The EU invests considerable time, energy and funding in promoting innovative educational projects, but very little is known of the effectiveness of such innovations, for example as regards improvement in student conceptual understanding. One of the possible reasons is the lack of a culture of evaluation in schools linked to the difficulty on performing assessment activities. Nowadays, the use of research based Learning Analytics methods allows the measurement, collection and analysis of data about learners for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environment in which it occurs. It is also an EU priority to promote an Open Access environment. However, the current situation is that transferability of project results from one institution to another is in many occasions not possible as each institution may are using different Learning Management Systems (LMS) or another version of the same LMS. In this context, the IMS Global Learning Consortium in order to facilitate connecting learning systems has created the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard. The use of such standard may increase the impact of the EU projects maximizing reusability. In order to deal with this situation, a four-country multifaceted consortium composed of one university (SP), one education institute (RO), four schools (SP, RO, PO, CZ) and an edutech company (SP), working in a collaborative European perspective, has designed SCORE project to tackle the ineffective use of ICT and the low achievement in Maths and Science competence (key target of EU Education and Training 2020). SCORE builds on the results of MUST project (2014-16) trying to go further by promoting a culture of evaluation that places an emphasis on evidence-based decision making by means of using Learning Analytics methods and by increasing impact through the use of LTI standards across learning systems. Project target groups are lower secondary school students (MUST target was upper secondary), more specifically STEM low achievers; school teachers and teacher trainers; software developers; university professors and educational researchers. Project main objective is to help improve students' achievement and attitude towards STEM subjects. This will be done through the following specific objectives: - to develop learning Research & ICT based Modules (RIM) with a multilingual dimension for lower secondary school students (12-15 years old) that may run in mobile devices and to share as Open Education Resources (OER). - to design Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) interactive activities in order to monitor students results and the effectiveness of the used approaches by means of Learning Analytics methods and tools. - to promote teacher professional development by using innovative ways of training and mentoring teachers in the classroom management of the RIM material created. - to facilitate teachers piloting project materials using their own resources or by using LTI standards to enroll their students in the SCORE Academy. Project impact will be mainly measured through teacher engagement in the project CPD training activities, expected to be more than 150 participants, and by students learning through the created teaching materials, expected to be more than 1500. In addition, lessons learned will be shared with relevant stakeholders and policy makers in Ministries of Education. Finally, as SCORE makes an extensive use of Moodle, which is the LMS world leader with more than100.000.000 registered users, it could be expected SCORE having a greater number of potential users and a long lasting endeavour.
SCORE project (https://scorepro.eu/) main objective is to help improve students' achievement and attitude towards STEM subjects and to improve the ineffective use of digital technology by bridging the gap among research and teaching practices. Project partnership is composed of one university (SP), one education institute (RO), three schools (SP, RO, PO) that has ensured the project to be firmly connected with the everyday reality of the school life; and a EdTech company (SP) that put the consortium in contact with the modern entrepreneurial world. This three-country multifaceted consortium has achieved the following results: 1. SCORE partnership has developed 6 STEM-Moodle modules aimed to lower secondary school students on Maths (Fractions & Ratios, Functions & Handling Data) and Science (Density, Forces and Energy) using a didactical approach with a focus on using problem-based techniques aimed to develop 21st century skills, such as inquiry, learn to learn and collaboration. These modules (https://moodle.scorepro.eu/course/index.php?categoryid=4) have the following features: - Modules integrate JavaScript based interactive animations in Moodle quizzes mainly using JSXGraph (see example at https://scorepro.eu/jsxgraph) and H5P (see example at https://scorepro.eu/h5p) tools, which allow secondary students to be able to perform function plotting, charting and visualization aimed to enhance conceptual understanding in STEM subjects. - Modules include Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) interactive activities in order to monitor students results and the effectiveness of the used approaches by means of Learning Analytics methods and tools by taking advantage of Moodle built-in learning statistical system. - Modules have been translated to English and other partners' languages - By using JavaScript & HTML5 technology it is guaranteed that SCORE modules will run in every platform and any browser including mobile devices. 2. SCORE project results have been disseminated through more than 10 presentation events at conferences and teacher training activities and through social media (project blog, youtube, ...). In addition, three professional development courses and workhops have been performed, at national level, and four at European level involving in total more than 100 teachers. 3. Through SCORE Academy, modules have been piloted by partners and collaborator schools several times in different educational contexts during the project lifespan, involving more than 900 students. Project impact has increased by means of using innovative LTI tools which allow schools easy access to SCORE modules. Project partners have contributed by mentoring teachers in using project materials while they are teaching their own students. As a result of this experience, schools have provided feedback that have contributed to the improvement of materials. Educational researchers and software developers could use project results as examples of evidence-based guidance on effective uses of technology for improvement in STEM achievement. Finally, as long term benefit, SCORE project server will offer permanent access to the materials as examples of good practice and to facilitate networking between the STEM teacher community. SCORE courseware results are freely available as OER (Open Educational Resource) under a Creative Commons license 3.0. Every educator interested can visit the materials at https://moodle.scorepro.eu/course/index.php?categoryid=4 logging in by using her own gmail account.