Nowadays having a workforce with competence in Science,Technology, Engineering & Maths (STEM) is a prerequisite to meet the great challenges of our technology driven society. However, there is a shortage of STEM professionals as it is shown at the publication "Skill shortage and surplus occupations in Europe'" (CEDEFOP, 2016). In this context, creating a modern and efficient STEM education system is a priority in all European countries. On the other hand, higher education faces a digital challenge: with the number of EU students set to rise significantly in the next decade, universities need to adapt traditional teaching methods and offer a mix of face-to-face and online learning possibilities. But many universities are not ready for this change. As regards the use of digital technology, it doesn't seem to have induced any relevant change in traditional pedagogies. In most cases, they are just replicating the traditional teaching media in a computer based learning environment. In addition, there is lack of a culture of evaluation linked to the difficulty on performing assessment activities. This situation could be improved by means of the use of automatic e-assessment and Learning Analytics methods which allows the measurement, collection and analysis of data about learners for purposes of optimizing learning and the environment in which it occurs. Finally, many higher education institutions rely on the use of commercial teaching material, whereas it is highly recommended to work inside the "Open Education" framework. Working in such an open access environment offers a big potential for innovation and reach, which in turn contributes to the modernisation of higher education in Europe. In this context, information technology is likely to be an emerging game changer in STEM learning and teaching. In order to deal with this situation, a five-country multisectorial consortium composed of a research institute (Center for Mobile Learning, Bayreuth U), three universities: Aalto U(FI), Maribor U(SL) and Jihoceska U (CZ), a high school (IES Mediterrània, SP), an edutech company (BNedu, SP)and a regional education authority (Conselleria Educación de Comunitat Valenciana, SP) working in a collaborative European perspective, have designed ITEMS 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). Project target groups are STEM university and high school students; school teachers and teacher trainers; software developers; university professors and educational researchers. ITEMS main objective is to design and promote innovative methods, pedagogies, learning materials and tools to be used in STEM subjects, at Higher Education and high school level as well. This will be done through the following specific objectives: - to create ICT based modules integrating e-assessment tools and assignments activities for STEM teaching - to explore the use of JSXGraph software in order assignments activities (Formulas and STACK questions) to be more efficient and engaging for students - to monitor the pedagogical effectiveness of materials by means of Learning Analytics tools - to promote professional development training activities and the mentoring of educators involved in the management of the material created . - to distribute materials created as Open Education Resources (OER) and through MOOCs. 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. More students and educators will be involved in through MOOCs. In addition, lessons learned will be shared with relevant stakeholders and policy makers in Ministries of Education. Finally, as ITEMS makes an extensive use of Moodle, which is the LMS world leader with more than100.000.000 registered users, it could be expected having a greater number of potential users and a long lasting endeavour.
Creating a modern and efficient STEM education system is a priority in all European countries as education faces a digital challenge: need to adapt traditional teaching methods and offer a mix of face-to-face and online learning possibilities. The pandemic situation has cleraly highlighted the relevance of this situation So, in this context, ITEMS main objective is to design and promote innovative methods, pedagogies, learning materials integrating e-assessment tools and assignments activities for STEM teaching, at Higher Education and high school level as well. Good digital learning materials and exercises, as well as e-assessments for STEM subjects require interactive graphic possibilities, randomized questions, multi-language options, and adaptive automated responses. In ITEMS we brought these technologies together, by using the Learning Management system Moodle, the question types STACK and Formulas, as well as the JavaScript graphics library JSXGraph. Project partnership is composed of five-country multi-sectorial consortium composed of a research institute (Center for Mobile Learning, Bayreuth U), three universities: Aalto U(FI), Maribor U(SL) and Jihoceska U (CZ), a high school (IES Mediterrània, SP), an edutech company (BNedu, SP) and a regional education authority (Conselleria Educación de Comunitat Valenciana, SP) working in a collaborative European perspective. This consortium has achieved the following results: 1. ITEMS has gone further in the research and development of JSXGraph software. In close collaboration among all partners important new features have implemented and the interplay with Moodle questions types STACK and Formulas has been much improved and made easier. A relevant event has been the 1. International Conference (https://jsxgraph.org/conf/program/) held online in October 2020. On the one hand, ITEMS has facilitated extensive use of JSXGraph by educators through the creation of an interactive HANDBOOK which has been publicized through several communications (e.g. https://itemspro.eu/2019/11/27/items-project-at-moodlemootglobal/) and through the MOOC: JSXGraph programming. Big interest in learning advanced JSXGraph features has been expressed during the conference. As a result a free monthly webinar on “Advanced JSXGraph programming" with a worldwide audience has been established (https://jsxgraph.org/wp/docs). On the other hand, all of these developments had a positive influence on the creation of more effective and engaging activities for students by the project partners. By using JavaScript technology it is guaranteed that these ITEMS modules will run in every platform and any browser including mobile devices. 2. ITEMS partnership has developed 3 STEM-Moodle courses: one at University level and two at High School level. All of them integrate JavaScript based interactive animations in Moodle quizzes mainly using JSXGraph, integrated in Formulas and STACK questions. This allows students to perform function plotting, charting and visualization aimed to enhance conceptual understanding in STEM subjects. During the development phase, materials were presented at several professional development activities and finally discussed among educators community through two MOOCs. 3. ITEMS 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 workshops have been performed, at national level, and four at European level involving in total more than 100 teachers. 3. Through the ITEMS 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 ITEMS 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 now 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, ITEMS project server will offer permanent access to the materials as examples of good practice and to facilitate networking between the STEM teacher community. ITEMS courseware results are freely available as OER (Open Educational Resource) under a Creative Commons license 3.0. So, every educator interested can visit the project outputs and results at https://moodle.itemspro.eu/course/index.php?categoryid=13 logging in by using the account teacher/teacher