The project BOOM! is based on the feeling shared by many teachers in our partner schools that the skills of many of our students in mathematics use (solving of real-life problems and use in other subjects) are too weak compared to our expectations. This situation is problematic because the difficulty for some of our students to reinvest the mathematical notions has consequences for them : their performance in science and technology is markedly reduced, and the problem-solving skill has now reached such an expected level in the 21st century that their professional integration may be penalized. Two key-findings can explain the difficulties students are faced to : - Our teachings no longer correspond to the real needs of the students and the expectations of today's society. - Mathematics still suffer from an elitist image and students are easily hampered by a lack of self-confidence and motivation. They are frequently too passive in class, and have trouble working as a team. Therefore, the main goal of the project “Boost up your maths! “ or BOOM! (acronym based on the first letters of Boost and maths) is to find inclusive ways for improving the ability of all students to develop their problem-solving skills and reinvest their mathematics skills in any possible fields. To this end, the project will be developed in two ways which are relevant to the two key-findings mentioned above : * Teachers will improve their teaching methods by intregrating into their practices the best of each partner country. In order to achieve this result, we will make exchanges of practices : during each mobility, workshops describing the best methods and the educational system of each country, classes observations will be organized. A strong work of comparison of teachers’ practices (through videos) and evaluations will be conducted. * The BOOM! Project aims at creating a motivating and confident environment for the students in order for them to reduce their reluctance to mathematics and create a dynamic attitude in maths learning. In that purpose, the activity «Challenge your maths in Europe! ", a step back to the long History of challenging between mathematicians all along the European History, will develop teamwork, a dynamic attitude and motivation among students. The use of videos, collaborative work, and the variety of the problems encountered will be an opportunity to value and include all students. Finally, the BOOM ! project aims at reaching a large audience : in each school, from 15 to 20 teachers of various subjects will participate in the development and implementation of the new teaching tools and resources. During the mobilities, the organized trainings will be open to the school teachers but also to the teachers of the surrounding schools (about 100 teachers involved). Moreover, in each school, from 100 to 150 students (including those with cognitive disabilities or special needs) will benefit from new teaching methods but will also participate more directly in the “Challenge your maths in Europe” activity". The project also pays particular attention to the diffusion of the results: all along the project, the website and the social media will enable us to share our resources with all the educative communities of our countries and a final seminar in France will be opened to a large audience (teachers, inspectors, politics, journalists..) in order to present the best educative tools we tested during the project. We hope to reach at least 5,000 teachers and inspectors through those different media and consequently many students. The project BOOM! should have impacts at many levels : Our students will improve their problem-solving and re-use of mathematics skills. They will also be more motivated by mathematics and other subjects through the innovative classes we will offer. They will develop teamwork, support among students, improve their communication and English skills. An important impact is also to make all students feel that they are able to use maths in their lives, even those with cognitive disabilities. Partner schools teachers will develop their teaching and a real dynamic working within the team will be created. We are confident that the large diffusion of our results will facilitate the implementation of innovative practices in other countries in many other schools. To conclude, the project BOOM! seems important, especially nowadays : our teaching methods must evolve and fit better to their times. Today, simple tasks are increasingly computerized and there is less space for those who lack problem-solving skills, and we need to better prepare our students to this situation, even those with special needs. Implementing this work between several European countries, which do not have the same practices, will enable us to have the time and opportunity to step back in our practices, to build particularly innovative and efficient pedagogical ressources, and to really enable our students to improve.
« 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.