About
ABOUT DART∀HUMANITY PROJECT
Art and creativity for the society of tomorrow
The European project “DART∀HUMANITY – Art And Creativity for the Society of Tomorrow“, funded by the Erasmus + Program for education, training, youth, and sport.
This project aims to develop and validate two methodologies. On the one hand, for the full integration of arts, creativity and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the curricula of European university degrees, using The STEAM∀H interdisciplinary teaching approach, through the integration of art (A) and humanities (H) with other technical scientific disciplines: science (S), technology (T), engineering (E), mathematics (M). On the other hand, for the full integration of microcredentials in the system for evaluating abilities, skills and knowledge of each European university degrees.
Introduction
STEAM projects have been identified as an innovative pedagogical methodology that motivates students in their learning of scientific-technological subjects, however, they are still far from being established in the education sector since not even the curricula are prepared to facilitate the integration of these disciplines for teachers.
In our previous project, ERASMUS+DART4City (2020-1-ES01-KA227-SCH-095545) “Empowering Arts and creativity for the cities of tomorrow” a methodology was proposed so that schoolteachers could extract STEAM projects from the European curriculum, through primary, secondary and high school level, implement them and promote this change. The reality shown in this project was that the implementation of STEAM methodologies also requires significant coordination between the different STEAM areas with different teachers, where many of them continue to trust the traditional method. Also, many parents prefer traditional methods and not the STEAM methodology, much closer to the needs of the current labour market.
In parallel with the DART4City project, the EXPLORIA project was launched. This project is a proposal launched by the CEU Universities with the aim of improving the teaching methodologies that are currently applied in the university.
The project started in the 2020/2021 academic year, in the first year of a few degrees such as Advertising, Political Science, Business Administration, Journalism and Engineering in Industrial Design and Product Development. Of all those chosen, the degree of Engineering in Industrial Design and Product Development and the degree in Fundamentals of Architecture was perfect candidates for integrating STEAM learning.
The results obtained was publishing in a different research journals demonstrating that by integrating the different subjects into a STEAM learning, most students have improved their results. The implementation of STEAM learning in the degrees of CEU universities was a greater challenge, since, in addition to the subjects related to the STEAM areas, the subjects related to the areas of humanities, social and theological must be integrated so the STEAM model was redefined as STEAM ∀H, where ∀H is for all Humanity. This novel model was accepted for the educational community by means of a research publication.
DART∀HUMANITY is born from the temporary meeting of both projects, Dart4City and EXPLORIA, giving rise to the new project.
Objectives
The general objective (GO) of DART∀HUMANITY is to extract, implement, and validate STEAM projects in official European university degrees, replacing traditional face-to-face learning techniques in each country. These STEAM pedagogical approaches will be organized in a global and interdisciplinary way; and their methodology will be disseminated at European level, considering the different national contexts. Moreover, the project has the following Specific Objectives (SOs)
- SO1. Establish a guided development process for STEAM projects that includes thematic integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- SO2. Raise awareness in the university community, politicians, and society about the needs and benefits of updating methodologies, endorsed by microcredentials that reflect relevant sustainable skills.
- SO3. Promote gender equality and the inclusion of women in STEAM careers, in line with (SDG 5) of the 2030 Agenda, to gradually reduce the STEAM gender gap that currently exists. Fulfilling these objectives will contribute to E+ priorities:
- (i) HE: Developing STEM/STEAM in higher education, in particular women’s participation in STEM and Rewarding excellence in learning, teaching, and skills development (GO, SO1, SO3), addressing SDG5 in all the STEAM projects, providing with examples and references of women and prioritising participation of women and girls in project activities;
- (ii) HORIZONTAL: Environment and fight against climate change (SO1, SO2, SO3), integrating related SDGs in the STEAM projects and assessing relevant skills and competences;
- (iii)HE: Stimulating innovative learning and teaching practices (GO, SO1, SO2), through provision of methodologies validated in pilots and impact assessment data.