DOTS…Development of transversal skills in STEM

The project “DOTS… Development of transversal skills in STEM” is implemented within the Erasmus+ program. The overall objective of the project is to improve the transversal skills of both STEM teachers and other teachers and coaches for innovative approaches to teaching.

The specific objectives of the DOTS project are:

• developing methods, materials and tools that support the learning and teaching of transversal skills
• training teachers to apply the developed methods, tools and materials in teaching.

The project seeks to encompass highly motivated teachers who will undergo a series of coaching trainings to enable them to disseminate the acquired knowledge further in their own environments. In addition, the project will also allow teachers to exchange good practice examples from different European countries and the wider international community.

In addition to the specific, subject-related STEM skills of teachers, the project will also develop transversal skills that will contribute to open communication and collaborative work within the school collective as well as between the teacher and the students. Some of the transversal skills include presentation skills, communication skills, critical thinking skills, teamwork skills and others.

Through the project, the partners will develop a set of practical materials, tools, guidelines and a manual that will contribute to the application of new teaching methods in teaching STEM subjects. There will also be a series of training sessions in all partner countries. Part of the training is intended exclusively for teachers, while the other part is intended for partner project teams in order to raise the level of professional competences, to develop mutual cooperation and to devise new, innovative methods, tools and materials intended for learning and teaching.

The project emphasizes the involvement of teachers and schools in the process. For these reasons, the partner organizations are Jelkovec Secondary School, Ellinogermaniki Agogi Greek School and the University of Vienna. In addition, the partner organizations involved in the implementation of the project are Science View (Greece), Science Center Netzwerk (Austria), Science Factory (Croatia), DOREA (Cyprus) and ATiT (Belgium)

CARNET sees in this project the opportunity for quality international cooperation, exchange of good practices, cooperation of international experts in the development of creative, innovative methods, tools and materials for teaching transversal skills, the opportunity to disseminate project results within each partner country, expand the network of international partners, and the ability to pilot designed activities on a large number of teachers and indirectly students, which will allow a reexamination of the outputs created during the project.

The duration of the project is three years – from September 1, 2019 to August 31, 2022.