In the 21st century, careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) are the fastest growing sector of jobs. In contrast, there is a crisis in the European STEM education which is being monitored by the Education and Training 2020 initiative. On the other hand, the education sector has invested heavily in digital technology: millions of computers in the schools, millions of laptops in the hands of students, millions of educational apps, ... but there is not evidence that such investment has yet resulted in radical improvements to educational attainment. In this context, EU countries are well aware of the serious ramifications that may result from the lack of achievement in STEM education and the ineffective use of digital technology.COMPASS project is an initiative aimed to contribute to alleviate these problems by bridging the gap among research and teaching practices. Project partnership is composed of two research universities (Bayreuth, Germany and Maribor, Slovenia) with a sound experience in developing dynamic geometry software (JSXGraph) and on innovative use of ICT in classroom (e-books) to increase the didactical benefit; four secondary schools from four countries (Spain, Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria), that will ensure the project to be firmly connected with the everyday reality of the school life; and a EdTech company (Spain) that will put the consortium in contact with the modern entrepreneurial world. This multifaceted consortium will try to achieve the following objectives:1. To develop 4 STEM-Moodle modules aimed to secondary school students. These modules will integrate JSXGraph based interactive animations in Moodle quizzes taking advantage of their built in leaning analytics system in order to monitor students progress. The didactical approach will use Problem-based techniques aimed to develop 21st century skills, such as inquiry, learn to learn and collaboration. Courses will be published as OER (Open Educational Resource) under a Creative Commons license and translated to English and other partners' languages.2. To organize, at least 10 teacher training activities, involving around 200 teachers, at national and European level, in order to introduce and discuss COMPASS materials. In addition, the project server will offer free access to the materials to facilitate networking between the STEM teacher community.3. To engage, at least, 50 teachers in experimenting the materials developed in different classroom contexts, involving around 1000 students. By creating a COMPASS Online Academy, partners will contribute to mentoring teachers while they are teaching their students.Project target groups are primarily STEM secondary school teachers and teacher trainers, it is expected they will use the project materials with their students, more specifically with low achievers. Software developers will also benefit as it is expected the project outcomes will push further the interplay between interactive animations and Moodle questions. Finally, educational researchers and policy makers could use project results as examples of evidence–based guidance on effective uses of technology for improvement in STEM achievement.
COMPASS project is an initiative aimed to contribute to alleviate the lack of achievement in STEM education and the ineffective use of digital technology, by bridging the gap among research and teaching practices. Project partnership is composed of two research universities (Bayreuth, Germany and Maribor, Slovenia) with a sound experience in developing dynamic geometry software (JSXGraph) and on innovative use of ICT in classroom (e-books); four secondary schools from four countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and Turkey), that has ensured the project to be firmly connected with the everyday reality of the school life; and a EdTech company (Spain) that put the consortium in contact with the modern entrepreneurial world. This multifaceted consortium has achieved the following results: 1.To research on the development of JSXGraph software new features in order to help create interactive animations which allow secondary students to be able to perform function plotting, charting and visualization aimed to enhance conceptual understanding in Science and Maths. A special focus was on the integration of JSXGraph with Moodle and interaction with the Moodle filters MathJax, FORMULAS and multi-language. 2. To develop two STEM-Moodle modules aimed to secondary school students on Maths (quadratic function) and Science (Motion). These modules integrate JSXGraph based interactive animations in Moodle quizzes which allows monitoring of students' progress by taking advantage of their built-in learning analytic system. The didactical approach have used problem-based techniques aimed to develop 21st century skills, such as inquiry, learn to learn and collaboration. Modules have been translated to English and other partners' languages and published as OER (Open Educational Resource). 3. Modules have been piloted by partner schools several times during the project life span. As a result of this experience, schools have provided feedback that have contributed to the improvement of materials. In order to introduce COMPASS materials to the teachers community, project results have been disseminated through more than 30 presentation events at conferences and teacher training activities and through social media (project blog, facebook, twiter). In addition, three professional development courses have been performed, at national and European level, involving more than 100 teachers. By creating the COMPASS Online Academy, project has facilitated that around 20 teachers have gone further in experimenting the materials developed in different classroom contexts. Project partners have contributed by mentoring teachers in using project materials while they are teaching their own students. In addition, the project server is offering free access to the materials to facilitate networking between the STEM teacher community. On the other hand, educational researchers could use project results as examples of evidence-based guidance on effective uses of technology for improvement in STEM achievement. Finally, software developers have also benefited of project efforts in order to push further the interplay between interactive animations and Moodle questions. As a result of this interaction, several networks have been created among content developers and Higher Education researchers. A network with the Abacus project from Finland has led to a successful follow up ERASMUS+ application: 2018-1-DE01-KA203-004268 (ITEMS “Improving Tools for E-assessment in Maths and Science”), which will be a three-year project starting in November 2018.