LEVEL 2. EXPLORE BEST PRACTICE

Introduction

T.E.S.T. is an Erasmus+ KA220-HED project started in 2021, coordinated by the University of Siena with ten partner institutions in seven European countries. It responds to the pedagogical unpreparedness of university STEAM educators for digitally enhanced laboratory teaching by producing a 30-hour online training programme, an Adaptive Teacher Toolbox and ten open educational resources, piloted with 51 educators and grounded in inquiry-based science education, Bloom’s Taxonomy and Media Synchronicity Theory.

The Challenge

What social issue does it address?

When university educators lack the competence to design adaptive, digitally enhanced and inclusive laboratory experiences, the consequences fall unevenly. Students with disabilities, non-traditional learners, those in geographically remote locations, working students and students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are the most affected by the absence of flexible, accessible laboratory modalities.

Why is it important?

This is a second-order inequality: the institutional failure to invest in teacher professional development propagates and amplifies existing inequities in student learning trajectories across European higher education. The pandemic exposed and accelerated the deficit, producing measurable discontinuities for STEAM students.

How does it contribute to the BRIDGE Challenge?

It addresses Level A Challenge 3 by acting on the point where educational trajectories break, the preparedness of teaching staff, rather than compensating downstream: it supplies the competence framework, the tools and the credit recognition that keep laboratory learning accessible.

How does it work?

Three phases. Research and needs analysis combined a comparative desk analysis with focus groups of teachers, students and management staff in every partner country. Resource development produced the Learning Path, the Toolbox and the ten OERs. Training delivery ran a five-day LTTA in Madrid for 21 educators, with 30 more participating virtually, followed by cascade training inside each institution.

What might inspire you?

Ideas for adaptation

1. Ask teachers, students and managers separately what blocks adaptive teaching.
2. Pick a digital tool for the cognitive level it serves, not for how familiar it is.
3. Require every recommended tool to work with assistive technologies.
4. Let learner choices branch the video: a decision is retained better than a definition.
5. Close each module with a quiz that answers back immediately.
6. Give faculty training real credits, or it stays something people do in spare time.
7. Train three colleagues per institution and ask them to train the others.
8. A virtual lab lets a student repeat the experiment until it makes sense.
9. Include arts academies when you design STEAM teacher training.
10. Hand teachers a checklist to audit the quality of their own course.

Resources created