Atlas of Best Practices in STEM Education (Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan). Monograph

STEM Education in Turkey

on 11—12 June, 2016. The second day of the event was mostly spent with activities in the field of STEM. The day started with four different fast-paced workshops: “My Connection Establishment”,

“Cryptology”, “Music of Fruits” and “The World of Living”. Then, the states of matter were explained to the students with a science show. In the afternoon, a movie named “Mysteries of the Invisible

World” was shown at the planetarium.After the screening, students participating in the “Design Your Car” activity raced the cars they designed, and beside the fastest first six cars, the three most beautiful cars were determined with the scores of the instructors.

Turkey Science and Technology Centers Conference.

The first conference was held in Turkey Science and Technology

Centers [110]. It brought together stakeholders operating in the public and private sectors and stakeholders cooperating for the purpose to improve their relations with each other.

Within the scope of the conference, the presentations were made on science center exhibition design and production processes, education areas, STEM education applications, TÜBİTAK Science and

Society support.

Istanbul Technical University Science Center [111].

In 2007 the Istanbul Technical University (ITU) established the

University Science Center with the aim of making scientific knowledge more accessible to young people. About 20 thousand schoolchildren visit the University Science Center annually, but the Center aims to reach at least 200,000 visitors a year, given that 12 out of 75 million Turks live in Istanbul.

The center strives to attract young people by combining direct scientific facts with a fun approach: from optical illusions to theatrical performances and even birthdays. For example, with the support of TÜBİTAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey), the Center can invite students from low-income families for two-week visits.

In 2007, there were only two or three research centers in Turkey, and in just five years their number reached ten. Now, a new plan, unveiled by the government, calls for an investment of one billion

Turkish lira (428 million euros, 555 million USD) to build research centers in each of the 81 provinces by 2030.

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FATİH project.

The Turkish government supports scientific centers as science education in general is now in a priority. In early 2012, the FATİH project was launched to introduce smart boards and tablets in public schools.

FATİH means literally “conquering” and makes think of conquering pupils’ scientific imagination… Turkey is a very young country and it simply cannot afford youth unemployment. That’s why it is necessary to invest in scientific and technology literacy, to bring youngsters closer to the attention of future employers.

The FATİH project is promoted in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Transport and CommunicationsanddistributesITeducationsolutionsto570,000classroomsin

42,000 state schools across Turkey.

Whilst some of the initiatives promoted by Turkey’s government are highly impressive, its growing economy faces a number of daunting obstacles if it is to meet its pressing need for a competitive labour force. Reducing drop-out rates, increasing girls’ education and enhancing STEM education are the main challenges ahead, according to Çiğdem Tongal of Sabanci University. At an inGenious summer school meeting in Istanbul, she highlighted the recent rise in the age of compulsory education — from 8 to 12 years old — as an important first step in meeting these objectives. In the meeting, attended by teachers from across Europe, she also pointed out that working in partnership with stakeholders and industry, and improving the quality of professional training can be considered a key to reducing education inequality.

In fact, Çiğdem’s own Sabanci University has been playing a leading role in societal reform since 2003, with the Education Reform Initiative (ERI). This was launched within a network of public and private organizations, in collaboration with the UNICEF and the

World Bank, with the objective of bridging the gap between public and private schools and ensuring quality education for all.

Izmir Yuksek Teknoloji Enstitusu (IYTE) [112].

Education Application and Research Center STEM was established for IYTE on September 27, 2019. The project, which had worked on for a while, was brought to life with the aim of supporting the development processes of students of all age groups, developing

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the sense of curiosity and questioning motives, which are the basic arguments of scientific research, artistic creativity and thought, with educational methods and techniques. Children are able to learn by doing and living with the teaching methods and techniques specific to their educational fields.

The opening of a kindergarten approved by the Ministry of National Education turned out to be a long-awaited a contribution to

İYTE and the environment. It was decided that IYTE would carry out a study in this context, based on the idea that universities should be environmentally friendly education centers. Thus, with the offer submitted to Council of Higher Education (Turkish:Yükseköğretim

Kurulu, YÖK), the Center operated by creating teaching environments and providing applied trainings, and also met the needs of the region and the country to raise qualified human resource potential.

Training programmes for Science and Math teachers about STEM in Turkey [113].

One of this training was in Ege University in Izmir on 15th— 26th June 2015 and 2nd—8th September 2015. It was about introducing STEM (Turkish: Fen, teknoloji, mühendislik ve matematik,

FeTeMM) education to science teachers. There were collaborations between the Izmir Directorate of National Education and Ege University in this training. The trainers were three academicians who work on STEM education in the Ege and Dokuz Eylul University. During the first two days, they talked about on the following topics:

–Multidiciplinary Interactions in Education;

–STEM (FeTeMM) Education;

–What is the STEM (FeTeMM) literacy;

–The importance of STEM (FeTeMM) Education and its components;

–STEM (FeTeMM) Education in Turkey;

–Engineering education in STEM and Engineering Design Pro-

cess;

–5E Learning Cycle;

–Design ProcessApplications;

–STEM (FeTeMM) Education in Secondary School Science

Curriculum;

–STEM (STEM Fields) Content-Designing the Event-Applica- tions.

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After these two days, the applications in STEM (FeTeMM) started. They were:

–Designing an electric torch. It is about electricity in our life.

The aim of this activity is getting pupils to realize the electricity in their lives.

–Designingacatapult.Itisaboutforceandthemotionunitinthe science curriculum.

–In the last day, there were three training activities.

–A talk about the integration of STEM (FeTeMM) activities to the science curriculum.

–Designing a lesson plan about a STEM (FeTeMM) activity.

–Presentation of the STEM (FeTeMM) lesson plans.

There was a debate about STEM among the teachers in the end of the training programme. The consensus after the debating is that STEM education is very important to catch up on modern science world. We must make STEM activities in our lessons to train the engineer and scientists of the future. We must attend to the training programme like this to improve our knowledge and skills about STEM Education. The training programmes are still going on to improve the knowledge and skills of Turkish teachers.

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STEM EDUCATION IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Context

It goes without saying that STEM qualifications and skills are necessary for the current and future workforce in the Russian Federation due to political and economic pressures and the need to improve knowledge delivery and employability skills development. Since the launch of the first Soviet Sputnik, scientific, mathematical, and technological knowledge has been essential for keeping pace with technological developments. Skills related to STEM and

ICTare crucial for a sustainable economy in the 21st century: STEM performance drives innovation and job creation in leading industries. Nations see research, innovation and production of high-tech goods and services and consumer electronics as the key to economic progress.

STEM subjects are the basis for staff training of the academic and technological elite aimed to ensure the country’s innovative development in line with Russia’s Scientific and Technological Development Strategy and the national programmes Digital Economy of the Russian Federation [114] and National Technological Initiative [115].

In this context, new requirements for curriculum development and syllabus design, and the implementation of new teaching methods determine the continuous development of formal and non-for- mal/extracurricular education practices in the following subject fields: Science, Technology, Engineering Creativity, Programming and Algorithms, and Project Activities.

At the same time, little action has been undertaken on the national level to modify educational systems: we note that STEM as a teaching and learning approach has not yet been implemented in schools. There is neither a National STEM School Education Strategy / National STEM curriculum nor regional STEM curricula.

Furthermore, there is a lack of STEM teachers and respective STEM teacher training programmes, with the skill level of STEM

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teachers often being too low. There are too few modern professional development programmes (teachers do not have the knowledge, skills and experience needed to provide integrated STEM education effectively; a methodological approach to STEM education is lacking: research, design and creative approaches are used far too rarely). STEM careers are not particularly popular with young people. Students demonstrate a low skill level in STEM subjects: according to the Unified State Exam statistics from 2017 to 2019, high school graduates show little interest in STEM subjects, many performing poorly in them (about 50 %) [116]. Moreover, the country ranks only 30th in PISA mathematics and science tests [117]. Although a new School-University-Industry vocational guidance and partnership model aimed at engaging students in interactive extracurricular STEM activities and projects is being implemented, it cannot be called widely spread so far.

STEM-Related National Policies and Initiatives

However, over the past few years, STEM-related national policies and initiatives have been developed and implemented in the Russian Federation. Among other things, they meet the need for developing career and educational pathways aligned with STEM. The Need for STEM trend in Russian educational policy is defined by the following strategic concepts, executive orders and national programmes/projects:

Executive Order on the Scientific and Technological Development Strategy of the Russian Federation [118].

The strategy sets out the main objectives of scientific and technological development in Russia, the principles, priorities and measures for implementing the state policy in this sphere, as well as the expected results of the document implementation, namely the rapid, sustainable, and balanced long-term development of science and technology in the country. As for scientific and technological development, Russia strives for independence, competitiveness and the capability to rise to the Big Challenges by creating an efficient system for building up and exploiting national intellectual capital.

According to the strategy, in the upcoming 10—15 years, Russian science and technology should focus on obtaining results in sci-

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ence and technology for innovative and sustainable development of Russia in the outer market. This will ensure the transition to digital, intelligent manufacturing technologies, robotic systems, new materials and design methods, big data processing systems, machine learning and AI, environmentally friendly and resource-saving energy, personalized medicine, high-tech healthcare, highly productive and sustainable agriculture, etc.

As for education and talent management for science and technology, the strategy seeks to create opportunities for spotting young talent and building a successful career in science, technology and innovation. Other priorities include developing the country’s intellectual capital and creating a modern system to support scientific and technological talent from an early age.

Affordable extracurricular education and Extracurricular Activities priority national project (2016—2021).

The project aimed to bring within reach extracurricular education for children, including technical and natural sciences [119]. By 2021, 25 per cent of secondary school students had taken part in extracurricular educational activities in Engineering & Natural Sciences.

The project seeked to create modern regional systems of extracurricular education and extracurricular activities for children (particularly those from rural areas) in every Russian region. Based on best practices, these systems were to ensure the implementation of various modern supplementary general educational programmes popular in the region, including those focusing on technology and natural science. Such regional systems imply networking between various educational organizations: vocational schools, universities, research organizations, communities and industries.

According to the project, model centres for children’s extracurricular education were on-stream in every Russian region, many of them expansions of children’s Quantorium technology parks at the core element of the system [120].

The Quantorium parks network is being put in place in every

Russian region. They boast high-tech equipment for training highly qualified engineering staff, development, testing and implementing innovative technologies and ideas in extracurricular education.

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Quantorium parks offer modern technology (PBL, EBL, EduScrum, etc.) and unique educational three-month programmes.

Called Quanta (16 to 72 hours) and designed for students of ten years and older interested in Engineering and Natural Sciences, these programmes cover national priority areas of innovative development. These are Auto-Quantum, Aero-Quantum, Data-Quantum, IT-Quantum, VR/AR-Quantum, Bio-Quantum, Geo-Quantum, Na- no-Quantum, Robo-Quantum and others. Quantorium parks involve children of different ages in solving real cases (trade tasks), design and research activities in high-tech industries. Participation is free of charge.

Quantorium parks help students develop necessary STEM skills as a combination of hard skills (3D modelling and prototyping, programming, data analysis, network and information security, computer networking, blockchain, AI, web architecture, research skills, NLP and image processing, operating skills, etc.) and soft skills (time management, critical and system thinking, leadership, communication, collaboration, teamwork and project management skills, working on large amounts of information, spatial thinking, data presentation).

Today, 80 thousand children attend Quantorium parks in 62 regions; about 600 thousand take part in the network’s educational activities. A system of competitive educational events (exhibitions, contests and team competitions) has been introduced to monitor students’ achievements, with schools and families provided with feedback. The system aims to motivate young learners to discover and develop abilities, while facilitating early vocational orientation.

Education national project (2019—2024) [121].

The Education project seeks to make national education globally competitive, with Russia breaking into the top ten worldwide in basic education. Most project activities focus on the priorities of education system development: updating the curriculum, building modern infrastructure, creating effective education management mechanisms and training teaching staff and lifelong learning.

Modern School federal project.

This project aims to introduce new methods for training and education, adopt educational technologies providing learners with basic

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skills and abilities, increase learning motivation and involvement in the educational process (PBL, EBL, etc.) and launch the new Technology subject in schools (2018) [122].

Commitment to 21st-century technological literacy, ICT, project and research skills, critical and creative thinking, digital tech, design & programming and vocational guidance (particularly for future NTI markets) is of cardinal importance for STEM education.

Within this approach, Technology as a school subject becomes the organizing core granting access to the world of material, information, communication, cognitive and social technologies. Thanks to improved teaching methods, project-based learning can become the principal educational technique when teaching Technology. In its various formats, project activity underlies the integration of academic subjects. In every Russian region, teaching Technology in schoolsismadepossiblebywell-equippedorganizationsandQuan- torium parks.

More than 3,000 Growing Point centres for digital education, natural science and humanities have been established within the project. Over 16,000 centres are to be open by 2024. Envisaged as spaces for introducing new curricula and educational technologies, multidisciplinary/cross-disciplinary education practices and PBL in teaching Mathematics and Computer Science, Health and Wellness, Technology and extracurricular STEM activities, Growing Point centres will grant access to quality education, helping schoolchildren pick up prospectively in-demand skills, and become centres for modern education in digital technology, science and humanities.

Success for Every Child federal project.

The goal of the project is to educate a harmoniously developed and socially responsible person in line with the historical and cultural traditions, as well as the spiritual and moral values, of the peoples of Russia. It also aims to bolster breakthrough trends within the new technological paradigm. The project is carried out by developing regional systems of extracurricular education and activities for children, which require measures to create a competitive environment and increase the availability and quality of children’s extracurricular education.

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The project provides mechanisms for early vocational orientation and individual education plans in line with selected professional competencies. This will be attained in the framework of the Ticket to the Future [123] and Proektoria [124] projects, as well as informal STEM-related practices, such as Lessons of the Present [125].

The project is to set up a network of regional education centres for talented children, following the Sirius model (including shortterm intensive projects & inquiry-based science programmes) in every Russian region. Quantorium technology parks will appear in every town or city with 60,000 residents, totalling 245 in 2024. The development of distance forms of extracurricular education and the implementation of projects, such as Mobile Quantorium (a vehi- cle-based platform for 3D prototyping, VR simulation, UAV engineering etc. workshops for schoolchildren), will make it possible to provide at least two million schoolchildren with high-quality extracurricular education by 2024, including those living in rural areas, small towns and poorly accessible territories.

Theprojectaimstoengage80percentofRussianschoolchildren in extracurricular education by 2024, with 25 per cent of children participating in extracurricular Engineering and Natural Sciences programmes.

Digital Educational Environment federal project.

This project aims to create a modern and secure digital educational environment by 2024 providing high-quality and affordable education of all types and levels. To this end, it is planned to establish a network of 340 IT-Cube Digital education centres for children [126]. An IT-Cube centre is a STEM environment for children to acquire IT skills.

The project implements popular educational programmes developed in partnership with market and industry leaders for children from 7 to 18 years old in the following areas: Mobile development

(Java, Android, Samsung IT-school education programme), Python programming (Yandex.Lyceum programme), VR/AR-development, Cyberhygiene and Big Data (Kribrum programme), Fundamentals of Algorithmics and Logic (Algorithmika programme), Robotics programming (Lego programme). Participation is free of charge.

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