STEAME - Schools of the future
The STEAME project developed a prototype school structure design with suggested dynamic curriculum, activities, learning and creativity plans and methods, developing also a training course for training teachers on how they can work effectively and productively under a STEAME school. The last letter E added to STEAM to make it STEAME stands for Entrepreneurship so STEAME is “Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics and Entrepreneurship”. The entrepreneurial mindset and skills are among the necessary components so creativity in STEAM can be transferred into applications for society at large
The education system needs to be infused with innovative elements that make young people more resilient, flexible and ultimately successful as they enter the real world and start to contribute to society. The creation of a STEAM school (with A for Arts added to incorporate culture and communication) is an important step towards the necessary educational redesign. Emerging education systems that want to develop STEAM schools need a model and activity guidelines or even a prototype. In this context, the project aims to provide teachers with tools in order to support dynamic and adaptive STEAME curricula in their schools.
Basic information
- Cyprus Pedagogical Institute, Cyprus
- Pedagogical University of Crakow, Poland
- Prof. Ivan Apostolov Private English Language School, Bulgaria
- Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications (IASA), Greece
- Douka Ekpaideftiria AE-Palladion Lykeion-Doukas School, Greece
- ITC Pacle Morante Limbiate, Italy
Output 1. Guidelines for dynamic and adaptive STEAME curricula
The purpose of this document is to support teachers by providing guidelines for dynamic and adaptive STEAME curricula. The actual curricula need to be worked out by teachers themselves.
The document contains four core chapters accompanied by an introduction – a glossary of basic notions, which can be consulted by teachers new in the STEM area. It concludes with evaluation and statistics on projects and schools analysed from the perspective necessary for this document. These statistics might be of independent interest, as this is, to the best of our knowledge, the first time that the data has been collected and presented from this angle.
The core chapters are devoted to:
- Approaches to teaching. This contains abstracts of lessons and other supporting material relevant to prepare teaching units. There are descriptions of collections of worksheets and specific descriptions of projects which can be carried out. The chapter also contains information on available creativity plans and links to relevant materials on approaches to teaching based on gamification, inquiry-based learning and others.
- Materials for teaching. These include videos and other audiovisual materials, descriptions and reports from field visits, suggestions for prototypes and reports from industry visits. The chapter concludes with several links to materials on infographics and further guidelines for teachers.
- Entrepreneurship aspects. This chapter might be of particular interest as it highlights materials relevant for the second E in the STEAME acronym, Entrepreneurship, which is an innovative perspective taken in our project.
- Organisational suggestions for STEAME-oriented teaching. This chapter is of local interest to teachers but also of large-scale interest to school directors. It contains also suggestions for the flipped-classroom approach.
Output 2: Guidelines for STEAME Activities in Schools for two age groups
The Guidelines for STEAME Activities in Schools for two age groups encompass appropriate methodologies (project-based learning, inquiry-based learning and problem-solving learning) that support interdisciplinary learning and creativity and include the following:- The design of the proposed STEAME Learning and Creativity Plans according to the STEAME developed framework, which constitutes the future of today’s Lesson Plans.
- A guide to Learning and Creativity Plan development.
- A set of Learning and Creativity Plans developed as samples to be used and referenced by school teachers, designed for STEAME subjects in two main categories: age level 12-15 (Grades 7-9) and age level 15-18 (Grades 10-12).
- A sample activity plan for cooperation between schools and research institutes, developed to help teachers to cooperate with external researchers and experts in building activities for their students.
- The STEAME Observatory, a dynamic and adaptive repository (with OERs), that provides open access to all the resources created by the partners and an invitation to teachers from all over Europe and beyond to upload their STEAME material.
Output 3. Guidelines for STEAME School Organisational Structure
This report is based on a European-wide survey and a series of national focus-group discussions with experts. The result provides suggestions on how to apply STEAME activities in existing school structures and how a future STEAME school should be designed for best implementation of STEAME activities, including architectural designs.
Fully structured STEAME Learning and Creativity plans, ready to be used by teachers are published in the STEAME Observatory, found in www.steame.eu. In addition, a STEAME Course webinar was also developed, found on the site www.steame.eu, together with materials, PPTs and unedited video of modules delivered.
