Abstract:

In education, the digital paradigm of everyday life of our time manifests in an increased pressure on the digital and pedagogical competence of STEM teachers as well as in the availability of digital resources in STEM subjects. This greatly affects the achievement of long-term outcomes in the daily activities of teachers in European educational organizations. The Erasmus+ DigiSTEM project is unique in its innovative dimension that links pedagogy with the use of educational technologies. The aim of the project is the development of digital didactics and teaching methodology with educational methods that activate educators in the use of new technologies in STEM education. In good digital pedagogy, technology is used in a pedagogic and content-wise way. Knowledge needed for a successful integration of technology requires a combination of adequate technological, pedagogical and content knowledge, in order to understand the role of digital tools integrated within STEM education.

DigiSTEM methodology provides answers to the main challenges, such as: how to maximize the benefits and avoid deficiencies, how to design materials and instructional resources, what topics are suitable for the use of digital tools, and how to assess the acquired knowledge through online tests, design test questions, select a variety of possible answers or choose ways to insert answers in open questions.

The MOOC project platform provides guidelines for the use of the digital tools and resources in STEM education in the form of readily available solutions, examples of good practice in instructional materials, instructions for the development of educational videos and animations, as well as on-line tests design, comments on various forms of assessments, and information regarding learning analytics and self-regulated learning. Open access project results that are presented via the MOOC platform guarantee availability of resources on a large scale to achieve long lasting effects in everyday activity on the European HEIs.

Project coordinator is Tampere University of Applied Sciences, TAMK, Tampere, Finland, partners are Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, STU, Bratislava, Slovakia, Technical University of Civil Engineering, UTCB, Bucharest, Romania and Polytechnical University of Madrid, UPM, Madrid, Spain.

Keywords:

Technology, digital didactics, STEM education, digital pedagogy.