The “STEM Alliance – Dell PolicyHack™ Competition” called for teachers in Europe to submit STEM education challenges that they face on a local/regional level in their education practices and share recommendations on how ICT(Information and Communication Technologies) can help solve these. Entries were submitted within four ICT for STEM Education Challenge Themes: Learning environment/content, Skills and Life-long learning. Out of all submissions in the competition, four teachers are invited to the STEM Alliance – Dell PolicyHack™ on Education Challenges taking place on 23-26 November 2020. At this hackathon, the finalists had the chance to discuss online and refine their Statement of Purpose with representatives of Ministries of Education, industry partners, policy makers and other education stakeholders.
After some in-depth brainstorming, development and finalisation sessions with experts in the field, the four teachers pitched their ideas to a panel of expert judges during the STEM Alliance – Dell PolicyHack™ Finale on 27 November 2020.
The juries of the competition are Vladimir Garkov (European Commission – DG EAC – Directorate General for Education and Culture), Anja Monrad (Senior Vice President & General Manager at Dell Technologies, CEE) and Marc Durando (Executive Director at European Schoolnet). As a result of both jury evaluation and audience voting, Turkish teacher Selçuk Yusuf Arslan was chosen as the winner as a result of this hackathon.
Selçuk Yusuf Arslan gave a presentation in this hackathon Skills category. He claimed that especially in STEM education, more academic skills are gained and social emotional skills are neglected. He proposed a policy for this problem using online game based solutions.
