EU STEM Coalition - Webinar: Exchange about the experience of STEM platforms in the COVID-19 crisis
EU STEM Coalition - Webinar: Exchange about the experience of STEM platforms in the COVID-19 crisis
Date:
18 June 2020
Country:
EU
City & meeting location:
Youtube livestream
Short summary:
On June 18, 2020 the EU STEM Coalition organised a webinar. The objective was to take stock of how STEM Platforms have responded to the first three months of the COVID-19 crisis, its expected impact on STEM platforms in the medium term (1-3 years) and discuss how the EU STEM Coalition as a network can contribute to mitigating its impact. The webinar covered several success stories (Norway, United Kingdom). In addition it covered the results of a questionnaire held among the members of the EU STEM Coalition.Please note that the webinar can still be viewed on the EU STEM Coalition's Youtube Channel (see: link )
Objective of the meeting:
The objective of the webinar was take stock of how STEM Platforms have responded to the first three months of the COVID-19 crisis and assess its expected impact in the medium term.
Description:
The meeting consisted of two main parts. The first part focused on how the STEM platforms have responded in the first five months of the crisis. Two success stories were presented by members of the network:
- Ms. SIlje Aase Wolf of the National Centre for Science Recruitment (Norway) presented the ENT3R programme for homework support. This already successful nation-wide programme in which students of technical universities provide homework support to secondary education pupils was fully digitalised in response to the lockdown, providing daily remote homework support between 15.00-20.00h via a digital platform in which the students and mentors are connected.
- Mr. Chris Carr of STEM Learning (United Kingdom) presented his organisations digital CPD / teacher training activities. In response to the crisis 26 new courses were developed and successfully deployed with hundreds of daily registrations (see slides in meeting documents)
The second part of the meeting focused on what is needed in the medium and long term, and how the EU STEM Coalition can help. In this part of the meeting the outcome of the questionnaire (held among 35 organisations from within the EU STEM Coalition network) were presented. Among other things, the questionnaire highlighted a strong willingness among the members to form international partnerships in the development of new activity models (which is expected to be the biggest challenges in the next 1-3 years). Finally, this part of the webinar covered the changes made to the upcoming planning period of the EU STEM Coalition (e.g. new best-practice sharing formats and tools, introduction of new topics like hybrid teachers and VET as well as new digital events).