Projects

EMERGENT: Gender awareness and implementation strategies in STEM education

Acronym: EMERGENT

Years: 2018-2021

Funded by: KA2, Erasmus +, European Commission

Brief Description: Available statistical data show that over the past 15 years most of the OECD economies (including the EU) have experienced a large increase in the number of students in higher education. However, the proportion of science and technology students has steadily decreased during the same period. Some disciplines, such as mathematics, physical sciences, engineering and conputer technology show particularly worrying trends for female students. Although several actions have been developed to encourage girls to these studies, we continue having a gender gap in the high education fields based on stereotypes. Nowadays, when the European economies are facing a continuous transition to a more technology intensive model, the key competences in science and technology are the key to develop the economic and social model of the future and we need both women and men for a competitive Europe. EMERGENT project is focused in STEM education gender awareness and besides directly covers the social inclusion priority.

Website: http://www.emergent-project.com

Professional Learning Communities as a Means for Bringing Teacher Professionalization in Teacher Education

Acronym: TePinTeach

Years: 2019-2022

Funded by: KA2, Erasmus +, European Commission

Brief Description: Professional Learning Communities (PLC) are internationally highly appreciated to serve school development and thus better pupils’ achievement. In a previous ERASMUS+ project (HeadsUP) broad experiences on establishing and developing PLCs of school principals and of teachers were gained and two important perspectives were finally deduced: (1) For real understanding what successful PLC work requires and how it is done effectively it needs to be experienced personally (2) and this experience should be provided early enough to equip teachers with methods of necessary professional development.

Thus already student-teachers should become familiar with this method during teacher education at university. Courses on practical issues at university as much as phases of internship/practicum offer the opportunity to anticipate the later jobas much as to practice PLC work and get familiar with its requirements and chances. The consortium consists of a group of experts that are highly experienced in setting up and accompanying PLCs. These partners are also experts on teacher education and bring out university courses and accompany internship/practicum on a regular basis.

They aim at bringing the knowledge of effective PLC work into university didactics by experiencing and reflecting on students PLCs. The project is to establish students’ PLCs and accompany them to provide the chance for the teacher students to experience this special form of productive cooperation for learning and professional development. The project advances the experience with this often discussed instrument of professionalization and promotes it into early teacher education and university didactics. It also shows the possibilities for full teachers to also benefit from a combinded PLC e.g. to get up-to-date by learning from current scientific knowledge that student-teachers possess.

Website: http://www.tepinteach.eu/