An impact model and a theory of change were provided, focused on kids, as end-users, reached through the service-users, who are teachers. Thus, the impact on school-aged children was assessed through the teachers and educators. The evaluation also considered the material and social circumstances surrounding the teachers’ professional activity. In addition, some questions raised about resources available, gender issues or teaching styles. To do that, the Social Impact Analysis responsible – Kveloce I+D+I – conducted a brief survey and also in-depth interviews with teachers of various educational stages.

In general, teachers consider the technology in the classroom as a mere mean for improving outcomes: technology and technological tools should be always integrated with active and participative methodologies. These aspects, with particular emphasis on the teaching styles, should be considered when designing materials: for example, ICT tools should not be embedded within traditional teaching aimed at doing the same things that the scholastic classroom did (the traditional one). ICT should be integrated within a more active, participative and real-world based education.

Literature, interviews and survey find similar outcomes, discussed in the sections above and summarised in the following table, focused on facilitators and barriers for the implementation of integrated STEM education.

 

To sum up, facilitators are:

– Adequate and meaningful initial training, raising their abilities for implementing innovations in classroom

– Readiness to take life-long learning courses, availability of on-the-job courses

– Willingness to implement active methods and open-minded in regards to innovation. Positive perception of dialogue, the participation of pupils in their own learning

– Favourable socio-environmental context and school culture

– Self-efficacy

 

  On the contrary, the most common barriers are:  

  –  Costs

  –  Time required for training

  –  Time required for implementing the innovation

  –  Lack of skills and competencies caused by inadequate initial training, unavailability of long-life education

  –  Low self-efficacy, which might be reinforced by the lack of competencies and on-the-job training, while these factors could be also raised by a low self-efficacy, lacking proactivity

 

 

The most important conclusion is that we should pay more attention to unintended outcomes of the integration of ICT tools in the real-world classroom in order to make them meaningful and embedded with the socio-cultural context, the teaching methods and the culture of the school and its educational community. Currently, we are working on the final report: the final report will devote more attention to this field to deliver knowledge and insight about how to embed the innovation effectively in the real-world institutions and the quotidian practice.

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