Social Inclusion of the Visually Impaired students through STEM projects Erasmus Project

Project Title

Social Inclusion of the Visually Impaired students through STEM projects

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Disabilities – special needs; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

This project aims at strengthening STEM skills for the blind in consortium countries and other European countries, through developing the necessary intellectual and tangible outputs for the visually impaired students, as well as their teachers, so as to motivate them create STEM based projects and improve technology and digital skills, while favoring opportunities for participation, social inclusion and interaction with their classmates. It also aims at diffusing best practices developed not only in countries with a long tradition in inclusion education, but even in those less developed in this educational area, via the creation of a handbook and an e-learning platform, about student STEM projects. The implementation of this project in European level will contribute to transferable outcomes and good practices between countries with different types of inclusion schools and different integration levels of STEM trend to education
In order to achieve these goals a “train the trainers” philosophy will be conducted, aiming to capacity building of inclusion schools teachers, about the STEM methodology, the assistive technologies (3d printing) and the educational material which will be used.

The Consortium of this project has set the following objectives:
1. Making accessible the education of STEM projects for Visually Impaired (VI) students
2. Capacity building of teachers working on inclusion or special schools with Visually Impaired (VI) students in the application of STEM Projects with the use of 3D Printing.
3. The design and support of the E-learning platform “STEM projects for the Visually Impaired students” and other educational material which will support teachers and students working in inclusion education with VI students.

Target groups:
● Visually Impaired (VI) students (those who are blind or have low vision), aged 12-18 years old, attending in an inclusion school or a center specialized in visual impairments
● Teachers, who want to cultivate their visually impaired students’ knowledge on STEM
● Students, aged 12-18 years old, attending an inclusion school with VI classmates.

The INSIDE project, based on the current educational trends, will use the following methodologies:
1. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a way of thinking about teaching and learning that helps give all students an equal opportunity to succeed.
2. Project Based Learning, PBL. STEM projects use the PBL practice wherein students are active participants in their own educational development.
3.Education/training supported by e-Learning Platform and Open Educational Resources.

The INSIDE project will implement two training activities: C1 training activity will train teachers of inclusion schools to implement STEM projects for their classes and C2 training activity will engage students both Visually Impaired and fully sighted to test the educational material and evaluation tool of the INSIDE project.

The partnership of INSIDE project will design and produce 5 Intellectual Outputs:
O1 STEM Handbook for Inclusion Classroom
O2 Webinars: 3D printing for STEM inclusion projects
O3 e-Learning Platform “STEM for the Visually Impaired students”
O4 Implementation/pilot activities
O5 Evaluation, Validation and Quality through ICT tool

In European level the impact of the project will be essential, as:
– Contribution to Inclusion education Curriculum convergence between different European countries.
– Promotion the modern skills and knowledge (critical thinking, problem solving, design thinking etc.) required for teachers and students, which are being developed through the implementation of the STEM approach in classroom.
– In the long term, this will affect the increase of modernization, competitiveness and innovation of European education system.
– Open invitation for the C1 training activity and for the Webinars. Participants from other countries apart from project countries will contribute to the dissemination and the increase of the sample for the implementation activities.
– The project could be the spark for the design and implementation of similar projects for inclusion education concerning people with other types (than Visual impairment) of disability.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 192295 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO & Country: PT

Project Partners

• PROTOPORIA
• G.G. EUROSUCCESS CONSULTING LIMITED
• e-Nable Greece
• Palade Põhikool
• Agrupamento de Escolas Henriques Nogueira