Output description: New „learning by making“ methods for innovative teaching, which will be “coded” in new VET curricula and accompanied by the establishment of a Knowledge Centre where to test those methods/curricula. Development of a new approach in teaching and learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), bringing higher technical and innovative capabilities to communities and regions. The new approach will be „coded“ into new VET curricula for preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary and adult education levels and will provide the participants with the right intellectual and practical instruments to read and operate in the business ecosystem as agents/promoters, following the educative approach of the Martin Trust Centre for MIT Entrepreneurship (https://entrepreneurship.mit.edu) and the Fab Academy from MIT (https://fabacademy.org).
Teacher/student educational material on the new and innovative STEM-approach within VET will be developed as a part of the project’s Toolbox and will be web-based “open educational resource” at the Knowledge Centre, the ultimate dissemination channel.
Activity Leading Organisation: HAC
Participating Organisations: ICI, UNAK, Lindberg&Lindberg, DORA
Output description:
STEM educational material developed “open source” for the Internet portal as a part of the Toolbox/Knowledge Centre, the ultimate dissemination channel. University STEM students will be engaged in designing and developing educational STEM projects for teaching and learning in preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary and adult education levels. The teaching/learning STEM projects, created by the university students, will adapt to the needs and realities of all the four partner countries: Iceland, Wales, Sweden and Italy.
To focus on environmental sustainability, which is an essential objective to the CRISTAL project, an online platform for mapping of local resources will be created in collaboration with the whole consortium. Through this platform, each partner country will map up their regional resources. The platform will be used as an input to the STEM-projects, created by the university students, and as a mean of sustainability in teaching and learning to enhance job creation and start-ups in rural regions. The resource-platform will be a part of the “open source” Knowledge Centre.
Activity Leading Organisation: HAC
Participating Organisations: ICI, UNAK, Lindberg&Lindberg, DORA
Output description: Evaluation report on current advocated good practice for innovation and entrepreneurship education (IEE). Researchers at UWTSD, which has taken a global lead on enterprise and entrepreneurship education, will be actively engaged in performing a desk research to collect information on good practices in innovation and entrepreneurship education for all school levels (preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary, university and adult education) as well as good practices for teacher training and collaboration approach with the World of Work that can be used within a VET framework and in accordance with the project’s objectives. The outcome of the Evaluation report will be used to foster IEE competence within the CRISTAL project. The Evaluation report will be published online at the Internet portal, created in the project as a part of the Knowledge Centre. Teacher competence will be developed in line with the good practice guidance from the „Thematic Working Group on Entrepreneurship Education 2014“ and practices identified within the OECD EU „Entrepreneurship 360“ project.
As for CRISTAL, The Welsh Government “Careers and the World of Work” (CWW) is an appropriate methodology for the approach to the project, as the provision for enhancing the relationship between young people, their learning and the needs in the workplace. Within Wales it is an element of the National Curriculum “Learning Across the Curriculum” and the framework that providers of learning use to review and develop the Careers and the World of the Work provision for 11-18 year olds. The CWW-model will be adapted to the CRISTAL project and used as an example to develop links between VET and the World of Work in the project.
Activity Leading Organisation: ICI
Participating Organisations: UNAK, HAC, Lindberg&Lindberg, DORA
Output description: Reformed innovation and entrepreneurship education (IEE) teaching methods, which will be “coded” in new VET curricula and accompanied by the establishment of a Knowledge Centre where to test those methods/curricula. Development of an educative curricula reform to create a learning environment that supports and develops creative capacity in learners at preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary and in adult education. (Opportunity recognition and problem solving skills within STEM and VET).
The crux of this output is the development of teaching programmes that intertwines innovation and entrepreneurship education into new VET curricula at preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary and adult education levels along with the emphasis on STEM, digital fabrication, business know-how and sustainability. Through UWTSD, International Centre for Creative Entrepreneurial Development (IICED), the project will build on the essential academic insights needed into IEE educational pedagogy at all the involved school levels. UWTSD will be responsible for the development of formal IEE curricula for all the school levels involved and creating links between VET and the World of Work to strengthen VET’s contribution to regional economic development.
Activity Leading Organisation: ICI
Participating Organisations: UNAK, HAC, Lindberg&Lindberg, DORA
Output description: Open educational resources (OER) on innovation and entrepreneurship education, with the means of sustainability in teaching and learning developed, tested and coded into new and innovative VET curricula for preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary and adult education levels and published “open source” at the Knowledge Centre, as a part of the Toolbox.
Activity Leading Organisation: ICI
Participating Organisations: UNAK, HAC, Lindberg&Lindberg, DORA
Output description: Development of an open educational module for practicing teachers to support sustainability by enhancing creativity and innovation pedagogic approaches. Development of teachers’ training programme on innovation and entrepreneurship education (IEE) in order to meet the needs of practicing teachers and to provide them with new competences. The project will develop and introduce an easy to adapt training module and methodology on IEE for teachers to use in the classroom. The development of the teachers’ training module will benefit from academic work and projects led by the partner universities, UWTSD and UNAK. Best practices will be explored, implemented and tested among teachers from the pilot-community at a teacher training workshop in Wales under the supervision of UWTSD. The outcome of the new teacher training programme will be disseminated through the Knowledge Centre as an open educational resource (OER).
The approach of fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in conjunction with creativity and enabling environment of digital fabrication and sustainability in teaching and learning will be used as a scaffold to structure the contents of teacher training, aimed at bolstering teachers‘ confidence by adopting more innovative and entrepreneurial behaviour through a personalised and self-guided process that builds on elements already present in their teaching. The teacher training module is a starting point to introduce a new approach to a VET curricula development ideas that are small-scale, low-cost and low-risk, and that will lead to new actions, positive change in teaching practices and improved outcomes for students and schools. The objective of the teacher training module is to direct the participants into critical introspection by letting them experience first-hand what being entrepreneurial means. The curricula as well as the teaching material will be developed knowing that many small schools in rural regions do not have the capacity of offering innovation and entrepreneurship education without external support. It will therefore be necessary to develop the curricula and educational material for online teaching through „virtual classes“ via the Internet portal/Knowledge Centre. By working on a curricula development for innovation and entrepreneurship across all school levels and with the involvement of teachers from all levels, will ensure continuity and facilitate „bridge building“ between educational levels and disciplines. Teacher competence will be developed in line with the good practice guidance from the Thematic Working Group on Entrepreneurship Education 2014 and practices identified within the OECD EU Entrepreneurship 360 project.
Activity Leading Organisation: ICI
Participating Organisations: UNAK, HAC, Lindberg&Lindberg, DORA
Output description: The Knowledge Centre is the main educational and dissemination channel, as well as an arena for long-term sustainability and future development of the outcome and network activities. The KC includes an interactive open source Internet portal for learning, collaboration and creativity and a Toolbox for teaching and learning. The Internet portal, including the Toolbox, will be a key tool for interaction among teachers, students, SMEs and other users and developers of innovative VET-approaches in Europe. Our vision is that the KC will lead to a growing network of „rural“ communities (teachers, students, working life) in Europe, who will collaborate and interact across borders on the themes introduced in the project, with the aim of strengthening technical capabilities of individuals, which will enhance entrepreneurship, competences, creativity and sustainability of rural communities in Europe.
The Internet portal will serve as a database for projects and educational support material and will open up possibilities for interaction between schools and school levels across Europe through networking. It will be a venue where STEM students from the partner universities, UWTSD and UNAK, publish teaching and learning material and STEM project descriptions for all school levels. Pupils at preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary, university and adult education will use the portal for publishing information about the progress of their work, opening up possibilities for interaction and cooperation between different schools and school levels, nationally and internationally. L&L will activate students in writing programming codes in cooperation with translators. Teachers in the pilot-community will test and evaluate the portal, under the supervision of L&L.
The Knowledge Centre means to be mainly a peer-to-peer learning area, a virtual areas with many combined functions: it is an excellent way for the testing and implementation of all the intellectual outputs created during the project in the pilot-community at all the school stages involved; it can be a crucial mean of dissemination to other countries - where students and teachers can build up networks and test practically the CRISTAL new approach to VET; and finally, the peer-to- peer learning areas could be the exchanging platform for the organisation of further workshops, mobility activities and projects.
Activity Leading Organisation: L&L
Participating Organisations (+-): ICI, Dora, UNAK, HAC
Output description: All the educational material, created in the project, will be online “open source” at the Knowledge Centre and available in English, Icelandic, Italian and Swedish. For the successful implementation of the CRISTAL project, a “Toolbox” for teaching and learning will be developed as an essential part of the Internet portal/Knowledge Centre. That includes that the Internet portal will provide a platform for webinars and “virtual classrooms” where teaching and learning will take place. A need analysis for the design and content of the Internet portal will be conducted in order to develop a user friendly and accessible support tool for the different needs of users/target groups from all age groups and educational levels that will be the users of the portal. The Toolbox will consist of educational support tools for teachers and students, and also of actual tools, software and other devices for digital fabrication and other “learning-by-making” methods. The development of the Toolbox will take place in collaboration of all project’s partners, thanks to the strong partnership of the CRISTAL project, involving teachers and students from all educational levels and led by the highly eco-innovative SMEs Lindberg&Lindberg Engineering AB and Azienda Agricola “DORA” in cooperation with the two highly qualified universities, UWTSD and UNAK, along with the project coordinator Husavik Academic Center.
Activity Leading Organisation: L&L
Participating Organisations (+-): ICI, Dora, UNAK, HAC
The Knowledge Centre for IEE, STEM and VET will be the main channel for the dissemination of the results of CRISTAL. The Knowledge Centre will encompass the dissemination of the teaching and learning methods developed in the project to schools at all educational levels through the open source educational platform in the form of a Knowledge Centre. The Knowledge Centre will also be the arena for the long term sustainability and future development of CRISTAL deliverables and professional network, created in the project among the strong partnership and stakeholders. In initial phases, particular emphasis will be on knowledge-transfer and extending the network to schools in partner countries: Iceland, Wales, Sweden and Italy – to disseminate especially to European regions that show readiness for innovation, knowledge, expertise and know-how created in the project.
As a CRISTAL expected outcome, a pilot tested VET teaching programme and curricula will be available for preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary and adult education levels.
At least seven Web seminars will be developed during the project’s period, in cooperation with all the other partners, where the following specific topics will be covered:
• The fundamentals in new approaches to STEM and VET teaching and learning.
• The opportunities of digital fabrication.
• The use of designing programs for creation in digital workshops.
• Innovation and entrepreneurship in teaching and learning.
• Sustainability in teaching and learning.
• The use of the Internet portal for teaching, learning and project seeking
• Other subjects that work on this project reveal as necessary.
Activity Leading Organisation: L&L
Participating Organisations (+-): ICI, Dora, UNAK, HAC