STEMkey - Teaching Standard STEM Topics with a Key Competence Approach
Bring out the STEMbest in your students: not only deliver STEM subject knowledge but foster their skills and attitudes to use gained knowledge in various real-life contexts and responsible decision-making processes in equal measure. Make yourself and your students STEM key competent and max your STEM potential out!
STEMkey has been launched to provide solutions to support the EU’s Key Competence Initiative in the scope of STEM education.
STEM education at school traditionally delivers isolated subject knowledge like functions, human anatomy, and chemical reactions. This entails two major challenges: the isolation of knowledge and the isolation of subjects.
STEMkey works on these challenges as follows:
- Through the EU's Key Competence Framework, STEM teaching is guided away from the sole purpose of the transfer of knowledge of a single STEM subject. This no longer measures up to today's and tomorrow's challenges. Instead, STEM teaching must allow the development of skills and attitudes to use gained knowledge in various real-life contexts and responsible decision-making processes in equal measure.
- A major part of this is to use an integrated STEM education approach, which means, STEM education across disciplines and in connection with “the world outside”. Hardly any decision in real life can be made within a box. We must think outside boxes and develop an understanding of how everything is connected, how systems evolve, and how we can improve systems, how we can improve life. In this context, integrated STEM teaching and learning is the way to go, as it demonstrates the linkages between each STEM subject, each STEM topic and, in the bigger picture, each solution in the context of Maths, Science, Engineering and Technology.
STEMkey’s contribution to STEM education’s “isolation issues” consists of modules to be used in Higher Education programmes and training for future STEM teachers, covering Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, Technology and Maths. The modules exemplarily tackle standard topics from these disciplines (e.g. light representing Physics education, algorithms representing Informatics or the periodic system representing Chemistry). Each module applies variously tested and proven innovative educational approaches, such as inquiry-based learning, digital learning or real-life contextualisation.
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Basic information
- University of Innsbruck, Austria
- University of Nicosia, Cyprus
- Charles University, Czech Republic
- University of Zagreb, Croatia
- Vilnius University, Lithuania
- Utrecht University, the Netherlands
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
- University of Lisbon, Portugal
- Constantine the Philosopher University, Slovakia
- University of Maribor, Slovenia
- Hacettepe University, Turkey
STEMkey seeks to implement the EU's Key Competence Framework into Higher STEM Education and seeks to promote competence-based STEM education in Europe‘s Higher Education Institutions.
Each module starts from another discipline: Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering and (digital) Technology, and thus sets a subject focus to choose from. The modules will be linked to one another, tackling exemplary problems from different STEM discipline perspectives and offering paths to use them in a bigger interdisciplinary picture. What has Maths to offer to solve a Physics problem? How do Chemistry and Biology relate when trying to understand our world? How does each system, our society, our world, etc. function in and across disciplines?
The educational approaches which are mainly used in the STEMkey modules and have the potential to address the requirements as set by the Key Competence Framework are:
- Real-life contexts
- Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL), Experiential Learning and Project-Based Learning (PBL)
- Gender-balanced activities
- Diversity-embracing activities
- Digitally supported learning
Critical Thinking serves as a palpable concept to realise and practice interdisciplinary STEM teaching and learning.
From a research point of view, STEMkey offers several potential innovative aspects: competence-based STEM education, interdisciplinary STEM teaching, critical thinking in standard STEM topics...
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STEMkey develops 13 learning modules for Higher Education STEM programmes. Each module covers the key topics and key competences in STEM education, as well as Critical Thinking as a concept to realise and practice interdisciplinary STEM teaching and learning.
Each module starts from another discipline: Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering and (digital) Technology, and thus sets a subject focus to choose from. The modules will be linked to one another, tackling exemplary problems from different STEM discipline perspectives and offering paths to use them in a bigger interdisciplinary picture. What has Maths to offer to solve a Physics problem? How do Chemistry and Biology relate when trying to understand our world? How does each system, our society, our world, etc. function in and across disciplines?
The educational approaches which are mainly used in the STEMkey modules and have the potential to address the requirements as set by the Key Competence Framework are:
- Real-life contexts
- Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL), Experiential Learning and Project-Based Learning (PBL)
- Gender-balanced activities
- Diversity-embracing activities
- Digitally supported learning
The modules are supported by guidelines, which allow each STEM educator and teacher to transform any chosen STEM topic into a rich Key Competence lesson.