Over half a century, researchers and teachers have been searching for ways to meet the new demands and needs of the 21st century pupils. Changes in the society; various social movements, the movement from industrial-based to knowledge-based work, developments in technology and science breakthroughs require a new approach to teaching. Today's pupils need to be proficient communicators, creators, critical thinkers, and collaborators to compete in today's global society. So the teachers and the administrators are continuously urged to rethink their existing school systems. The traditional teaching methods and curriculum are not the elements that improve students' key skills. In today's dynamic global economy, centered on the development and exchange of knowledge and information, individuals prosper who are fluent in several disciplines and comfortable moving among them. When it comes to fostering 21st century skills in the classroom, integrated study is an extremely effective approach, helping students develop multiple perspectives in real world. The competences and learning habits acquired at school are essential for developing new high level skills for new jobs later in life. Our project “Integrated Curriculum_Educational Renaissance; STEM+PHASE” will meet these requirements and pupils' needs in today’s world. As globalisation continues to confront us with new challenges, each individual will need a wide range of key competences to adapt flexibly to a rapidly changing and highly interconnected world. A transnational collaborative benchmarking exercise is required to face these challenges, for effective dissemination and to gain necessary competences by cooperating with institutions all over Europe, by interacting with other European schools, by giving a global and European viewpoint to teachers for their effective professional development. To meet these challenges; our primary focus target groups are; pupils especially aged between12-15, teachers, parents, decision makers, local communities, authorities in education. Envisaged results and impacts are; enhanced basic and transversal skills, increased attractiveness of STEM disciplines by integrating PHASE subjects to make it more enjoyable and applicable for different types of learners, enhanced language and ICT skills, increased motivation to learn, better attitudes toward schools, improved cultural awareness and respect, Increased capacity of the teaching staff. The outcomes of the project will be a mutual website, booklets,lesson plans, newsletters, portfolios etc. Our project will include cross-curricular lessons where students will actively take part with hands on practices, field trips, by creating projects and orginising events. The theory behind STEM+PHASE education; Exposing students to STEM in an attractive way and by adding PHASE dimension in order to give it a broader view. It will give the pupils opportunity to explore related concepts and they will develop a passion for it and hopefully pursue a job in the stem field in the future. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. And the dimension our project adds is PHASE which stands for Physical education, Health, Arts, Social studies and English. STEM+PHASE education integrates concepts that are usually taught as seperate subjects in different classes and emphasizes the application of knowledge to real life situations. The units in our project are typically based around finding a solution to a real world problem and tends to emphasize Project Based Learning. The integrated lessons in our project ensures that the students understand the connection of the context to the real world. Our project IC_ER STEM+PHASE involves 6 partners from 6 different countries across Europe. Polytechnische Schule Schwaz - Austria acts as the coordinator. Sint-Joriscollege- Netherlands Escola Secundária com 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico Martins Sarmento - Portugal Antalya Sınav Secondary School - Turkey Institut Gerbert d'Aurillac - Spain Punkalaitumen Keskuskoulu - Finland When the project comes to its end, the participant schools will continue collaborating creating new ideas and projects. The Objectives of our Project are; to help students make relevant connections among various curricular disciplines to boost students' motivation to enable early acquisition of basic skills to provide an encouraging, positive and supportive school environment, higher attendance, better attitudes towards school to make students actively engage in learning process by collaborating with their peers and teachers to raise awareness on the importance of interdisciplinary study among educators, pupils, parents and authorities. to improve the 4Cs of Education; Critical thinking, Communication, Creativity and Collaboration to enhance transversal key competences to improve scientific literacy, numeracy and ICT skills to provide genuine opportunities for teachers’ professional development.
Our project included cross-curricular lessons where students took part actively with hands on practices, field trips, by creating projects and organising events. The theory behind STEM+PHASE education; Exposing students to STEM in an attractive way and by adding PHASE dimension in order to give it a broader view. It gave the pupils opportunity to explore related concepts and they developed a passion for it. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. And the dimension our project adds is PHASE which stands for Physical education, Health, Arts, Social studies and English. STEM+PHASE education integrates concepts that are usually taught as seperate subjects in different classes and emphasizes the application of knowledge to real life situations. The units in our project were typically based around finding a solution to a real world problem and tends to emphasize Project Based Learning. The integrated lessons in our project ensured that the students understand the connection of the context to the real world. Our project IC_ER STEM+PHASE involved 6 partners from 6 different countries across Europe. Polytechnische Schule Schwaz - Austria acts as the coordinator. Sint-Joriscollege- Netherlands Escola Secundária com 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico Martins Sarmento - Portugal Antalya Sınav Secondary School - Turkey Institut Gerbert d'Aurillac - Spain Punkalaitumen Keskuskoulu - Finland The participant schools will continue collaborating creating new ideas and projects. The Objectives of our Project were; to help students make relevant connections among various curricular disciplines to boost students' motivation to enable early acquisition of basic skills to provide an encouraging, positive and supportive school environment, higher attendance, better attitudes towards school to make students actively engage in learning process by collaborating with their peers and teachers to raise awareness on the importance of interdisciplinary study among educators, pupils, parents and authorities. to improve the 4Cs of Education; Critical thinking, Communication, Creativity and Collaboration to enhance transversal key competences to improve scientific literacy, numeracy and ICT skills to provide genuine opportunities for teachers’ professional development. Throughout our project students attended lessons about these topics: self discovery, consumption & economy, human rights, global warming, cultural diversity, water, human body, Olympics, animals, brain and mind, mother earth, world hunger, technology, obesity, deforestation, solar system. Every school picked three topics a year and worked on these topic interdisciplinary. For every topic several subjects were involved. The Erasmus group collected all the materials and the knowledge. Every topic had an extra event: a field trip, an external expert, a model, a presentation. At the meetings where only teachers were involved the teachers were visiting schools which already working on interdisciplinary teaching and attending lectures of experts. At the meetings, including students, the students worked together on one of the topics and had to discuss in mixed groups.