The current society is marked by the exponential development of technology, the deeper penetration of artificial intelligence into everyday life. The use of these existing resources is limited by the rather low level of user competences due to a perception of the scientific and technological concepts that underlie their implementation, often inadequate. Another limitation is due to the lack of qualified or poorly qualified workforce. The motivation is that few students are attracted by the study of these areas, the possibility that after their graduation they will be active in this field. Schools are the ones who can look for solutions to tackle these issues. For this, it is necessary to redefine the methods on which the teaching/learning process is based. The SciCon project wants to offer a possible solution, resulting from the experience and expertise of the ten partners included in the project.
The analysis behind the idea that led to the project has also led to the selection of the priorities to which we will address. These priorities are:
– Supporting individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competencies.
– Open education and innovative practice in a digital era.
– Social inclusion
Our schools have different profile and experience. Economically, we live in different environments. Our students’ skills and key competencies are diverse, from a little bit above the average to below average, for most of the seven schools, according to PISA evaluation. The three universities are interested in having students with a good level of skills and competencies, so each of the partners is interested to make efforts for changing the students’ perspective about sciences and technologies, to contribute to their better level of knowledge and needed skills. Researchers from the three universities. Students and teachers will be involved in Learning/Teaching/Training activities, testing and evaluation of new methods and resources that the researchers (from universities) and teachers (from schools) will develop under the Intellectual Outputs activities.
The project is an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for School Education. The Main objective of the project is Innovation. The major objectives of the project are:
– To use technology for supporting the learning process
– To apply at organization level digital changes in education, especially the transferable ones – to establish effective partnerships for cooperation, that can solve common problems
– To enable teachers to face the fears of using new technologies
– To raise teachers skills, for modern and adequate teaching of students expectations
– To make equitable and inclusive the digital education
– To make educational resources under a creative common license
– To enable students to gain practical skills, a new understanding of the connection between sciences and technologies, useful for a future job.
The project addresses both students and teachers in middle and high schools. There will be three Transnational Project meeting, the first Kick-off meeting, the mid-term for evaluation and corrections, and the final for preparing the report, finishing and publishing the outputs, sustainability of the project. Two people from each partner will participate in each TPM (Transnational Project Meeting). The purpose of these Transnational Project Meetings will be management monitoring and evaluating the whole project. For teachers will be two short-term joint staff training events, one at the beginning, for the first topic, Virtual laboratories and videos, in the second month, and the second meeting in the 15th month, for the topic Programming and Arduino.
Also, each short-term joint staff training events will have activities training for integration and evaluation methods, adequate for each major theme. Two people from each partner will participate in each short-term joint staff training events that will last five days. Each school will organize one blended mobility for students, in a system of peer-learning. Five students accompanied by two teachers, from each school, will participate in each mobility that will last five days. Two Intellectual Outputs will design methods and will give ORDERs to be used by schools for science education. The third Intellectual Outputs will be a pedagogical tool intended to teachers, to apply the new methods and use the resources given by the project outputs. In an internal logic of the project, Intellectual Outputs IO1 and IO2 will give methods and resources that teachers will be trained to use and will be applied for students activities, based on theoretical aspects given by IO3. Teachers and students activities evaluation will give resources for IO3 and will give confirmation for the first two outputs. In other words, the activities of the project are cyclical. In the future, new projects based on new problems that schools face can be developed starting from the results we will have when we will finish the SciCon Project.
