Boost up your maths! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Boost up your maths!

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: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Pedagogy and didactics; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

« The Boost up your Maths » project was born from the desire to improve students’ skills in solving maths problems.

Five schools welcoming schoolchildren aged from 10 to 14 from five different countries were involved in that project : France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and Lithuania. We all shared the finding that our students were not good enough in solving maths problems and more particularly in the use of their knowledge of maths to solve everyday problems : the « transfer » was not working well.

We identified two possible reasons for the difficulties of our students. First, maths are suffering from an elitist picture which may impress our pupils. Starting from middle school, too many students develop a real lack of personal confidence in maths and easily become demotivated. Moreover, our teaching practises are possibly no longer adapted to the pupils’ needs and expectations.

But this observation shared by all of us masks real differences between our various countries. For a few years now, some of the countries involved in our project have developed innovative practises such as the class being held outside the walls in Lithuania or practises based on cognitive sciences in Sweden… Therefore we thought that sharing in common the teachers’ skills of the different countries would be profitable to everyone, since each country would be able to share its most promising teaching practises with the other partners.

For two years and three weeks a year, math teachers and additional teachers from other subjects who were motivated by interdisciplinary work joined together in the various countries of the partnership in order to study the most interesting practises and the joint work cessions of the « welcoming » country : we could compare our assessment systems, create share tools and present the teaching practises for students with special needs.

Between those sessions, the teachers could experiment in their own classes the practises they had discovered in the partner countries and pass them on to the colleagues in their schools.

Besides, in the context of the project, we strongly desired to develop an activity in which the pupils would be the main actors : « Challenge your Maths in Europe ». The latter is inspired by the long existing tradition of challenges being given between the European and Japanese mathematicians since antiquity. After a presentation time between the students involved and through the use of videos and other media, the pupils had to create, write and present their own maths problems in order to challenge their friends from the other countries.

Our students were extremely motivated and enthusiastic about this activity. This enabled them to step back and think about the mathematical tools in writing the problems themselves and they were consequently able to develop a better command of maths. Additional skills were also strengthened such as group work, the practise of the English language and the use of new technologies…

All along the project, we ensured to evaluate the improvements achieved in maths by our students and to check their motivation. The latter was assessed four times all along the project. All our students were also required twice to pass a common diagnostic test. The tests they passed enabled us to make the following statement : for the students not taking part in the project, the interest in maths goes down very strongly all along their schooling in middle school and this is even more telling for girls. The results of the motivation survey that was carried out at the end of the project made it clear that the project had really been beneficial for the girls. The various teaching practises that were implemented (more interdisciplinarity, the link made with the real world, more manipulations) were in some way « reassuring » for some pupils who were, because of their former cultural representations, less inclined to succeed in the field of mathematics.

An important part of the activities implemented during the project are shown through short texts and videos on the project site : https://boostupyourmaths.com/. These activities are accessible to the entire educational community. Besides, the report which was made at the end of the project lists the most positive practises that had a strong impact on the students.

Finally the impact on professional skills and motivation of the teachers involved needs to be mentioned. The survey which was conducted at the very end of the project is very positive. A great number of activities that started during that project will be continued thanks to new projects or through the daily practises of the teachers.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 108195 Eur

Project Coordinator

collège Icare & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas Rio Novo do Principe – Cacia
• Siauliai “Rasos”progimnazija
• CIRO SCIANNA
• AB Parts & Paomees