The multicultural nature of modern society constitutes one of the most significant changes to have influenced schools in many European countries. While most member states have - after some struggle - succeeded to issue educational policies dealing with this situation, and suitable learning materials for languages and social sciences have recently been developed, the learning materials that teachers have available to teach mathematics in multicultural classrooms lag far behind. There is a strong need from mathematics teachers to have teaching materials available to them, that are easy to use and that provide the students with motivation to learn mathematics even in difficult circumstances. To allow for the necessary flexibility, and to take into consideration the different learning levels and learning styles of students, it is recommended that these materials make use of ICT. It is also recommended that these materials follow a game approach instead of classical exercise-style materials. Preliminary research showed that while quite a number of ICT-based learning materials are available in mathematics, very few if any have been developed specifically for multicultural learning situations, let alone for the specific situation of migrant students. It is therefore the objective of this project to develop, test and disseminate learning software for teaching mathematics in multicultural and multilingual classrooms, with a particular focus on migrant students, and to provide teacher training activities presenting and using the learning software. This will be done by: * performing a needs analysis amongst math teachers and teacher trainers * analysing existing ICT learning products that have a focus on migrant students * collecting data about immigrant students in the partner countries * developing learning software for "motivation and learning" as well as for "practise and assessment", piloting and testing this software with teachers and school students, and make this software avaiable in all partner languages * teaming up with teacher training institutions in other countries to present the software there * organising an international teacher training event with a workshop to introduce teachers to the learning software and show possible classroom uses * organising an international conference as multiplier event to present the project results and to work with teachers and teacher trainers, using the materials. * disseminating outputs using a wide variety of regional, national, and international dissemination channels The main results will be: * a short report about data of immigrant students in partner countries * learning software in mathematics (two kinds of software: "motivation and learning" and "practise and assessment"), with a special focus on migrant students and multicultural classrooms. * a report about the results of the needs analysis and the existing ICT analysis * an evaluation report from testing and piloting the learning software * a web-page containing the learning software and reports * folders and posters with project information * an international teacher training event and an international conference The expected impacts, both during the project and as longer term benefits, are for teachers and teacher trainers to benefit from having learning software specifically designed for teaching and learning of mathematics in multicultural classrooms which have been proven to work in several countries, for migrant students to benefit from using the learning software by easier reaching their learning goals, and increasing their motivation in learning mathematics, for all students (migrant and non-migrant) to benefit from the learning software and from teachers who can convey the principle that a multitude of cultures and languages in a learning environment is not a hindrance but an asset for learners, and finally for school and education authorities to benefit from the existence of teachers sensitive to multicultural issues and from the availability of professional development courses dealing with teaching mathematics to migrant students that they can offer to teachers in their areas of responsibility.
The multicultural nature of modern society constitutes one of the most significant changes to have influenced schools in many European countries. While most member states have - after some struggle - succeeded to issue educational policies dealing with this situation, and suitable learning materials for languages and social sciences have recently been developed, the learning materials that teachers have available to teach mathematics in multicultural classrooms lag far behind. There is a strong need from mathematics teachers to have teaching materials available to them, that are easy to use and that provide the students with motivation to learn mathematics even in difficult circumstances. To allow for the necessary flexibility, and to take into consideration the different learning levels and learning styles of students, it is recommended that these materials make use of ICT. It is also recommended that these materials follow a game approach instead of classical exercise-style materials. Preliminary research showed that while quite a number of ICT-based learning materials are available in mathematics, very few if any have been developed specifically for multicultural learning situations, let alone for the specific situation of migrant students. This projects objective were to develop, test, pilot, implement and disseminate learning software for teaching mathematics in multicultural and multilingual classrooms, with a particular focus on migrant students, and to provide teacher training activities presenting and using the learning software. The consortium in this project consisted of seven partners: Three universities in their capability of teacher training institutions, three schools, and a software company. The main activities were: * conducting a needs analysis amongst math teachers and teacher trainers * conducting an analysis of existing ICT learning products in mathematics that have a focus on migrant or minority students * collecting data about immigrant students in the partner countries (Austria, Slovakia, and Italy) * developing and implementing learning software for "motivation and learning" as well as for "practise and assessment", piloting and testing this software with pre- and in-service teachers as well as with school students, and make this software available in English and the three partner languages (German, Italian, Slovak) * teaming up with teacher training institutions in other countries to present the software and other project outputs there * organising an international teacher training event with a workshop to introduce in-service and pre-service teachers to the learning software and allow them to work on possible classroom uses * organising an international conference as multiplier event to present the project results and to work with the learning software with teachers, teacher trainers, and mathematics educators * disseminating outputs using a wide variety of regional, national, and international dissemination channels The main results are: * a short report about data of immigrant students in partner countries * 12 pieces of learning software in mathematics (6 for "motivation and learning", and another 6 for "practise and assessment"), with a special focus on migrant students and multicultural classrooms * a report about the results of the needs analysis * a report about the existing ICT analysis * an evaluation report from testing and piloting the learning software * a web-page containing the learning software and reports * folders and posters with project information * an international teacher training event and an international conference The impacts, both during the project runtime and as longer term benefits, are for teachers and teacher trainers to have learning software available which is specifically designed for teaching and learning of mathematics in multicultural classrooms which has been tested and proven to work in several countries, for migrant students to benefit from using the learning software by easier reaching their learning goals and increasing their motivation in learning mathematics, for all students (migrant and non-migrant) to benefit from the learning software and from teachers who can convey the principle that a multitude of cultures and languages in a learning environment is not a hindrance but an asset for learners, and finally for school and education authorities to benefit from the existence of teachers sensitive to multicultural issues and from the availability of professional development courses dealing with teaching mathematics to migrant students that they can offer to teachers in their areas of responsibility.