As the modern world relies on STEAM skills educators are challenged to integrate STEAM in interdisciplinary approaches with creativity, critical-thinking and problem-solving. Project “Maths and Art walk together” is designed to address key competences which will help students gain essential future-focused knowledge and skills. To achieve this objective it is necessary to develop teachers methodological teaching skills. The partnership consist of five secondary schools from: Poland, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Our institutions have different structures, teachers have different experiences and students come from diverse backgrounds. However, our schools face the same lack of educational tools and materials for STEAM education. We have realized that new approach to education in our institutions will not be possible without professional development for the teachers. The project targets 40 teachers and approximately 400 students in 5 partner schools who are going to participate in the project activities. The project will have 5 short-term exchanges of groups of pupils and also 5 short-term joint staff training events. A lot of various activities is also planned between international mobilities. Each partner school is going to organize a school STEAM DAY ( two editions), various students competitions, a newspaper publication and students’ works exhibitions. Teachers will self-evaluate created scenarios, use it in classroom and share feedback. We will practice teaching and learning outside the school, peer learning, using educational games in learning process. Using ICT and digital tools will be applied during almost all teachers and students activities. CLIL methodology and STEAM strategies will be practiced in our classrooms. The development and collecting examples of good practices will enrich our teaching experiences and inspire others teachers. The proposed project is focused on creating and implementing professional materials for teachers in order to improve their STEAM teaching practice. However, students will also play an active role in this partnership. They will participate in learning events based on projects and student-centered methods, think outside the box and express innovative and creative ideas. They will understand that maths is a language of everything around them and that art and science work together. They will create posters, infographics, research works, digital applets and graphics. They will improve their communication skills in English language, ICT usage and preparing and giving presentations. We believe that by collaborative working in international groups they will increase passion for learning and prepare themselves for future challenges. What is more our students will learn how to promote tolerance, diversity and inter-cultural dialogue. The casebook of methodological materials related to STEAM education will be the main result of this project. These materials will be used for the next years not only by teachers directly participating in the project but also by their colleagues and all educators interested in STEAM education. To make this result achievable we will store all the created materials on the project website, on the eTwinning platform and Erasmus+ Project Results Platform.
The project “Math and art walk together” was carried out for a period of 34 months in four secondary schools from Poland, Cyprus, Italy and Spain. The idea of the project arose from the need to develop STEAM approach in partner schools. The modern world relies on STEAM skills and educators are challenged to integrate STEAM in interdisciplinary approaches with creativity, critical-thinking and problem-solving. Project “Maths and Art walk together” was designed to address key competences which will help students gain essential future-focused knowledge and skills. To achieve this objective it was also necessary to develop teachers methodological teaching skills. During this project, we aimed to build a correlation between mathematics and engineering, science and art, technology and IT passion. Our institutions had different structures, teachers had different experiences and students came from diverse backgrounds. However, our schools faced the same lack of educational tools and materials for STEAM education. What is more, we realized that a new approach to education in our institutions is not possible without a unique professional development for teachers. At the beginning of the project we faced the Covid-19 crisis. We had to evaluate and rebuild our plans and schedules and to find the best way for effective partnership work. The project evaluation results clearly show that we have done it and the project aims have been fully achieved. The students had the opportunity to participate in many workshops, took part in extracurricular classes, taught each other in a new multicultural environment, acquired new social skills and developed their language skills. They were involved in all project activities, willingly shared their experience with peers in cooperating schools, suggested interesting initiatives and implemented them in a very professional manner. Various presentations, films, infographics, interesting Padlets and educational materials were created. The students have become more open to other cultures, learned about their peers' problems in other countries and together got rid of cultural stereotypes. The project had 4 short-term exchanges of groups of pupils and in total students took part in 72 mobilities. There was time for discussions about the future of the common Europe, about the challenges facing them in adult life and for talking about future plans. The students practiced learning outside the school, peer learning and using educational games in learning process. They had opportunity to spend time together after months of lockdown and experiment with various social activities .They learnt how to promote tolerance, diversity and inter-culture dialogue. There were four short-term joint staff training events. All short employee trainings supported the professional development of teachers and allowed to prepare high-level teaching materials. CLIL methodology and STEAM strategies was practiced in our classrooms. The development and collecting examples of good practices enriched our teaching experiences and inspired other teachers. After months of lockdown and coping with the lack of engagement and accountability of our students during remote learning we discovered how teaching outside the school is important in the whole educational process. It helped us create enthusiasm for learning and provide real-world context. Our students could experience it in various educational centres, museums and historical places. Therefore, they were incredibly involved and played an active role in this partnership. They participated in learning events based on projects and student-centred methods, thought outside the box and expressed innovative and creative ideas. They understood that maths is a language of everything around them and that art and science work together. Teachers, as well as students, developed their digital skills, learned how to work in an international environment, and improved their language competences. Together, we have created a group of people who want to continue to develop and work on improving the quality of education in our schools. The main result of the project is a casebook of methodological materials related to STEAM education. These materials will be used for the next years not only by teachers directly participating in the project but also by their colleagues and all educators interested in STEAM education. They are universal, easy to use with various application and very eye catching. To make this result achievable we stored all created materials on the project website, on the eTwinning platform and Erasmus+ Project Results Platform.