STEAMania

The project's application was designed to make it possible to carry out a study to test cutting-edge instructional approaches within the STEAM framework in translinguistic and transcultural contexts, with inclusiveness as a primary priority. The suggested study also aimed to measure how well-received and responsive students, educators, and affiliated educational organizations were. The endeavor sought to address well-known concerns with educational systems' ability to address the challenges of the twenty-first century's digital world.

The STEAMania project intended to analyze the effects of our business’ learning modules and kits in different nations, taking into account the efficacy and motivation of the teachers as well as the effects on the students' capacity-building and motivation for STEAM activities. The project also strived to: (i) offer the partner public educational organizations access to exclusive teaching techniques and STEAM kit designs so they could use them as inspirations to carry on the effort with new proposals; and (ii) establish a transnational network of dissemination of the STEAM methodology across the European Union.

There were two kinds of activities implemented. At first, an in-person training offered to the schoolteachers sent by the partner organizations took place in Lisbon, Portugal, from April 27 to 29, 2022. The teachers toured the Maker Toolbox's facilities, performed a field observation at a Portuguese school that held classes with our kits, and received a detailed training session regarding the STEAM methodology. In a second phase, with resources made available for each student to create, change, and experiment with, the major activities were carried out at the three partner schools under the supervision of the trained teachers, resulting in quick and tangible outcomes. Each school offered a total of five classes, each focusing on a different kit.

The project's tangible outcomes included: (i) implementing the proposed educational activities in classes that excel at diversity; (ii) assessing the suitability and applicability of our STEAM kits in a multilingual and multicultural environment; (iii) demonstrating, through quantitative and qualitative data collection, that the socioeconomic context affects students' perspectives on the activities; and, finally, (iv) developing a transnational network for dissemination of the STEAM methodology. Although only temporary, some of the partners indicated that this network encouraged propagation of the new teaching paradigm across their school communities even after the project's conclusion.