Creating Online Materials & Products At STEM Subjects Erasmus Project

Project Title

Creating Online Materials & Products At STEM Subjects

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

COMPASS project is an initiative aimed to contribute to alleviate the lack of achievement in STEM education and the ineffective use of digital technology, by bridging the gap among research and teaching practices. Project partnership is composed of two research universities (Bayreuth, Germany and Maribor, Slovenia) with a sound experience in developing dynamic geometry software (JSXGraph) and on innovative use of ICT in classroom (e-books); four secondary schools from four countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and Turkey), that has ensured the project to be firmly connected with the everyday reality of the school life; and a EdTech company (Spain) that put the consortium in contact with the modern entrepreneurial world. This multifaceted consortium has achieved the following results:

1.To research on the development of JSXGraph software new features in order to help create interactive animations which allow secondary students to be able to perform function plotting, charting and visualization aimed to enhance conceptual understanding in Science and Maths. A special focus was on the integration of JSXGraph with Moodle and interaction with the Moodle filters MathJax, FORMULAS and multi-language.
2. To develop two STEM-Moodle modules aimed to secondary school students on Maths (quadratic function) and Science (Motion). These modules integrate JSXGraph based interactive animations in Moodle quizzes which allows monitoring of students’ progress by taking advantage of their built-in learning analytic system. The didactical approach have used problem-based techniques aimed to develop 21st century skills, such as inquiry, learn to learn and collaboration. Modules have been translated to English and other partners’ languages and published as OER (Open Educational Resource).
3. Modules have been piloted by partner schools several times during the project life span. As a result of this experience, schools have provided feedback that have contributed to the improvement of materials.

In order to introduce COMPASS materials to the teachers community, project results have been disseminated through more than 30 presentation events at conferences and teacher training activities and through social media (project blog, facebook, twiter). In addition, three professional development courses have been performed, at national and European level, involving more than 100 teachers. By creating the COMPASS Online Academy, project has facilitated that around 20 teachers have gone further in experimenting the materials developed in different classroom contexts. Project partners have contributed by mentoring teachers in using project materials while they are teaching their own students. In addition, the project server is offering free access to the materials to facilitate networking between the STEM teacher community. On the other hand, educational researchers could use project results as examples of evidence-based guidance on effective uses of technology for improvement in STEM achievement.

Finally, software developers have also benefited of project efforts in order to push further the interplay between interactive animations and Moodle questions. As a result of this interaction, several networks have been created among content developers and Higher Education researchers. A network with the Abacus project from Finland has led to a successful follow up ERASMUS+ application: 2018-1-DE01-KA203-004268 (ITEMS “Improving Tools for E-assessment in Maths and Science”), which will be a three-year project starting in November 2018.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 107890 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES MARCOS ZARAGOZA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• National Vocational Secondary School of Computer Technologies and Systems
• Liceul Teoretic “Dimitrie Cantemir” Iasi
• UNIVERSITAET BAYREUTH
• BonNouEdu SL
• UNIVERZA V MARIBORU
• Arnavutkoy Korkmaz Yigit Anadolu Lisesi