Developing non-formal education competences as a complement of formal education for STEM lecturers

This paper focuses on a current practice piece on professional development for university lecturers, transformative learning, dialogism and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. Its main goals are to identify the key characteristics that allow STEM educators to experiment with the usage of non-formal education approaches, and apply this knowledge to generate transformative learning experiences. It also seeks to develop new teaching skills among the participants as they train to create learning environments that challenge students to apply STEM knowledge to solve real life problems. A university in northern Mexico created a bilingual programme that allowed participating lecturers to be trained and take part in an outdoor experience in which they designed and applied challenging undertakings for their students. This in practice piece presents a brief description of a non-formal education workshop, and provides examples on how to conduct non formal educational activities based on formal curricular content. Preliminary results allow us to infer that participating lecturers were motivated to learn new teaching approaches in an active way. Participating scholars noted that they changed the way in which they delivered formal content and this allowed them to experiment with new activities that permitted their students to have a better understanding of STEM subjects and improve their academic performance. They also mentioned that the workshop enabled them to improve their attitude, leadership, social skills and class creativity.