Science and Mathematics Advanced Research for good Teaching Erasmus Project

Project Title

Science and Mathematics Advanced Research for good Teaching

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The SMART (Science and Mathematics Advanced Research for good Teaching) Project was proposed by the “Carlo Anti” School Institution in cooperation with an international partnership composed of other vocational schools, some universities and representatives of the world of work.
The reached outcomes of the project are:
– to improve the professional competences and to support innovation in the teachers’ training system
– to provide tools and methodologies to facilitate the acquisition of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills
– to improve mathematical competence and basic competences in science by introducing advanced technological tools in the teaching of mathematics and science to support learning;
– to develop the skills which can be used in order to increase opportunities for learning mobility, through strengthened cooperation between the world of education and training and the world of work.
This project is innovative because it inserts the ICT skills in Mathematics and promotes the Project & Problem-based Learning Methodology in Science. In particular, it adopts ACE in learning Mathematics and Testing & Assessment systems ideal for STEM education. In order to facilitate the learning of Science, the practice of laboratory was promoted, seen as a place especially equipped with materials and tools, but above all as a place where you can experiment with new ways of working to stimulate curiosity and wonder, to encourage experimentation and planning skills, critical thinking and the scientific method to integrate disciplinary knowledge. For this reason, two open online courses, in Mathematics and Science, have been implemented with the related teaching materials.
The partnership, made up of schools, universities and worker associations, have planned and produced training materials suitable to the training needs detected within the partner countries and carried out an experimentation in the partner schools in order to check their effectiveness.
The universities involved in the SMART Project contributed to its implementation as follows: Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) and the University of Turin (Italy) worked in particular on Mathematics and ACE with the implementation of e-learning platforms with the Suite Maple software, social learning environments and web conference systems; the University of Roma Tre (Italy), the Accademia delle Scienze (Italy) and TU Delft University (Netherlands) operated on Science and created new teaching resources by elaborating a common format for the teaching of Science with the promotion of laboratory education.
Confindustria took part in the project from 01/09/2014 to 25/06/2015 and contributed indicating the needs of the world of work to get human resources prepared to face the job market with a “problem solving” approach, supported by skills and abilities in the use of information technology to improve the entrepreneurial competences. Risorse in Crescita substituted Confindustria from 26/06/2015 and contributed to the interim and final evaluation of both project processes and products, validating the project results.
The partner schools (the Carlo Anti School, the Hungarian Radnoti School and the German St. Thomas Gymnasium) have been a first reference sample for the testing of the new practices and the outcomes of the SMART project in view of the targets set by the Europe 2020 Program for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The teachers of the partner schools took part in online training actions on the use of ACE proposed by the partnership (Maple Suite).
The project has put in place three types of evaluation: the internal evaluation, the external evaluation through a committee made up of stakeholders, named Red Team, and the evaluation of the results of the module experimentation within the partner schools. The documents referred to the results of these three evaluations constitute a significant product of the SMART project, which has also allowed operating some corrective measures to what had been programmed in the project planning phase.
The meetings took place both in presence (six meetings in two years’ work) and through webinars. The results expected during the project and reached on its completion were:
– exchange of good practices
– increase of the professional competences of teachers and consequently an improvement of the students’ competences
– production of open online innovative teaching modules for secondary school teachers in the PP&S methodology and in the laboratorial methodology, in Mathematics and in Science.
– a web international portal for the access to a collaborative platform in order to share tools, best practices and results.
In order to allow a proper spread of the project products, two Multiplier Events have been carried out, in Verona, during the Job&Orienta Fair in 2015, and in Turin, within the Bookfair Salone del Libro in 2016.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 287915 Eur

Project Coordinator

I.S. “Carlo Anti” & Country: IT

Project Partners

• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT
• Accademia delle Scienze di Torino
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO
• St. Thomas-Gymnasium
• Pecsi SZC Radnoti Miklos Kozgazdasagi Szakgimnaziuma
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE
• CHALMERS TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLA AB