Page 78 - ODV Training outline_EN

Adapting activities to the specific context of formal and non-
formal education

In formal education, STEM activities are typically conducted through specific
projects that engage learners in hours that may be outside of the curriculum.
However, it is appropriate and usually desired by teachers that STEM activities
be aligned with the content of the curriculum. This correlation is easy and
immediate to imagine and build when, for example, it comes to doing an activity
with Robotics or Microcontrollers in a technical or vocational institute (the ideas
for physics, technology, and electronics are countless), while it can be more
difficult to imagine when dealing with disciplines such as history or literature: in
these cases, it is easier to imagine activities such as 3D modelling and printing
(think of the modelling and printing of a monument) or with coding (think of the
classic "storytelling" to convey the story of a summary of a novel or the recitation
of a poem).

The worksheets of the challenges mentioned above, provide suggestions for
possible links with curricular activities.
In any case, it is important to consider two fundamental factors:

• Regardless of the direct connection with the curricular subject, the
development of computational thinking and the soft skills typically
associated with STEM activities (problem-solving, teamwork, etc.) can
already represent an excellent focus to help the student in all learning
paths.

• The vast majority of teachers who embark on STEM paths with their
learners, regardless of the subject of instruction, believe that these
activities are an incomparable tool in relation to their ability to capture
the attention of learners and make learning more fun.

In order to list the fundamental aspects of the decline of STEM activities and the
use of ICT challenges in a formal context:

• Set a learning objective (curricular or soft-skill or both)
• Provide activities to cover time periods of about 2-3 hours maximum per
meeting.
• Use the suggestions of the challenges to identify any relationships with the
curricular programs
• Use, for each meeting, one or more challenges worksheets of the preferred
level, even ranging between one technology and another, keeping in mind
the pre-set learning objective
• Focus on the ability of these activities to capture attention, without the
need to find an identical parallelism between the curricular subject and that

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the
author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European
Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can
be held responsible for them. Proposal number: 101087107.