"Let's become Mathematicians, shall we?" is an innovative project as it proposes to address the problems and needs related to the lack of logical-mathematical intelligence, in the way that attracts and stimulates students’ will to learn more and more in a progressively autonomous way, while giving them the chance to cooperatively (both a national and transnational level) to build their knowledge and competences, thus owning in a very effective way their learning process. This project try to answer and contribute for Europe 2020, the EU's strategic growth strategy, in decreasing the % of students under-skilled in mathematics for less than 15% of 15-years-old students. There will be approximately 2000 students and pupils participating in this project within an age range of 6-18 years. However, there will be adjusted work and activities to the following age groups: 6-10 within the primary school; 11-15 within the second and third cycles and 15-18 within secondary school students. The main goals of the project are: 1. The improvement of students’ logical-mathematical intelligence within all the partner schools and communities; 2. The improvement of students’ expectations and motivation towards Mathematics; 3. The increase of students’ marks in curricular subject of Mathematics; 4. The development of students’ mental mathematics, logical reasoning, concentration, persistence and resilience, not only in terms of time and speed, but also in terms of complexity; 5. The increasing in the will to work cooperatively within a common topic, whether at a national or at a transnational level. To assure a sustainable change on teaching mathematics the project includes teachers trainings where best practices will be discuss and strategies shared. This project intend to apply a methodology that stimulate the development of logical-mathematical skills through the carry out of playful, yet goal-oriented tasks within students from different age-groups. Indeed, we expect them to build up their skills by playing together, making mistakes, helping each other improving by correcting and pushing themselves harder, allowing them to act as the leaders of their own learning. Hence, we will surely depart from a more practical approach in order to reach a more theoretical knowledge as we strongly believe that will make students’ learning more significant, engaging and memorable. This is not an easy task for traditional teachers on traditional schools and trainings and follow-up tools will be the key factor for the success of this project. Students will create mathematics challenges to be published in the local newspapers; they will participate in chess tournaments and origami workshops, complex memory games, competitions and puzzles aimed at the development of their focus, attention, concentration and persistence skills; they will celebrate the Maths World Day each year along with competitions, workshops, conferences and exhibitions aimed at enhancing the understanding of the importance of Mathematics in our everyday lives; they will sell items at school thus stimulating their understanding of the value of money while providing for a greater autonomy in the use of money. Students will build and play their local version of the monopoly game as a way to engage them in the exploration of the virtues of saving and spending money. They will participate in Rubick’s cube competitions, tangram and lego’s constructions to stimulate their imagination, creativity, comprehension and the articulation of several skills toward problems solving. In addition, there will be a Maths Olympics to assess students’ skills evolution since the beginning of the project. They will also attend music and solfa workshops and participate in an Arts and Maths contest and exhibition. To access the success of this project, among others the activities we will carry out during the project will include monitoring and assessment tests, questionnaires and surveys aimed at evaluating students’ level of departure, middle and at the end of the project in terms of logical-mathematical skills. This results will be complemented with the results of national exams on Mathematics in which we expect to have 85% of our 15-years-old students with positive rates. Besides that, by carrying out the activities planned we expect to actively work to change students, families and other people's negative idea towards Mathematics, hence providing a positive experience and growing motivation within this area. Through the dissemination activities we expect to create chains of cooperation between students, teachers and schools from several European countries, so that we can work together to the resolution of a common problem - mathematics!
"Let's become Mathematicians, shall we?" was created to improve students’ logical-mathematical intelligence, reduce underachievement in Maths and improving maths related skills. Thus, we aimed at presenting Maths contents in a more stimulating way for students, using real-life situations and problems solving as main teaching tools. We also offered the students involved (about 2000 students from 6 to 13/14 years old) the chance to cooperate (both at national and transnational levels) to build their knowledge and competences while providing teachers certified training to support their professional development based on the goals of our project. Thus, we worked on the improvement of teachers’ profile and experience, by offering them certified training and time to reflect upon their professional practices with a week of teacher training in Italy (January,2018) aimed at reflecting on strategies to make Maths more dynamic and easier to teach, as well as a week in Norway (September 2018) aimed at understanding how to cope with learners’ difficulty by changing the way we teach and address specific maths contents. There was time to share and reflect upon practices and difficulties, think on the pros and cons and way to improve within each partner school. Most of the strategies shared and discussed were then disseminate upon arrival at each school and put into practise by math teachers. We are proud to announce there was a significant improvement on the Maths Final marks since the beginning of the project (about 10% average), as well as within the Maths quizzes (about 23% in students from 6-10 years old and about 15% in students from 11-14 years old) if we compare the results from the start and end of the projec to assess the impact of the activities carried out. We boost students’ motivation and focus by training persistence, work and resilience in face of real-life problems and situations. This was done by exposing pupils, students and families to challenges and problem-solving situations to show them how useful and fun Maths can be. The reaction is positive and competitiveness is key to it. Students compared their performances and eagerness to answer challenges, inside and outside classrooms by participating in challenges marathons, competitions, quizzes, tests and practical tasks connected with different areas, such as architecture, engineering, chemistry, music which were then assessed by professionals. The data collected suggests students now consider Maths extremely useful to solve problems, about 16% more than at the beginning of the project if we consider all partners, although Portugal, Poland and Norway register the biggest improvements in these numbers, +29%, 56% and 9%, respectively. We improved students and families’ views on Maths by making them experience how fun and useful Maths can be, which will hopefully influence younger children to be more open to learn and experience maths. Some of these events were the Celebration of the World Maths Day, Mathematic Kangaroo, Peddy-paper and Family Day with Parents which were carried out in the 1st and 2nd years of the project. These activities helped to improve the way students perceived their performance in Maths, more 7% of the students think they are good at Maths if we consider all the students involved in the project, although this has especially been seen in Portugal and Poland, about 27% and 9% improvement respectively. We enhanced students’ will to learn in an autonomous and cooperative way by giving them the opportunity to bring their doubts and questions about mathematics within their daily lives to the classes. Indeed, peer collaboration has especially been improved and students seem to find it more amusing and effective to learn this way, especially in the Portuguese, Italian and Norwegian schools, with an improvement of peer collaborative work as a way to solve maths problems of about 12,7%, 9% and 4%, respectively. Teachers seized these opportunities to explore fields students find more pleasing within maths which has changed the way they are now working inside the classes. It has become more common inverted roles in classes with students exploring, debating and explaining to each other different contents which proves how effective teaching and learning based on problem solving can be for students, regardless of their age and level of competence. We created a cooperative network aimed at sharing school’s best practices and experience, thus allowing teachers and students to disseminate what they do best and to improve what they still need to achieve, without dramas or any blames to be attributed. By doing so, we noticed teachers were more open to share their best practices, but also their biggest difficulties, this positioning themselves as true learners who try every day to learn from their mistakes and improve. As a matter of fact, that turned out to be a good “side-effect” of carrying-out this project.