FullSteamAhead – De-gendering STEM through STE(A)M and creative thinking in secondary education

Origins were based on the fact that Gender aspects play an important role in science education, conditioning choices, and beliefs as grounded on self-estimation of one’s own capacities. Research has shown that women remain still underrepresented in STEM, and this underrepresentation is evident beyond students across education levels, within the fields of teachers, researchers, academicians, and the labour market. Eventually, this gendered pattern extends into tertiary education and career choices (TIMSS 2015; TIMSS Advanced 2015; UNESCO, 2017). In tracing the factors, sources, and determinants of girls’ (and boys’) relationship with STEM, it seems that students’ achievement in STEM up to and during secondary education level don’t imply significant, gender-based differentiations in science performance (OECD 2018 and PISA 2015). However, it is during secondary level when substantial gender disparities kick-in regarding interest towards STEM, demonstrating that girls gradually start losing interest in STEM at the age of 12-15 and beyond. Research indicates that girls' involvement in STEM are influenced by societal, family, cultural, and school/peer factors at lower and upper secondary levels, with each factor impacting the others.

The key objectives of the project consisted of the definition and pilot implementation of a strategy to support teachers and family members to: ● Equally promote STEM studies and careers to girls’ and boys’ students ● Deconstruct the notion of STEM as a ‘masculine club’ ● Exploit the STEAM framework igniting critical thinking, problem solving and the creative process in STEM teaching, rather than within conventional, isolated knowledge compartments. The TARGET GROUPS OF THE PROJECT are: ● Secondary level school teachers (STEM and humanities) ● Supporting teaching staff (supporting learning environment and parents’ involvement) ● School principals/leaders (as teacher and school program evaluators/monitoring actors) Secondary target groups are parents including parent-teacher-students associations, institutional bodies, and governing structures for secondary education at regional and national levels (also including VET), HEI-secondary education collaborating bodies.

MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION (Leader: Mala filozofija) - The daily coordination and administration of the project, reporting, and communication to the Commission, creating a management plan and internal communication group: responsibility of the project coordinator, Mala filozofija, also responsible for the overall monitoring of the project together with the result leaders. - Each partner was responsible for own administrative and financial documentation and activities, reporting to the coordinator. DISSEMINATION (Leader: Militos) - Partner Militos was responsible for the dissemination activities on the project level and of the dissemination strategy, setting up platforms and taking care of the activities at the project level. - Each partner was responsible for dissemination activities in own country, organizing events and activities, national translations, follow-up and reporting own activities. QUALITY ASSURANCE AND EVALUATION (Leader: ITC) - ITC was responsible for coordinating, preparing, monitoring, and reporting the quality assurance and evaluation activities at project level. - Each partner was responsible for implementing the quality assurance and reporting to the activity lead partner. COMMUNICATION: INTERNAL: - Project level: coordinator, through a mailing list and an internal online management platform - Activity/output level: lead by each partner who is responsible for the activity/output, and as secondary the coordinator. - To the Commission: the sole responsible was the coordinator EXTERNAL: - Each partner responsible for communication towards own stakeholders, managing target groups and reporting the activities. DEVELOPMENT OF METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: -Needs of analyses conducted. -Developed methodological framework that directly guided the development of online learning space platform (R2). DEVELOPMENT OF MODULAR SET OF EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS: -For teachers and family members available in an online learning space (platform). The materials utilize elements of the STE(A)M framework and its philosophy which integrates the notions of 'building', 'inventing', 'playing', 'imagining', 'designing', considering artistic cum creative impulse and science as avatars of human DEVELOPMENT OF HANDBOOK FOR TEACHERS -Handbook developed -Educational materials piloted and evaluated MULTIPLIER EVENTS: Partners were responsible for implementation of Multiplier event in their country: -Mala filozofija (Croatia) 43 attendees -ITC (Spain) 38 attendees -Militos (Greece) 37 attendees -Steps (Italy) 20 attendees -Braća (Croatia) 34 attendees

R1 Methodological framework for the definition and development of training material for STEM teacher: Concrete results that were achieved are following • 121 teachers responding online questionnaire • 11 examples of good practices in STEAM education • 23 teachers responding to interviews • 15 family members responding to interviews and 2 members responding on behalf Association of parents at IES la Cala • 53 secondary school students responding online questionnaire ● 1 Methodological framework published Methodological framework is organized in two main chapters connecting projects R1 and R2. The first chapter provides insights of overall results of Country reports from partner’s countries (Spain, Greece, Croatia and Italy). This chapter contains summarized findings of main points from the teacher’s questionnaire, along with supplements of desk research, students’ questionnaires and interviews with teachers and parents. Main points of collective results in the first chapter serve as a ground base for the second chapter, which is extended to R2 in the way that provides topics, common templates and guidelines for development of educational materials. R2 Development of digital training and pedagogical modules for a de-gendered STEM teaching approach The online platform is set up in two main pillars: The teacher’s platform and STEM in the world of students. 1. Teachers’ platform: The materials are developed for teachers that teach secondary school students from 1st to 4th grade and there are 21 educational materials all together. Since each country has different school systems and ages can be overlapping, the materials are adapted for the following age range: 11-13/13-16/16-18. Educational materials combine different school subjects in order to create a cross-curricular approach in STEM education through innovative and practical methodology. Topics are: ART AND SCIENCE; NATURE SCIENCE AND BIOLOGY; TECHNOLOGY; MOVIES; SELF-KNOWLEDGE, HUMAN EMOTIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY; LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE; SPORT AND HEALTH. Educational materials are developed along the lines of two axes: a) STEM in secondary education as a de-gendered teaching subject focusing on the concepts of creativity, imagination, critical thinking, artistic creation, design and ideation as de-gendered interest drivers and motivators towards STEM for students; b) STEM as a de-gendered career option in terms of personal and professional development, equally valid for boys and girls, drawing from role models, storytelling, history and philosophy of science and technology, disrupting the gender bias by promoting science and technology as a holistic achievement of human intellect. 2. STEM IN THE WORLD OF STUDENTS This part of the platform refers to family, friends and peers, and the whole social context of students beyond the school community. It aims to encourage and promote a home environment that does not allow the gender dimension to limit students when they think about STEM subjects, whether in the form of school subjects or real-life subjects. This part of the platform is divided in 3 main parts: - Creating a de-gendered non-discriminating home life and context (tips, suggestions, and guidelines for promoting gender equality in STEM at home along with self-reflecting questions) - Suggesting further activities (activities that are included teachers’ material and that can be easily adapt to home games) - Proposing books, movies, games (suggestions on readings books, watching movies, and playing some games which portrait with women in science, tackling with gender stereotypes, encouraging motivation towards science) R3 Handbook for teachers: Integrated STEM teaching approach guidelines and testing courses The FullSteamAhead training provision, as developed, offers itself as an online (self-paced) teaching support tool. In addition, a teacher’s Handbook was developed to support small-scale pilot courses in classroom settings, as well as teachers' general practices. The Handbook has been structured to address the full understanding and distribution of work of the Result: Section 1 Full Steam Ahead introduction briefly presents the overall structure of the project: its objectives, target group and key results. Section 2 presents the structure of the Full Steam Ahead training provision including 7 topics per age range. Section 3 presents how to use the training provision Finally, it finishes off with bibliography and references that used to elaborate this handbook. The handbook also addresses the underlying reasons for gender stereotypes and their equal impact on boys and girls. It explores the methods and rationales for integrating arts, creativity, and humanities into STE(A)M education, along with emphasizing core skills essential for both personal and professional development. Of significant value to teachers, the handbook offers an integrated pathway and guidelines for the classroom-based implementation of the training program. Moreover, within this project result, the training provision was pilot tested in Croatia, Spain, Greece and Italy. The pilot sessions were implemented over a period of 2-3 months. The testing was evaluated by the participating teachers and students, and their feedback was integrated in the final training provision. All educational materials underwent testing, some even multiple times, by 42 teachers and 541 students all together revealing high levels of satisfaction among the participants.