Starting from the idea that one of the key competencies of the 21st century is the mathematical competence, the 5 European schools considered necessary to brush up the teaching methods and open doors to educational innovation by taking Math outside the classroom. The project reunites partners who have a valuable experience in international school cooperation including the Erasmus+ Programme (the Polish, Italian and Hungarian partners) and partners that have not been involved in the Erasmus+ Programme (the Bulgarian and Turkish partners).The fundamental idea to start up the present project was that about 73% of students from all the partner schools find Math boring and impossible to learn. In all partner schools were identified the needs to increase interest, curiosity and knowledge in mathematics, improve the mathematical skills of low achievers and create new materials in teaching math. Through "Math Has Never Been Such Fun!" project we intend to raise students’ awareness and interest in learning Mathematics. Specific Objectives: -support directly 60 students and 40 teachers to develop innovative cross-curricular materials during 4 international exchanges until 01.09.2019; -develop mathematical competence for the future to 80% boys and girls from 5 EU countries until 01.09.2019; -stimulate curiosity and creativity among students from 5 EU schools by connecting mathematics to real life; -increase interpersonal and intercultural communication competence among 80% participating students from 5 European schools until 01.09.2019; -improve mathematics assessment and learning using inquiry-based learning. "Math Has Never Been Such Fun!" project is addressed to students coming from 5 European countries and the direct target are students from lower secondary schools, in particular students who are 11- 14 years old. There are planned 4 short term exchange of pupils (Italy,Poland,Hungary and Bulgaria) and 1Transnationa Meeting in Turkey in the project. The total number of participants who will attend the mobilities is of 60 students and 40 teachers . The project promotes an innovative approach that will lead to increase students’ interest and motivation in learning Math. The activities are designed to encourage learning by doing, by discovering, thinking skills, creativity, imagination, as well as, English and ICT skills. The implementation of the project is structured to achieve the project’s aims using the inquiry-based learning method. By tackling students’ curiosity in correlating math with the real world, they will discover by themselves the profound influence that math has on our daily lives. Four different topics will be approached during the 4 exchanges of groups of pupils: MATH & ART, MATH IS FUN, MATH IN MOTION, and MATH IN SHAPES. Students’ mathematical skills, curiosity and creativity will be developed using a cross-curricular approach. Students will be encouraged to see the connection between Math and other school subjects like Art, Music, History, PE and ICT. Using games, team building activities, fundraising activities, surveys, Erasmus+ day events will significantly contribute to enable students to learn through an international context. All the project’s products will be created by students during the mobilities. During the hosting meetings the partners will attend lessons, will observe and exchange good practices and get more familiarized with European educational systems. The school curricula will expand in accordance with the feedback and methods exchanged during the meetings. The following tangible results are expected during the project and on its completion: logo of the project, presentations, a brochure containing poems about Math, a common song, a calendar of the project, photos/ drawings, surveys about “Math in daily life - How Healthy Is Your Lifestyle?”, a travel manual, videos (“Using History to Teach Math”), Geometric toys, bookmarks, leaflets, questionnaires, a booklet of the project and the final DVD of the project. The intangible results expected are: increasing mathematics competence, improving mathematics assessment, stimulating creativity in teaching and learning math and developing motivation for using cross-curricular materials and inquiry-based learning in the educational process. "Math Has Never Been Such Fun!" project will present a validated model of innovative and creative interventions for the development and improvement of teaching and learning Mathematics. This Erasmus+ project offers a wide range of opportunities for self-development for teachers to be updated with the last methods of teaching used in the European Union. The project team is very positive that the spirit of our international cooperation will be integrated into the school curricula, leading to the internationalisation of the school, even after the EU funding is over.
The didactic objectives, obtained from the aforementioned module were: • To make mathematics an effective tool for analyzing and interpreting reality. • To achieve meaningful and conscious learning. • To provide logical schemes and models that allow the application of knowledge and skills in one's own socio-cultural context. • Acquire strategies for the construction of knowledge and skills aimed at improving the learning of mathematical logic. • Introducing different ways to "do mathematics." software that combines the playful with the rigorous aspect of mathematics. • Encouraging the participation of students in mathematics labs, games or mathematical Olympics. • Reducing school failure. The contents are: Numbers ... around us (natural numbers and their representation in base ten, decimal numbers, fractions, operations between numbers, positional writing of numbers ...) •Operations in play (interactive games with the four operations) •Space and figures ... in my city (maps, plans, orientation, representation of objects in the plane and in space, simplicity of space and plane, geometric entities, angles and amplitudes, perimeters and areas ...). (data representations, diagrams of various types, evaluation of the probability of an event, estimates and approximations ...). The contents of the module led to the acquisition of the following skills and competences: • Knowing how to learn to construct reasoning and to support one's theses through laboratory activities and peer discussion. • Starting from the student's knowledge and knowing how to activate a consolidation process, deepening and widening of the same. • To encourage and support the development of logical mathematical competence by arguing and conjecturing on problematic situations. • Develop the ability to observe through the analysis of complete situations. • Acquire the ability to detect analogies and structural homologies in different situations. • Knowing how to relate everyday situations of reality with the mathematical world. • Knowing how to solve problematic situations through problem solving. The methodology used in the teaching activities were: •Problem solving. •Project work • Cooperative learning. laying. • Classroom debates. • Interactive games with the Lim Verification For each didactic unit confronted, the learning and performance level of each individual participant is evaluated, through individual and group tests. The final results can be considered good, both for the learning ability of the single participants, and for the availability of the subjects to develop their own curiosity towards the mathematical world. Everyone worked individually and in the group for more learning of the subject.