STEM and Gaming Aims for a Meaningful Educational Success

<< Background >>Technology has been improving so rapidly that it is of great significance for students to adapt to constant changes in technology. Individual competencies in STEM subjects are getting more important for the occupations of the future which are based on high technology. Therefore, innovative approaches are required in education. The era of the fast moving technology needs to be brought in the classroom, and more teachers need to be aware of the patterns that these students need, in order to capture their attention and make them acquire skills and competences. The critical thinking and creativity can be learnt by the studentsin order for them to be ready to cope with the challenges of the society. Within this scenario the project's partners had identify 3 main needs: Support learners at risk dropout with new educational contents; To enhance the participation to educational initiatives of groups at risk of exclusion by developing educational contents and approaches based on the universal language of Multimedia; To find new ways for teachers of motivating students using the tools that students use everyday.<< Objectives >>The project's partners had identified three main needs that correspond to the main objectives of STEM&GAMES:- Support learners at risk dropout with new educational contents;- To enhance the participation to educational initiatives of groups at risk of exclusion by developing educational contents and approaches based on the universal language of Multimedia, that are often one of the only interest of students;- To find new ways for teachers of motivating students using the tools that students use everyday.Through the project, we proposed to:- improve school success and motivation;- fight against school failure and absenteeism;- increase motivation of the students;- promote the application of innovative strategies and solutions to education;- empower students to be problem solvers and innovative thinkers through science and technology;- make an effective use of gaming teaching and learning tools for promoting students interest and active participation;- bridge the gap between traditional teaching and approaches and new ones;- enable and motivate students to learn STEM topics;- promote the application of innovative strategies and solutions to education;- increase schools’ European dimension.<< Implementation >>During the lifetime of the project there were:1) Three transnational meetings at project partners level (Kick - off meeting – Croatia; Mid-project cycle meeting – Germany; Final meeting – Spain);2) Two LTTAs about ESL and Game based learning (one in Spain and one in Italy);3) Analysis of the state of art about gamification in the participating countries;4) Extracurricular activities about STEM and Gamification;5) Six (one per country) Multiplier Events;6) Evaluation and validation of the contents;7) Dissemination and exploitation activities.All the above activities contribute to the realization of the IOs of the STEM&GAME project (Guide and APP).<< Results >>As mentioned above, two final products were created:- Intellectual Output 1: a guide of more than 400 pages, designed to help teachers of STEM subjects to combat the phenomenon of school dropout through the integration of the Gamification methodology within the teaching of these disciplines. The guide starts from an analysis of the health status across the various countries and districts regarding the scientific subjects and proposes a series of educational examples to show how, through the use of educational games, we can help students to practice and improve their performance levels in disciplines they traditionally considered difficult to understand.- Intellectual Output 2: an educational app that in escape room mode allows students to work in groups to review some fundamental concepts of STEM disciplines. The student has the possibility to choose six different scenarios with different stories that present a difficult situation from which he will be able to escape only by passing a series of tests: within each scenario, in fact, the student will be able to try his hand at four different levels of difficulty, in each of whom, however, in order to escape from the situation identified from time to time, will have to answer a question for each of the selected STEM subjects: Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Technology or Engineering. In this way the review of the topics will take place in a fun and dynamic way.Moreover we created the Project website (https://stemandgamesproject.eu/) with description of the project’s activities. It aims to give a reference point for being updated about carrying out of the project activities, for the circulation of the information. It collects and makes available all the contents developed within the project’s activities.