The three main goals of our project “Full Steam Pedagogy! – New Technologies and Business Skills” were: 1) Launching and developing a new international business curriculum in Salo Upper Secondary School. 2) Introducing all school subjects to STEAM studies and the pedagogical potential of the new technologies that MakerLab enables. From our perspective, it was particularly important to strengthen the role of humanities in the development of STEAM studies and MakerLab. 3) Developing the co-operation between the international business studies and STEAM studies.
Salo Upper Secondary School is a comprehensive school for about 600 students. In the autumn 2020 Salo Upper Secondary School started a new international business curriculum combining socio-historical and mathematical subjects, foreign languages and interaction and negotiation skills. During the school year 2019–2020 a new multilearning space (so-called MakerLab) for STEAM studies was also designed at Salo Upper Secondary School to enhance the school's pedagogical experimental culture and introduce both teachers and students to new technologies and ways of learning and teaching. One of the main challenges in STEAM studies was its strong attachment to science and mathematics on the one hand and art studies on the other. Many subjects have felt left out because of the emphasis on technology and science-focused projects at our school. Still, we thought that the culture of teaching experimentations enabled by these STEAM studies should be extended to all school subjects.