STEAMY WONDERS – Hacking the Code for Women in STEAM

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Project Number: 2020-1-HR01-KA202-077758

Welcome to the STEAMY WONDER project. STEAMY WONDER is an innovative project that addresses the underrepresentation of women in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) careers. STEAMY WONDER project partners are aware that there are many factors that contribute to women’s underrepresentation in these sectors. Barriers including identifying a lack of career opportunities, not feeling competent in these subjects and encountering a hostile professional environment in these ‘male-dominated’ sectors. To overcome these barriers, STEAMY WONDER is providing female learners across Europe with access to a range of unique education interventions and self-learning resources that will support women to identify potential careers in these sectors, assess their own aptitudes for STEAM careers, and develop their skills and confidence to take the first step towards a successful career in STEAM.

About

In today’s rapidly evolving economy women need to be aware that careers in the STEAM sector are a real possibility. While academia, as a whole, needs to do more to actively recruit women into STEAM majors, continuing vocational education and training has a key role to play in reducing shortages of skilled people to sustain the growing STEAM sector.

Research studies highlight the lack of female STEAM role models and mentors; the shortage of STEAM taster courses for women; an unconscious bias against women within human resource professionals in STEAM focused companies; a significant confidence-deficit among women where the STEAM sector is concerned. The aim of the STEAMY WONDER project is to pilot a multi-faceted educational intervention targeted at women of all ages to address these issues.

The following intellectual outputs are proposed to help achieve these aims:

IO1 – Challenge-based Resources for Women in STEAM
IO2 – In-service Training for VET Tutors
IO4 – STEAMY WONDERS MOOC and Community of Practice

Infographics

Engineering

Technology

Partners

STEAMY WONDER has been funded with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme. The project commenced in September 2020 and runs until August 2022.

STEAMY WONDER is being delivered by a team of 7 project partners from Croatia, Ireland, Germany, Cyprus, Austria, Spain and Czech Republic.

Learning Materials

The STEAMY WONDER project – Hacking the Code for Women in STEAM – seeks to achieve a greater gender balance in the STEAM sector by; a) promoting a culture of scientific thinking among women using evidence-based reasoning for decision making especially where career planning is concerned; b) provide appropriate and tangible role model case studies to ensure women have the confidence to participate in an increasingly complex scientific and technological world; c) develop a bespoke toolkit of resources for women that address competencies for problem-solving, innovation, analytical thinking, critical thinking, spatial awareness relating to STEAM subjects; d) provide guidelines to human resources managers that enable gender-neutral recruitment, retention and promotion in the STEAM sector.

To achieve these objectives, the STEAMY WONDER partners are collaborating together throughout the term of the project to produce the following innovative learning materials:

Challenge-based Resources for Women in STEAM

These resources comprise a toolkit of 35 interactive infographics addressing the personal deficits of individuals to enable them identify the right career choice in STEAM. It will address the motivational, confidence, planning, resilience and career management deficits that have been identified in research as key inhibitors of women in STEAM. Each partner will develop the content for 1 interactive infographic for each of the STEAM subject/career areas.

In-service Training for VET Tutors

The STEAMY WONDERS project proposes the introduction of interactive infographics as completely new online career management learning resources designed with the habits and preferences of a considerable cohort of today’s female VET learners in mind. These resources will contain a number of different media rich resources accessed through QR codes/hyperlinks to ensure that they are attractive and appropriate to the current trends in the online activities and preferences of digital natives. The resources will be accessible through the most popular social media channels where today’s digital natives ‘hang out’. To support front-line VET tutors and career guidance/management experts to maximise the potential of these new resources and indeed, to create further resources themselves, a comprehensive in-service training programme will be developed to support their continuous professional development and enable them to expand their practice into new online learning environments.

STEAMY WONDERS MOOC and Community of Practice

The proposed STEAMY WONDERS MOOC will provide access to the STEAMY WONDERS Compendium of Interactive Infographic, the In-service Training programme and the Toolkit for HR Managers. It will have all the features associated with best practice in MOOC design and development. Learning content presented will be under-pinned by clear learning objectives to be achieved by those who complete any element of the learning resources provided within a given period of time. Each individual learning resource will have a beginning and an end. Each piece of learning material will contain some exercises or assignments that have to be completed as a skills demonstration to assess the knowledge acquired by learners.

Communities of Practice (CoP) is defined as an organised group of people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain, and mutual benefit from exchanging and learning from other’s experiences. In STEAMY WONDER, CoP members will have the opportunity to learn from each other and participate in collaborative work to achieve innovation in VET and support more women into careers in the STEAM sector

Go to MOOC

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To get involved and support our project, please find and follow us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/SteamyWondersEU

The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Country

Callidus – Institute for Adult Education

Callidus – Institute for Adult Education is accredited institute for vocational education by The Ministry of Science and Education in Croatia and has a branch Institute in Moldova. As Institute we have created numerous educational programmes in the areas of management, personal development, marketing, sales, tourism, gastronomy, finance, business economics, and construction. Over the past years, Callidus has built sound expertise in project management and has been actively involved in strategic design, operational creation and successful implementation of numerous projects funded by the EU totalling over EUR 11 million. We possess extensive experience and know-how in writing tender documentation and seeking financial resources which resulted in a successful completion of a dozen ADA, IPA, ESF and Erasmus + projects. We are leading in educational innovations as well as anticipating market needs. These innovations include educational programmes focusing on fulfilling special needs and requirements of VET learners.

Ireland

Spectrum Research Centre

Spectrum Research Centre (SRC) was established in 2017 to support young academics to bring their research into action. SRC was founded specifically at the request of local social and academic researchers and post-graduate students, who identified a local need to develop a space where research hypotheses and findings can be validated through local actions. At the outset, SRC aimed to support academics throughout their research activities; however, as the company has grown, the aim is now also to provide academics with opportunities to give their research a European perspective. SRC draws on a wide range of expertise from diverse yet complimentary disciplines like pedagogy and didactics, instructional design, social policy, e-learning, gamification, entrepreneurship, STEAM, anthropology, social psychology, local history, gerontology and early childhood learning. SRC is committed to effecting policy change and publishes policy briefs on a wide range of topics throughout the year. Although SRC is a relatively new company, the vast majority of the 22 academics involved in the organisation have many years European experience mostly gained through ERASMUS exchanges and internships throughout Europe.

Berlin

Skills Elevation Berlin FHB

Skills Elevation Berlin FHB is a new company established by academics, educators, performing artists and environmentalists who have been cooperating on a voluntary basis since 2016. FHBs mission is to provide an alternative educational methodology to support the social, emotional and cognitive development of marginalised groups and to support front-line educators at all levels to integrate new pedagogic approaches into their everyday practice. The company is committed to providing a creative space where research hypotheses and findings can be validated through experimentation and testing in a ‘living lab’ with a view to developing new methodologies and resources to address persistent social, economic and integration issues that pertain in all EU Member States. Berlin has a reputation as being a centre for creativity and expression but beneath the surface there remains many problems that require different approaches than those provided by mainstream providers.

Country

SYNTHESIS Center for Research and Education

SYNTHESIS Center for Research and Education Ltd is a pioneering organisation which initiates and implements projects of positive social impact, with a focus on social inclusion (particularly in the fields of employment, entrepreneurship, migrant integration, sustainable development). SYNTHESIS is one of the leading institutions in the country in the fields of social entrepreneurship and social innovation. It founded and manages HUB NICOSIA, an educational centre and a community of organisations with cultural, environmental and social aims, with the vision of becoming the first incubator of social enterprises in the country. SYNTHESIS is an accredited VET educational institution and adult education provider, SYNTHESIS focuses on the development of training programmes that tackles local and global, social and environmental issues. Furthermore, SYNTHESIS offers training and develops educational materials relevant to entrepreneurship, sustainable development and global education, including human rights, peace and conflict resolution, responsible production and consumption, and sustainable cities and communities. SYNTHESIS is currently delivering an action programme for refugees and asylum seekers, consisting of language courses, professional training as well as entrepreneurial and soft skills development.

Austria

Berufsförderungsinstitut Burgenland

The BFI vocational training institute is one of the largest educational institutions in Austria. Owned by the Chambers of Labour and the Austrian Trade Union Federation, its activities focus on (continuing) vocational education and training for workers as well as educational and occupational schemes for unemployed persons and workers threatened with unemployment. BFI Burgenland runs over 1.200 courses a year representing 140.000 teaching hours and qualify over 15.000 people each year. Our courses focus on the needs of both working and unemployed persons. The person is at the centre of our business, taking into account his/her social environment and being able to convey each of his/her personal education path. Our objective is to promote the personal and occupational development of the persons enrolled in our courses, by providing high- quality education and training at a reasonable cost. The courses are geared to the actual demands of the labour market and also provide orientation in a world of change. The high level of our courses is maintained by means of an internal quality management system, regular further training for BFI employees and an international know-how transfer. Most of our education and training courses are based on modular systems, facilitating tailor-made and thus highly efficient forms of learning. The BFI is officially certified to the EN ISO

9001: 2008 international standard.

Spain

Jaitek Technology and Training

Jaitek Technology and Training, SPAIN, is a company, specialized in ICT training together with technical developments and implementations in educational institutions (of all educational levels) throughout Spain, both in presence and eLearning. The company provides consulting, implements and validates eLearning environments. Here we deal with both the Instructional Design of courses and the customization of eLearning Platforms, mainly Moodle, were we can link with other platforms as Joomla, WordPress or Elgg. We are experienced in all sorts of training: eLearning, blended learning and presence, giving customized solutions, technical support, and preparation of training resources (these could be SCORM compliant) for using in any kind of devices and collaboration in the development of teaching units for on-line training.

Czech Republic

ALIANCE LEKTORU a KONZULTANTU

ALK was established in 2005 as network for professionals working in the fields of education and counselling. In the early beginning we organized education courses and seminars for our members. We hired top experts from different countries in some field in which our members were interested in and we invited those people to lead our seminars. Now we are organizing wide range of the training courses, educational programs, thematic workshops that help them to acquire qualification, competencies and special practical skills. We are organizing on regular basis conferences, seminars, training courses, educational programs and events for our members and associated professionals to acquire qualification, competencies and special practical skills. The mission of ALK is to support new methods and forms of education, support trainers and professionals working in education, national and international networking between professionals and services for community. Alliance of lectors and counsellors has now more than 400 members. Professionals and experts (teachers, counsellors, social job advisers, psychologists, seminar leaders and professionals in the companies) covering whole Czech Republic.