“Let’s become Mathematicians, shall we?” Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Let’s become Mathematicians, shall we?”

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Pedagogy and didactics; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

“Let’s become Mathematicians, shall we?” was created to improve students’ logical-mathematical intelligence, reduce underachievement in Maths and improving maths related skills. Thus, we aimed at presenting Maths contents in a more stimulating way for students, using real-life situations and problems solving as main teaching tools. We also offered the students involved (about 2000 students from 6 to 13/14 years old) the chance to cooperate (both at national and transnational levels) to build their knowledge and competences while providing teachers certified training to support their professional development based on the goals of our project.

Thus, we worked on the improvement of teachers’ profile and experience, by offering them certified training and time to reflect upon their professional practices with a week of teacher training in Italy (January,2018) aimed at reflecting on strategies to make Maths more dynamic and easier to teach, as well as a week in Norway (September 2018) aimed at understanding how to cope with learners’ difficulty by changing the way we teach and address specific maths contents. There was time to share and reflect upon practices and difficulties, think on the pros and cons and way to improve within each partner school. Most of the strategies shared and discussed were then disseminate upon arrival at each school and put into practise by math teachers. We are proud to announce there was a significant improvement on the Maths Final marks since the beginning of the project (about 10% average), as well as within the Maths quizzes (about 23% in students from 6-10 years old and about 15% in students from 11-14 years old) if we compare the results from the start and end of the projec to assess the impact of the activities carried out.

We boost students’ motivation and focus by training persistence, work and resilience in face of real-life problems and situations. This was done by exposing pupils, students and families to challenges and problem-solving situations to show them how useful and fun Maths can be. The reaction is positive and competitiveness is key to it. Students compared their performances and eagerness to answer challenges, inside and outside classrooms by participating in challenges marathons, competitions, quizzes, tests and practical tasks connected with different areas, such as architecture, engineering, chemistry, music which were then assessed by professionals. The data collected suggests students now consider Maths extremely useful to solve problems, about 16% more than at the beginning of the project if we consider all partners, although Portugal, Poland and Norway register the biggest improvements in these numbers, +29%, 56% and 9%, respectively.

We improved students and families’ views on Maths by making them experience how fun and useful Maths can be, which will hopefully influence younger children to be more open to learn and experience maths. Some of these events were the Celebration of the World Maths Day, Mathematic Kangaroo, Peddy-paper and Family Day with Parents which were carried out in the 1st and 2nd years of the project. These activities helped to improve the way students perceived their performance in Maths, more 7% of the students think they are good at Maths if we consider all the students involved in the project, although this has especially been seen in Portugal and Poland, about 27% and 9% improvement respectively.

We enhanced students’ will to learn in an autonomous and cooperative way by giving them the opportunity to bring their doubts and questions about mathematics within their daily lives to the classes. Indeed, peer collaboration has especially been improved and students seem to find it more amusing and effective to learn this way, especially in the Portuguese, Italian and Norwegian schools, with an improvement of peer collaborative work as a way to solve maths problems of about 12,7%, 9% and 4%, respectively. Teachers seized these opportunities to explore fields students find more pleasing within maths which has changed the way they are now working inside the classes. It has become more common inverted roles in classes with students exploring, debating and explaining to each other different contents which proves how effective teaching and learning based on problem solving can be for students, regardless of their age and level of competence.

We created a cooperative network aimed at sharing school’s best practices and experience, thus allowing teachers and students to disseminate what they do best and to improve what they still need to achieve, without dramas or any blames to be attributed. By doing so, we noticed teachers were more open to share their best practices, but also their biggest difficulties, this positioning themselves as true learners who try every day to learn from their mistakes and improve. As a matter of fact, that turned out to be a good “side-effect” of carrying-out this project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 144440 Eur

Project Coordinator

Centro de Educação Integral & Country: PT

Project Partners

• Szkola Podstawowa nr 29
• Debreceni Kazinczy Ferenc Altalanos Iskola es Alapfoku Muveszeti Iskola
• Aspøy skole
• Kauno technologijos universiteto Vaizganto progimnazija
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO TAURISANO POLO 2