Pandemics, climate change and natural resource scarcity are just three of the critical global issues facing our world today. The flood of socio-scientific mis-, dis- and malinformation is making matters even worse: it has eroded trust in science and in the authorities, posing the single greatest threat to European democracies of our times.

Education must lead the way out of this crisis. Teachers need to be equipped with the competences and attitudes to foster the meta-scientific literacy skills that empower all learners to act as responsible, competent and effective democratic citizens in our increasingly digital world.

The SciLMi Teacher Academy is rising to the challenge. It develops, pilots and evaluates cross-disciplinary blended intensive mobility programmes and trainings (BIP, BITs). Pre- and in-service teachers will acquire transversal competences, digital skills and inclusive teaching strategies to educate the future generation to critically engage with socio-scientific issues and to research and evaluate scientific claims and arguments for decision-making and action (PISA 2025 Science Competency 3). The BIP and BITs participants will be guided to compose lesson plans that encourage teachers to incorporate SciLMi skills into their day-to-day teaching practice. After the project’s lifetime, the programmes and trainings will be continued utilising Erasmus+ KA 1 funding.

Given the pan-European dimension of the challenge, the SciLMi Teacher Academy will build a pan-European Hub consisting of providers of initial and continuous teacher education, schools, teacher associations, education authorities, foundations, NGOs, libraries, science centres and other stakeholders. The SciLMi Hub members will not only be actively involved in the development process but will also contribute to the project’s long-term impact and sustainability by disseminating the deliverables and facilitating the integration of meta-scientific literacy skills into the education systems across Europe.

Based on the 2018 PISA ranking, German-speaking European countries continue to lag their OECD counterparts in reading and science. Reading comprehension is an important part of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), a key determinant for academic success in general and, more aptly, in science. To learn and understand science, one must ultimately master the language of science. Therefore, subject-specific and academic literacy are key to increasing educational opportunity and successful outcomes.

Children from multilingual and/or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds face unique challenges in attaining scientific and academic language competence. The situation is compounded for many migrant students. In German-speaking countries, the correlation between student performance and socio-economic status is significantly above the OECD average.

However, science teachers are not yet sufficiently aware that language may often be a stronger barrier to student achievement than the actual content. Many have had little or no preparation for providing the types of assistance that learners need to successfully learn academic content and skills through academic language while developing proficiency in academic language. Teachers in training are also often not adequately prepared for the increasing linguistic heterogeneity they will face in the classroom, both in multilingual and historically monolingual societies. 

Science teachers must acquire linguistically responsive pedagogical practices and the necessary language scaffolding skills to support their students’ learning. What makes the situation even more challenging is that there are few scientifically tested materials or measures to aid them.

To address this educational gap, the project develops and evaluates lesson plans and strategies to bolster biology and chemistry students’ subject-specific and academic language competence and science teachers’ language awareness and their linguistic teaching skills.

The project is innovative in that it not only combines both theory and practice but also transcends institutional and subject boundaries. Several times per year, university experts in education research, science education and language education convene with science and language teachers and teacher trainers in cross-disciplinary communities of practice.

The project participants discuss, co-create and evaluate lesson plans and strategies suitable for implementing successful language-sensitive science teaching.

The sensiMINT database provides teachers with access to existing language-oriented tasks for biology and chemistry classrooms.

The sensiMINT materials include 60 biology and chemistry lesson plans aimed at students in the transitional period between lower and upper secondary education (years 8-10).

The sensiMINT cluster of quality criteria is based on the extensive project experience and allows for assessment of successful language-sensitive teaching materials.

The sensiMINT best-practice guide is a step-by-step manual on building cross-disciplinary teams to implement language-sensitive science teaching.

The sensiMINT coaching curriculum is the first certification program for the systemic implementation of linguistically responsive STEM teaching. The "sensiMINT-School" certificate honours systematic teacher professionalisation and interinstitutional networking.

The project’s innovative focus significantly reduces teachers’ time burden, the leading driver against the adoption of language-sensitive teaching.

All materials and strategies developed in this project are practically oriented to best serve the teachers’ needs.

To further lighten the teachers’ load, most multiplier events take place within schools, bringing the materials literally into their classrooms. This facilitates quicker adoption of the materials. The support of parents and colleagues from school boards and universities, who are also invited to the events, helps teachers to establish the strategies in their schools and

disseminate them further. In addition, project members create CPD courses for the education departments of the smaller German-speaking speech communities in South Tyrol, East Belgium, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg to introduce the project outcomes to teachers in these locations.

Acknowledging the significance of linguistically responsive science teaching for educational opportunity and equality, the consortium has established a broad network of associated partner institutions to disseminate project results and ensure lasting impact and sustainability. Schools, education departments, teacher associations, STEM networks and initiatives for supporting future STEM professionals accompany and support the project as critical friends and advertise the outputs throughout their own networks.

The development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem is the strategic priority of the Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027. The EU Education and Training Monitor 2019 reiterated that teachers are considered the factor having the strongest impact on students’ learning within the school environment. The clear message from teachers to policy makers is that they want more and  better training. A core element of the competence of MINT teachers is professional vision.

VidNuT's goal is to unlock the potential of digital technologies for professionalising vision by bridging the theory-practice gap in teacher education. It is specified in the following operational objectives:

In VidNuT, expertise in science education is represented by 11 professors for education research in chemistry, physics, technology and textile (VidNuT Experts) and 12 lecturers (VidNuT Designers) from eight colleges and universities in Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. A German university contributes the technological-informatic know-how and a digital designer ensures high-quality digital implementation. The socioanthropologist of a Slovak academy validates the intercultural compatibility of the project restults. An NGO specialising in education management, networking and teacher training is the last member of the consortium.

The methodological approach adopted in VidNuT is inspired by Communities of Practice, which have a culture built on professional networking, shared knowledge, and open communication.

Interdisciplinary expertise from multiple angles is synergised in VidNuT to design the following high-quality eLearning products for professionalising vision:

The 36 VidNuT classroom video vignettes, shot in more than 20 partner schools across five countries, are condensed case studies that focus on teaching challenges in the classroom. The vignettes become systematically integrated into VidNuT eLearning modules, multimodal course concepts to professionalise vision. Digital contextualisation enables future teachers to perceive,  in a structured way, the processes relevant to learning within the complex synchronicity of the teaching reality and to translate their theoretical knowledge into procedural knowledge. Experienced teachers can sharpen their awareness of interaction processes. The VidNuT eLearning Modules are realised on the VidNuT eLearning Platform, which provides digital task and feedback formats that have been implemented specifically to promote professional vision. Feedback loops by Critical Friends ensure a high quality of the project results.

With the VidNuT Concept Manual, the consortium provides the first hands-on manual for classroom video vignette shooting, cutting, editing and finishing. Teacher educators inexperienced in building vignettes can use it to design high-quality vignettes. Following the Do’s and Don’ts outlined in the VidNuT Best-Practice Guide, they can easily design effective vignette-based eLearning modules to digitise their teaching strategies. The VidNuT Best-Practice Guide draws on the experience gained by the VidNuT-designers in using the VidNuT eLearning Modules in their regular courses.

The VidNuT Policy Brief suggests in very practical terms how funding for digital education can be put to adequate use and how vignette-based eLearning modules can be used to address the theory-practice-dilemma in teacher training. The VidNuT Policy Brief is heavily influenced by the feedback of the primary target groups, students and teachers (VidNuT designers).

In addition to four multiplier events, the VidNuT team conducts many other dissemination activities to promote sustainable digital learning in all phases of teacher education. In particular, advanced training courses for university lecturers and teacher trainers that certify them as VidNuT Professionals will be administered internationally long after the project has ended. The teacher training course "Professionalisation with Vignettes and Videos" will be offered in the School Education Gateway on a long-term basis. In this way, the VidNuT team will continue to foster networking, Erasmus+ mobility and international cooperation to anchor digital learning opportunities in teacher education and training.