SpicE - Special Education STEAM Academy

SpicE’s bundle of actions aims to enhance Primary Education Teachers’ ability to implement effective STEAM instruction for protecting students with Mild Disabilities (Special Education) from educational and social exclusion. STEAM is used both as the means and as the purpose for enabling a much-needed shift in Special Education in Primary Education both at an in-service and pre-service level. It sought to uplift barriers for a significant number of students that are silently, slowly, and indirectly marginalized from the early stages of European school systems due to the lack of Teachers’ STEAM skills and the lack of a methodological liaison (along with practical guidelines and curricula) between STEAM and Special Education educational models. The goal of the project is to design a STEAM in Special Education Competence Framework (identify skills gaps and map them to existing and new job profiles), develop an Educational Programme (identify proper didactical approaches and map skills to educational goals of a curriculum), develop, pilot and evaluate the corresponding Training Programme in 4 pilot countries. The SpicE mobility actions of in-service and pre-service teachers (12 per country participating in 4 physical mobility sessions- a total of 48 teachers exchanged), we believe will have a profound impact on the field. The mobility sessions will be a unique opportunity to build significant knowledge where little has been done or even recorded. Given the, generally, a weak relationship between observable teacher characteristics and student achievement, SpicE’s mobility actions will strive both to further add value and organize methodological, much-needed data from practical situations. SpicE will use an approach “from the community and for the community”, to create and nurture a strong Community of Practice that will, eventually, spawn a permanent 'STEAM in Special Education Alliance' structure.