in teaching. Module 3 explains in full the design protocol, expanding on the new terminology and how the contents of the previous modules are applied in the agreed STEAM Active project protocol. In addition, throughout this module explanations are provided on how to use a Teaching-Learning Sequence (TLS) that has already been designed within the suggested protocol and finally, based on all that guidelines on how to adapt Teaching-Learning Sequences (TLS) to different contexts by explaining different techniques to modify the sequences to multiple educational contexts is provided. The third result is in some way the culmination of the STEAM-Active project's process and provides beneficiaries with a full access to a set of specifically designed STEAM-oriented Teaching-Learning Sequences. Each sequence is designed to empower lecturers in guiding STEM and specifically engineering students, with a focus on reducing gender gaps, through the application of project-based learning methods aimed at addressing socio-scientific-technological challenges. The dedicated section https://steam-active.pixel-online.org/learning.php contains a total of 24 TLS addressing different socio-scientific-technological problems among the 36 cooperatively identified as most relevant by the project partners. Each Sequence is presented: A) Through its main characterising elements such as: Study Programme suitability (e.g. Master), main thematic area (e.g. Artificial Intelligence in Computer Science), most suitable study year, subjects involved according to an interdisciplinary approach (e.g. Informatics, Math, Resource management, Engineering), definition of the sequence’s topic (e.g. contributing to circular economy by planning the placement of the recycling containers in the urban area with considering the network of the recycling points and the local features such as buildings and population density) and main guiding question (e.g. does properly planned network of recycling points in urban areas contribute to the increased level of waste sorting and therefore more recycled materials? The problem is related to sustainable development goal 12 Responsible consumption and production). B) A full .pdf document illustrating step by step the entire process to be implemented by describing in depth: The context The Axes to be considered including: Gender Equality, Circular Economy and Team work The TLS structure: Main guiding question, Learning objectives, Learning demands, Learning pathway The Relationship between different stages of the TLS The Activities to be implemented The Evaluation strategy to be adopted The practical application of transversal axes Intangible but fundamental achievements of the project are also: A) The identification, selection and involvement in the development, improvement, piloting and evaluation of the results contents of: - 38 among University engineering professors / lecturers / researchers that were keen and motivated to improving their expertise on how to tackle low achievement in engineering degrees and on how to promote female vocations in STEM and especially in engineering. - 166 Engineering Students who experienced low performances, were at risk of early drop out and were motivated in enhancing their problem solving oriented mind-set in order to better adapt to the needs of companies. Project partners made a special effort to balance gender representation, managing to increment by 5% to 10% the participation of female students compared to the standard average on the matter. - 13 Higher Education managerial staff and decision makers who declared their willingness to support the mainstreaming of STEAM-Active deliverables and results in internal practices, programmes and strategic interventions of the Universities involved and beyond B) Reaching the conditions of scaling up and mainstreaming project achievements and results into the universities part of the consortium and in higher education institutions that joined as associated partners to develop long term innovative educative designs and ideas that have the potential to fundamentally reshape the student-subject-teacher relations by both increasing the teachers knowledge through new methodology as well as tackling the students difficulties when facing difficult STEAM concepts, leveraging the gap and contributing to make STEAM subjects ever more accessible and thus, education as well.