The concept of the project „New Paths in Math - innovative methods in mathematics for engineering students” came into existence because of our needs of creating new methods and tools for mathematics and science for teachers working in vocational schools. The partnership consists of five vocational schools from Poland, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Italy and Portugal. Students, who are 15-19 years old are educated in the same professions related to electronics, ICT and telecommunications. Our institutions have different structure, teachers have different experiences, students come from diverse backgrounds. However, our schools face the same lack of educational materials for mathematics and science education. Our goal is to improve the students' skills and their competence in mathematics by improving the content of the lessons by utilizing the technical knowledge of our students. We are sure that by building a correlation between mathematics and vocational subjects we will increase the motivation of these young people and, as a result, develop their mathematical abilities and help them to improve their science skills. In order to achieve this objective it is necessary to develop teachers’ methodological teaching skills. I believe that, especially, the short-term joint staff training events will be important and valuable in this project. All the activities planned for students are set to address their underachievement in mathematics and science. Young people will play an active role in the project and will benefit from it in many different ways. We are hoping not only to improve our students' motivation and their individual results in mathematics and science but also to teach them how to promote diversity, tolerance and inter-cultural dialogue. All short-term exchange of groups of students and short-term joint staff training events will be conducted on high quality level and will be meant to realise our objectives in the most effective way. We believe that our students, working in international groups, will turn out to be quite passionate about science. We are hoping that those students participating in our project will come up with many innovative ideas. We also believe that those teachers taking part in interesting and professional workshops in Bulgaria, Poland and Italy will develop their specific science skills and become more aware of the capabilities of their students. These teachers will then be able to better help their students to understand the importance of mathematics in their future careers in sciences or engineering. We will pay special attention to the creation of different digital teaching tools and to optimize the ICT potential in teaching and in-learning. The development of good practices will make it possible for us to build in each of the five schools a more concerned, dynamic and professional teachers' community. The most important result of the project “New Paths in Math - innovative methods in mathematics for engineering students” will be an e-book , created in collaboration with mathematics, science and vocational subject teachers. This e-book is planned to be published with open license. All materials created and developed during the project will be stored on the project’s website and on the e-Twinning platform. What is more, the project’s results will be available for downloading for at least 5 years from the date of completion of the project.
The project "New Paths in Math - innovative methods in mathematics for engineering students" was carried out for a period of 25 months in five secondary schools from Poland, Bulgaria, Italy, Cyprus and Portugal. The common feature of the participating schools was that we provide education to future technicians and engineers for electronics and IT companies. The idea of the project arose from the need to develop new tools and materials for teaching mathematics and science using the interests and skills of our students. The main goal of the project was to improve students' mathematical competence, increase their motivation to learn, encourage to further education and prepare them to enter the labour market. During the project, we aimed to build a correlation between mathematics and vocational subjects, use students' electronic and IT knowledge and passion, and provide them with access to various forms of learning and development. The students had the opportunity to participate in many workshops, took part in extracurricular classes, taught each other in a new multicultural environment, acquired new social skills and developed their language skills. The project evaluation results clearly show that the project aims have been fully achieved. The students, aged 15-19, were involved in all project activities, willingly shared their experience with peers in cooperating schools, suggested interesting initiatives and implemented them in a very professional manner. Various presentations, infographics, interesting Padlets and brochures were created. The students have become more open to other cultures, learned about their peers' problems in other countries and together got rid of cultural stereotypes. Each school hosted one short-term exchange groups of students and in total students took part in 64 mobilities. Not only were the traveling to another country and staying in an unknown family a challenge but also hosting a peer from abroad at home. Each participating student had the opportunity to learn about the traditions and culture of another country as well as to show their home city and daily life. There was time for discussions about the future of the common Europe, about the challenges facing them in adult life and for talking about future plans. Undoubtedly, the young people have become more conscious citizens of the European community and ambassadors of EU ideas. The precondition for implementing successfully the project was to train the teaching staff so that they could use the new teaching methods. In each project group, there were at least two mathematics teachers as well as science and vocational teachers. There were three short-term joint staff training events and three international transnational project meetings. All short employee trainings supported the professional development of teachers and allowed to prepare high-level teaching materials that can be used for several years in teaching mathematics, science and vocational subjects. Brochures and a mini-compendium have been created for math teachers. Together, we have developed lesson plans using modern technology and Geogebra applets that can be used and adapted freely. In addition, we've prepared math games and quizzes together. We creatively cooperated and everyone tried to to put into the work as much effort as possible in order to accomplish the project objectives. The mathematics teachers could look at their subject with the eyes of electronics and IT teachers. All materials have been collected and described in the form of an e-book, which will be available not only to our five schools but also to all interested parties. Together, using different channels and tools, we will try to make them known to as many teachers as possible across Europe. In our opinion, this project is a huge success and we want to share its deliverables. Teachers, as well as students, developed their digital skills, learned how to work in an international environment, and improved their language competences. Together, we have created a group of people who want to continue to develop and work on improving the quality of education in our schools. We have gained the experience that makes us even more open to new challenges and opportunities. During the implementation of the project and immediately after its completion, some teachers took up new challenges in which they will use the skills acquired in the "New Paths in Math" project. We are implementing new Erasmus + projects and pedagogical innovations in our schools and use the acquired knowledge and skills in everyday work with young people.