New CHOICE reports on students’ attitudes and teachers’ approaches to STEM education
The acronym STEM derives from Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics and it is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. STE(A)M takes STEM to the next level by allowing students to connect learning in these critical areas together with art practices, elements, design principles, and standards.
The CHOICE team has identified existing initiatives to reform STEM education, contributing to close the skill mismatch in the current labour market and best practices, published in a new State of the Art Study Report. Research was carried out in each partner country (Italy, Greece, Spain and Cyprus), as well as on a European level by the core partners CESIE (Italy), EUROTraining (Greece), GrantXpert (Cyprus), Blue Room Innovation (Spain) and Lifelong Learning Platform (Belgium). The state-of-the-art study serves as a cross-country comparative analysis of the collected data of these partner countries that conducted the research.
In an attempt to also understand students’ perception, motivation and aspirations towards STEM and the teachers’ approaches to STEM education, the core partners of the CHOICE project, conducted a survey that was completed by at least 320 students aged 13 to 18 years and 160 teachers.
The report's aim is to lay down the basis of the framework for reforming STEM curricula in order to tackle real needs and adapt the content and structure of the Open Educational Resources (OERs) on STE(A)M education accordingly.
The case-studies that were discussed during the reflective groups, with representatives from businesses, Higher Education Institutions and local authorities in each partner country, are collected in the Reflective Practice Case-study Compendium, which also gives an in-depth reflection on existing measures, best practices and needs from the academic and business world, as well as on policy level.
You can download both publications here: