The work of the European project continues STEAMonEdu, which involves the General States of Innovation together with partners from Greece, Germany, Romania and Spain, including the Directorate for Western Greece of the Greek Ministry of Education.
The aim of the project is to create a complete system for the promotion of educational initiatives based on the STE(A)M approach and the training of interested teachers. Salient feature is thegrassroot approach which starts from the active involvement of teachers and staff of the schools that have implemented STE(A)M projects and from their analysis.
The lockdown period due to Covid-19 did not slow down the progress of the project activities, in fact the team continued to work continuously, collaborating and discussing fruitfully and regularly.
On 25-26 June, SGI organized the second partner meeting of the project: originally scheduled in Rome, the TPM had to be held online. SGI managed the technical part, setting up an advanced system that made it possible to effectively manage not only the conversation, but also the procedures for registering, voting and producing reports on the works.
Paolo Russo, coordinator of the project for SGI, explains how the work of the first day took place: «During the meeting, particular attention was paid to the creation of the Community and the collection of good practices and policies. A phase that sees SGI involved as responsible for the creation of a guide of good examples, which will be an integral part of the final toolkit. They have been collected over 50 good practices – Russo continues – and there are already about 150 teachers registered on the platform, coming not only from the participating countries. From Italy we already have 14 good practices and 15 community members, mostly from the community of Crowddreaming: a good example of co-generation of value between projects, which is one of the cornerstones of SGI's philosophy of participation in European projects».
Speaking of collaboration and co-generation of value, the special session promoted by the CTI coordinator for a mutual presentation with European projects proved to be very productive CHOICE* and STEAM-IT*, both dedicated to the STE(A)M world. «The session produced an agreement for the development of synergies and sharing of results uncommon in the sector» concludes Russo.
On the second day the project partners concentrated in particular on the planning of the online course that will be delivered in MOOC mode: the development of the platform, impact assessment and educational tools that will be produced by the project. The works concluded with an overview of the state of the art of the project and the dissemination activities.
Finally, the date was set for the next project meeting which will take place in January 2021 in Barcelona, with the hope of being able to meet in person.
*CHOICE – Increasing young people's motivation to choose STEM careers through an Innovative Cross-disciplinary STE(A)M approach to education.
*STEAM-IT – An integrated STEM teaching approach and framework
