Findings:

1. STEM is understood and defined as four separate disciplines in almost all partner countries.
2. The majority of partner countries do not have a formal STEM curriculum.
3. Partner countries have serious STEM action plans, but none of them have a dedicated STEM education policy.
4. None of the countries has STEM teachers, all countries have teachers of different STEM disciplines.
5. Policies regarding the training of the in-service teachers vary across the
   partner countries.
6. Most of the partner countries prepare STEM teachers primarily as content experts and then as experts in pedagogy.
7. Most of the countries face challenges with teacher shortages on STEM subjects.
8. None of the countries offer training in a structural way to teachers for teaching STEM in an interdisciplinary way.
9. In most countries, there is no systematic training for in-service teachers considering STEM education.

Needs

1. Set up STEM policies on national and EU level.
2. Support development of interdisciplinary STEM education to promote
   competences and entrepreneurial skills.
3. Prepare curricula that is breaking the boundaries between the disciplines and is competence oriented and linked to everyday problems.
4. Teacher professional development in line with new societal changes (i.e.
   emphasis on inclusion, sustainable development).
5. Bottom-up approach to identify teachers need in professional development and longer professional development courses.
6. Develop exemplar STEM teaching materials.
7. Prepare teachers to discuss ethical issues and uncertainties in STEM.
8. Promote mobility of STEM teachers and exchange of training in STEM.

Fostering Excellence in STEM Education: An examination of Teacher Professional Development Needs

Needs in STEM Education: Highlighted challenges include time and resource constraints for teachers, professional development challenges, and difficulties in implementing integrated STEM education. Recommendations include leveraging intermediary networks for CPD, promoting interdisciplinary STEM education, and ensuring inclusive classroom environments.

Improving STEM Education: Addressing gender disparities, connecting STEM with real-life applications, changing perceptions about STEM, and staying updated on technological advancements emerged as critical strategies for enhancing STEM education effectively.

Enhancing STEM Training Courses: Findings underscored the importance of integrating AI in STEM teaching, incorporating entrepreneurship, and providing teachers with diverse materials and resources for effective training courses.

Success Factors for Online STEM Courses: Collaboration among teachers, content and material quality, integration of technology, effective assessment practices, and national-level training were identified as essential elements for successful online STEM courses.

Introduction to the Case Studies

One of the objectives of the project is developing and testing effective, accessible and transferable models for professional learning of pre-service and in-service STEM teachers. The project (through WP4 led by the University of Malta) will evaluate the effectivity and accessibility of the professional learning activities as perceived by partners and by the participants in these sessions. The project involves peer-learning by job-shadowing, in which lecturers from one institution observe professional learning sessions such as lectures, organised by another institution. The project will also evaluate the peer learning through job shadowing and specifically the transferability of each activity to other contexts and other countries as analysed by partners.

This will help us evaluate the effectiveness, accessibility and transferability of strategies and programmes in different contexts. Furthermore, through the case studies we will obtain information about different models for professional learning and how these work in different contexts in order to inform policy makers.

The research questions are:

• To what extent are the individual regional activities effective and accessible?
• To what extent are the regional activities transferable to different contexts?

Based on the case studies carried out by the partners in the different countries, a cross-country analysis will lead to a report evaluating country measures across Europe from a multi-cultural European perspective. In this case the research question driving the analysis will be:

• What are the characteristics of professional development activities and technologies and in which settings do they work best?

The strategy involved:

1. A learning activity is chosen as the ‘case’ in the case study for a particular country.
2. The learning activity is observed by two partners from other institutions.
3. Reflections are written by the session provider. Feedback is provided by the observers and the participants.
4. The learning activity is improved.
5. The learning activity is adapted by a partner from another country.
6. The learning activity is transferred to another institution.
7. The partner carrying out the transfer will write a reflection.
8. The partner offering the learning activity of the ‘case’ will analyse all the data and write the case study report.

In the evaluation a focus of interest is the teachers’ competence development, their motivation and the quality of the formats as perceived by teachers.

Where are we now?

Partners have offered many sessions for job-shadowing and peer learning. They have observed these sessions and written their reflections and evaluations. Participants were interviewed. Sessions were transferred or are in the process of being transferred.

What are the next steps?

Country case study reports will be written by June 2024. A cross-country analysis will be written by Autumn 2024.