Digital society requires new ways of dealing with the coming robotization of the European economy. Computational Thinking, that is, the ability of facing problems and formulating solutions in a way that a computer can process has been foreseen as a fundamental competence to be taught to future and current students. Computational Thinking competence is usually associated to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics) education. In fact, it is in these areas where major employment opportunities are expected, and society is making a great effort to make them more appealing to students in order to increase the vocation in these fields. The use of Physical Devices and Robotics (PD&R) has been probed a good tool in STEAM education and many successful experiences have been reported in different media. However, there are few experiences and evaluations of the teaching methodologies for developing computational thinking competence using PD&R, and even less dealing with the transnationality of these techniques. This project will define a methodology and a set of tools that will help learners to develop computational thinking by using/programming PD&R in pre-university education stages. The project will also improve teacher education, providing them with a framework for easy STEAM integration in different educational contexts by providing guidelines for good practices and lessons learned adapted to different contexts. All these products will have been tested in different countries and cross-validated in different higher education institutions. The consortium, besides its transnationality (8 partners from 4 different countries and 2 associated partners), was gathered to ensure the whole value-chain needed for generating applicable knowledge and to be able to transfer that knowledge and sustain it after the end of the project. It includes five Higher Education Institutions with different backgrounds and three schools. Universidad de Salamanca will provide its experience on methodological aspects. The educational technologies research group at the University of Eastern Finland will contribute with its background designing ICT curricula for challenged learning environments based on open and distance education and with their expertise for the dissemination. Polytechnic Institute of Bragança will be focused on the transferability of professional skills. The Institute of Vocational and General Education at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology will provide the point of view of the vocational education. The three schools involved, and the UEF Teacher Training School, will provide the point of view of schools by testing and evaluating the outcomes developed. In addition they will exchange students in order to understand if the same tools and methods can be used in different socioconomic environments. Finally, Universidad de León, which coordinates the project, will bring its experience on robotics for education forward. The project will be managed using a process methodology (PRINCE2). All the partners have broad experience on collaborative projects and many of them have worked together before, so a smooth development of the project can be assured. This methodology will supervise all the activities planned in the project: meetings with stakeholders, development of materials, local and multi-site events, teachers training, students exchange, dissemination, and management of the sub-projects. During the discussions while putting together this proposal, one of the major concerns of all applicants was making the results really applicable when the project was over. We think that the outputs of this project may achieve this goal in the long term because we have carefully designed the whole value-chain from research groups on robotics and also in education technologies, going through groups with wide experience on transferability, schools to test an evaluate the products, and associated partners to support the process. In the same way, the dissemination activities are designed to ensure impact of the project. A multi-site hackathon will be organized to involve students, teachers and researchers. More classical events will be organized at each location with the local associated partners to ensure the dissemination of the project. Finally, we think that this project will contribute to increase the number of STEAM vocations in the EU by promoting computational thinking as a valuable tool in different areas. We also would like this project to cause an increase in the use of ICT in different areas of secondary education, which will, in turn, help to trigger modernization and to reinforce education systems response to the main challenges of today’s world (employment, economic stability, etc).
Specific training is needed to participate efficiently in the Digital Society. Students should be prepared for a new context that includes new problems, new information sources, new devices and even new concepts. New learning approaches are required to help students to better understand and be prepared for the digital society. This society needs skilled professionals for ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and there are high unemployment rates when this requirement is not satisfied. Given this context, it is especially important for students to learn computer programming from an early age. This knowledge together with other technical skills make possible the development of what is known as "Computational Thinking". In this way, they need to develop skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, communication and creativity. In the specific field of school education, students need to see how these problems are solved and to "touch" the solution. In this sense Physical Devices and Robotics (PD&R) application is a popular and very valued option. RoboSTEAM project aims to experiment with STEAM integration projects that help learners to develop computational thinking by using/programming PD&R in pre-university education environments. To this end, the present project has included the exchange in the European context of experiences related to this topic. This would allow training of in-service and future teachers in such a way that they can apply this knowledge in class. This project has defined a set of challenges and tools to address them. Two pilot cycles have been carried out exchanging these challenges and tools between institutions so it is possible to analyze the impact of the context where they are used. The main objective of this project is the definition of a knowledge base to facilitate integrating STEAM and computational thinking by using robots. This has been carried out by developing pilot programs, gathering good practices and tools, and defining learning actions and educational resources for teachers. In order to achieve this objective some sub-objectives were defined: - Analyze the different existing activities that deal with STEAM integration - Define some challenges and instruments to facilitate STEAM integration and computational thinking development - Define metrics to evaluate both the integration and the competence development - Establish guides for the definition of integration STEAM challenges by using PD&R - Define educational resources for in-service teachers and future teachers - Establish ways of collaboration between robotic companies and educational institutions - Publish the obtained results in order to involve other educational institutions of the same and different contexts RoboSTEAM project had to be carried out transnationally in order to prove to which extent the proposed methodology and the ICT environment were able to identify patterns and offer different action plans fitted to the potentially very different needs of students from different cultures, in different schools systems, etc. In order to do so, the project was developed by a consortium of eight organizations, including five Higher education Institutions and three schools. The universities are: Universidad de León (ULE), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB), Karlsruher Institut Fuer Technologie (KIT), University of Eastern Finland University (UEF); and Universidad de Salamanca (USAL). The schools are: Colégio Internato dos Carvalhos (CIC); Agrupamento de Escolas Emídio Garcia (AEEG); and IES - Eras de Renueva (IER). The partnership has worked to produce the following results (taking into account the final grant of the proposal and the outcomes not granted): 1. Analysis of the application of PD&R in educational contexts and sample PD&R toolkits for integrating STEAM. 2. Design and implementation of training actions. 3. Guides for defining integrating STEAM challenges that use PD&R in different contexts. 4. ICT tools (questionnaires, rubrics, learning analytics tools) to track how STEAM integrating is carried out and gather evidence that later facilitates making decisions and assessing the acquisition of specific competences. These results have been articulated in two outcomes, two pilots, six LTTA activities and four multiplier events. All the activities were completed and, due to COVID restrictions, the outcomes work was extended to facilitate the application of the project methodology online. The dissemination of results has been important, the feedback obtained from the stakeholders was positive and the participation accomplished almost the expected numbers, even in the pandemic situation.