The aim of the 'MaTo' project is to help motivate teachers and students in their approach towards and learning of Mathematics. It includes multidisciplinary competences of literacy (the working language is English) and numeracy, and facilitates the exchange of knowledge and good practice between 6 European nations: Italy (leading partner); Hungary; Poland; Germany; the UK and France. The basic idea is to plan, prepare and deliver a series of recreational Maths contests using ICT over a period of 3 years between participating partners to help make using Maths enjoyable and appealing. The use of contests consisting of problem solving in mixed-cultural groups during project meetings and single nation teams on-line during the school year, which focus on thought showering and the chance to go back over the process of alternative solution discovery when errors occur, will encourage students, especially those who find Maths difficult and uninteresting, to keep trying. Maths is often considered an insurmountable obstacle but we aim to build confidence and show that errors are an essential part of the learning process. Maths contests are not currently widespread in schools because they are sometimes considered a waste of time or a diversion from the formal syllabus, but they do in fact help to build cross-curricula and digital skills and foster critical thinking which students can use in other fields and apply to their future learning pathways. The project addresses the acquisition of basic skills as well as offering diverse challenges for the more able learners. Thanks to eastern and western European cooperation within the project, there will be the possibility to share knowledge, problem-solving techniques, experiences, methods, observations and other aspects which will help the achieved results to become more universal. Another aim of the project is to arouse students` interests in further education along these lines, which are crucial for the economy of each participating country and future employability. In the process of the project, partner schools want to work together to compare Maths syllabi and select material to create problems and find solutions together. They will produce a final handbook with the publication of the contest results and solutions in both electronic and hard forms. The cooperation among European institutions in the project will contribute to the improvement of the quality of education, widen aspirations and foster the implementation of innovative practices in European schools.
The aim of the project 'MaTo' has been to help motivate teachers to a teaching methodology and students in a new approach toward the mathematics and its learning It included multidisciplinary competences of literacy (the working language is'English) and calculating capacity by facilitating the exchange of knowledge and good practices between 6 European countries: Italy (leading partners); Hungary; Poland; Germany; the United Kingdom and France. The pursued and shared idea was to plan, prepare and conduct a series of recreational mathematics competitions by using ICT in each of the participating countries and to make teachers skillful at' the use of the software and the autonomous management of a race, both to collaborate in the production of problems on topics shared, both to help making use of mathematics fun and interesting. In races during the meetings of project, teams were transnational, each composed of six students of different nationalities, while during the training on-line the teams were formed by students of the same school. Teamwork allowed the opportunities to solve problems with mutual aid of companions, and the type of race by updating the results in real time allowed to come back to study an alternate process of resolution when verifying errors, encouraging students to try and possibly try again, especially those who find the mathematics difficult and boring. Since mathematics is often considered an insurmountable obstacle, our goal was to build a climate of confidence and to demonstrate that errors are an essential part of the learning process. Maths contests are not currently widely used in schools because they are sometimes regarded as a waste of time or a diversion from the formal syllabus, but they contribute significantly to build a cross-curriculum favoring the critical thinking in students and encouraging the use of mathematical skills in other fields. The project has consolidated and extended the acquiring of basic skills as well as offered an opportunity for comparison for teachers and deepening for students. Thanks to the cooperation grown between the teachers participating in the project, the ability to share and compare the basic knowledge of mathematics was developed , as well as similarities and differences between content, share and compare techniques of problem-solving, experiences, methods and comments and other aspects that have helped to achieve positive results.