Women as TrainersTeachers in Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Erasmus Project

Project Title

Women as TrainersTeachers in Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Background:
Technology dominates much of our daily life and our professions. This applies not only to traditional technical sectors, but also to other sectors, like Health and Care, Business and Creative Industry. However, in order to supply the necessary high number of well qualified technicians, we need enough high qualified STEM teachers. Women, in particular, represent a large potential that is heavily underrepresented.
The project ‘WATT in STEAM’ is trying to find successful strategies to combat this current and predicted future shortage of teachers by focussing on strategies, that makes a career choice for becoming a STEM teacher more attractive to women.
The project is based on three crucial findings from the earlier Erasmus+ KA2 project GirlsTech:
1. Female teachers as role models are crucial for the career choice of young women in STEM areas, as the role of teachers in general is a crucial one.
2. Reluctance of girls/women to make a choice for STEM is not based on a lack of affinity with technology, but rather often because the social and physical environment of traditional technology doesn’t appeal to their world of emotions and because of a very limited picture of how the world of e.g. 3d printing, mechatronica, robotica, ICT and electro technology really looks like.
3. A choice for STEM doesn’t narrow down the possibilities to a purely technical profession as it is often thought, but on the contrary does it widen the opportunities.
The initiators of ‘Watt in STEaM’ are considering these three main findings as their starting point, whilst taking the rapid evolution of traditional qualification profiles and the increasing role of technology in general into account.

Objectives:
Research from the ‘Ockham Institute for Policy support’ confirmed the above mentioned situation and provided the following recommendations, that will be picked up by the partnership of the WaTT in STEaM project.
1. strengthening the relations with companies through more interaction and promotion of circular careers (recruitment of teachers from company staff)
2. strengthening the cooperation with teacher training colleges
3. making the VET-sector more attractive as employer
In order to find solutions in these three directions, but also in others, if relevant, the partnership envisages to share Good Practices to learn from each other. Although there are no ‘one size that fits all’ solutions, it is interesting to find explanations why some countries and some schools are clearly perfoming better than others, like it appears to be in the Nordic countries.

Partners:
Partners are VET colleges and Associations from The Netherlands, Iceland, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Italy, all with strong links to Teacher training colleges.

Activities:
In every country there will be a transnational meeting (kind of Peer learning activity) to learn about the Good Practices in that country and to discuss the possibilities of a transfer of the innovation to another partner country or region.

Results:
-7 documents (one from each country) : each country provídes a document with an outline of the featured good practices and the programme of the meeting in their country.
-7 reflection reports (after each meeting 1 report) with the reflections of each country regarding the programme and
instruments that were demonstrated during the transnational meeting.
-1 final report; which contains the above mentioned documents + general conclusions and recommendations on how to increase the number of female teachers in STEM areas and how to safeguard their quality.
– Publication of the final report on the website of INNOTECS + website of the participants.

Impact:
It is envisaged to show to potential female students the huge variety of opportunities that STEM programmes are offering. To take away prejudices and to find efficient and effective strategies to select and train more female teachers in STEM areas. Finally, this should answer to the demand of trade and Industry for well qualified and trained staff, as some countries, like The Netherlands, are at this moment hardly capable to provide enough well qualified teachers for the current number of students. In the next years, we even need more students (future employees) in STEM areas resulting in an even huger demand for teachers.
The impact is expected to be considerable as there is a well balanced partnerhip. Most organisations are facing the same challenge of involving more female students in STEM-programs, but some of the partners, like those from Finland and Iceland clearly succeeded better than others. Through the exchange of GP’s among very different partners and countries with different performances, successful approaches will be shared inside and outside the partnership and where possible implemented with positive impact on the genderbalance in STEM sections and finally the labour market.

Project Website

http://innotecs.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 137855 Eur

Project Coordinator

MBO RAAD & Country: NL

Project Partners

• FORAVE – Associação para a Educação Profissional do Vale do Ave
• SATAKUNNAN KOULUTUSKUNTAYHTYMA
• Fjölbrautaskólinn í Breiðholti
• Hyria koulutus Oy
• Berufsbildende Schulen Soltau
• FORMA.AZIONE SRL
• ROC Mondriaan