ABOUT STEAM-CT

 

Besides critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, … computational thinking can be seen as an important part of 21st century learning. At this moment the importance of ‘computational thinking’ is still underestimated in curricula for elementary and even secondary education throughout Europe.

The aim of the project is to strengthen teaching and learning computational thinking skills from pre-primary to lower-secondary school (3 years-14 years old) by integrating the learning of these skills within ‘real life’ STEAM-contexts. The integrated approach of STEAM will help to make computational thinking more concrete and connected to the real-world and therefore more comprehensible for children. The focus is mainly on the process of problem solving instead of the use of (expensive) technological tools and materials. So teachers will be supported to teach ‘computational thinking’ with easily applicable and accessible materials and tools.

The partnership is a combination of teacher training institutes and (pre-)primary and secondary schools which means that the consortium stimulates the cooperation of researchers and practitioners, which is one of the key elements of educational design research. 

The teacher training institutes are: the University College Vives from Belgium, the Universidad de Valladolid from Spain and Vilniaus Universitetas from Lithuania. 21 Knowledge, Unipessoal Lda from Portugal is a training center. The innovative (pre-)primary and secondary schools are Vendelsomalmsskolan from Sweden, Kummun koulu i Outokummun kaupunki from Finland, GO! basisschool Ter Elzen Wijtschate from Belgium, Laude Fontenebro School from Spain and Istituto Comprensivo Statale "G.Giardino" from Italy.