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Addressing underachievement in STEAM education through real product design and making practices
Date du début: 1 oct. 2016, Date de fin: 30 sept. 2018 PROJET  TERMINÉ 

Low student achievement in the basic skills of mathematics and science is a concern for many European countries. It is an issue associated not only with the effectiveness of teaching and learning, but also with providing an equitable system of education. Moreover, becoming fully integrated into society and being able to respond to the changing demands of the competitive global economy is a significant challenge for many young people who have not yet acquired the key basic competences. Recognizing the need for targeted action, in 2008 the Council adopted an EU wide benchmark related to basic skills, which aims to reduce the proportion of 15-year-olds underachieving in reading, mathematics and science to less than 15% by 2020 (Eurydice Report, 2015). However, low achievement continues to be a serious challenge across Europe as the latest PISA results from 2012 show that 22.1% of European students had low achievement in mathematics and 16.6% in science (Eurydice Report, 2015). In the light of these alarming under-achievement rates, many studies show that students describe the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) as complex and boring, abstract and disassociated with real life and their daily experiences. These perceptions generate negative attitudes towards STEM related disciplines and quite often lie beneath low achievements in these subjects. This reality is reflected in low skilled youth that struggle at dealing with the need of the European job market. This project aims at engaging school students (13-17 years old) that demonstrate low performance in STEM education and keep distance from STEM related disciplines in innovative product design and making practices following the Maker Movement trend in education (Schon, 2015), a global drive that encourages young people to be creative with technology. Product design is chosen as a practice that integrates STEM disciplines, can be a creative process providing links to Arts and also is reflected in industrial practices immersing students in entrepreneurial thinking and in the business culture.MAKEIT!REAL puts also emphasis on teachers’ professional development and aims at supporting them in developing the skills needed in order to facilitate the learning process, to help students’ engagement into product design tasks, to tailor their teaching to students needs and finally to design their own engaging activities in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths). MAKEITREAL will develop: 1) A technical reference guide that details practical and technical issues related to 3D modeling and 3D printing2) The MAKEITREAL curriculum with Open Educational Resources for teachers and students 3) 10 interdisciplinary projects in the of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths that will result in the creation of 3-dimentrional physical objects 4) A pilot protocol that will guide the pedagogical implementation of the learning intervention5) A validation report that will present evaluation results 6) Policy recommendations for the wide adoption of the proposed learning interventions into school structures. Activities will be validated in Poland, Greece and Turkey.The project brings together 9 organizations from 5 countries: Warsaw University of Technology (Poland), Edumotiva -European Lab for Educational Technologies (Greece), CYRIC (Cyprus), Helix5( the Netherlands), Aristotle University (Greece) and secondary schools from Poland, Greece and Poland represented by ILO (Poland), the 7th Secondary Education School Committee of Athens Municipality (Greece) and ODTUGVO (Turkey). All these organizations form an international team of experts and educational practitioners that complement each other towards propelling STEAM education, enhancing teachers’ professional roles, re-motivating underachievers and helping them through innovative and creative activities that are interlinked to real life to perform better in STEM subjects and to develop the skills needed in the European job market of the 21st century. MAKEITREAL argues that 3D printing and design can electrify various literacies and creative capacities of students with low performance in STEM and can help them realize that STEM subjects open the door to endless creative possibilities related to real life.

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