Every level of public education has to face challenges in strongly competitive environments in the 21st century. It has to find solutions to numerous issues all at once – it has to introduce competence-based education, strengthen equal opportunity education, sustain student motivation, develop digital competences and prepare for the process of lifelong learning. At the same time, it also has to decrease the load on both students and teachers. The results of PISA and other assessments indicate the measure of challenges: they show that it is applying the acquired knowledge in practice what causes the most difficulties for students. As for the countries directly involved in the current collaboration, neither of their results reach the average of OECD countries: both Hungary’s and Slovakia’s results have declined in all three major competence areas (reading, math, science) since 2009. Though Romania’s results have improved since 2009, it is still the worst out of the three countries. Research shows that in the process learning, it is practice - the application of knowledge – that has a dominant role (70%) while frontal instruction is revealed to have a very limited efficiency (10%). Clearly, frontal instruction methods cannot overcome the challenges and offer adequate solutions, thus, a demand for adaptive educational methods - that employ playful elements and account for student needs and learning patterns - is growing more and more. However, these methods can only flourish and function effectively with proper digital support. Fortunately, the wide-spread introduction and application of such technologies is a concrete possibility at present day: smart algorithms developing and maintaining individual learning paths are at disposal, and user devices (mainly mobiles) are also wide-spread and available for most of the students. The aim of the current project is to create innovative digital environments and proper content to ensure the support of adaptive educational processes. We will test the tools, apps and content developed throughout the project in live situations and after improving them based on the piloting-feedback we will make the following intellectual products freely and publicly available in English, Hungarian, Romanian and Slovakian: 1) Web based content manager tool – an easy-to-use teacher aid which enables instructors and parents to make practice tasks, organize them into tests and practice worksheets and export them into the native app running on mobile devices; 2) Mobile application – a native app that enables the opening and running of content, tests and tasks while it employs playful elements and also provides a smooth user experience; 3) Adaptive Learning application ( ALA) – a smart e-learning app that supports individual learning, tutoring, highly differentiated and adaptive instruction by designating the individual learning path based on input test results and then continuously adjusting the path based on data and information gathered throughout the process; 4) Digital learning content to aid the achievement of the expected 8th grade math competencies – mainly and typically PISA type practice tasks that can be started in three modes: practice task mode, mock test mode, and live test mode. These set of tools to be created will support the instructional and educational processes in the following areas: - supporting differentiated instruction: students can advance at their own individual pace using their own learning practices, and instructors can attend to specific groups or even a single student in a differentiated manner; - increasing student motivation by employing gamification; - supporting competence-based, interdisciplinary training methods, contributing to the practical application of the acquired knowledge (word problems, tasks including visual elements, etc.); - developing problem solving skills; - developing digital competencies; - preparing for independent and self-supporting learning to develop the skill of lifelong learning; - aiding the remedial of underprivileged students, thus helping to create equal opportunities for everyone - continuous tracking of student development, designing and maintaining individual competency-maps We will attend to the wide-spread dissemination of the project results with various means and we will provide free online access to the intellectual products of the project for everyone interested.
Background, needs and challanges Education in the 21st century faces challenges that traditional front-line methods cannot adequately address, as the PISA assessments show. There is a growing demand for adaptive teaching methods that are playful and adaptable to the individual needs of learners. Target group The target group for this project is mainly teachers in upper primary education (especially mathematics teachers), those who help prepare pupils (e.g. school staff) and pupils themselves, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds Objectives The aim of the project was to create an innovative digital environment - to create appropriate content to support differentiated teaching and adaptive learning processes. The tools developed under the project were tested in real-life conditions and, based on the results of the pilot learning, the intellectual products were further developed and made freely available to all on the project website. The project has fully achieved its objective. Project results The following products/outputs were produced during the project: 1. SMART e-Maths BETA digital environment for adaptive education The digital support environment consists of the following elements: A) Web-based content development tool: an easy-to-use teaching aid that allows teachers or even parents to create test/practice items, organize them into practice-guided test or test sets, and export the test sets to a native application running on mobile devices. B) Mobile application - Native application with (also) playful elements that provides a suitable user experience for playing content and running tests, available both as an Android version and as a web application C) Background application for planning and maintaining individual learning paths - An important support tool for individual learning and highly differentiated adaptive teaching is the "smart" e-learning application, which continuously redesigns and modifies the learner's learning path based on the information generated during the learning process. 2.SMART e-Maths BETA digital content: nearly 200 super units, 5 blocks, 4 levels The digital content aims at achieving the level of mathematical competence expected by the end of grade 8 and focuses on the common cross-cutting of the Hungarian, Slovakian and Romanian framework curricula. Finally, the curriculum has been prepared in the subject area "Operations with natural numbers", so that it can be used in practically all grades of upper primary school. The curriculum is designed to support differentiated teaching and is therefore composed of exercises of different levels of difficulty (from basic to competitive, 5 levels). The practice material is also structured thematically, so that students can practise in an content with more than 20 levels. Everyone starts at the level of simple exercises and progresses up or down the system from there. 3 Multilingual Methodology Manual The methodology of the content development, the functioning of the digital tools and the lessons learned from the pilot training were summarised in a Methodology Manual, which was published in Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak and English on the project website. Sample teaching materials in English, Romanian and Slovak are also available in the digital support system. The digital support environment can be used in all these languages Usability of the results The results of the project are available on the project website and can be used free of charge by all. The outputs produced support educational processes in the following areas: - supporting differentiated education: each child can progress at his/her own learning pace - Increasing the motivation level of pupils by gamification tools - Supporting competence-based, interdisciplinary teaching methods contributing to the practical application of acquired knowledge (text-based maths exercises, skill-based problems, etc.); - developing problem-solving skills; - developing digital competences; - preparation for independent and self supporting learning and lifelong learning; - helping disadvantaged pupils to catch up, equal opportunities Sustainability, miltiplication of result The widespread use of the project results was supported by intensive communication and dissemination activities, including the project and partners' websites, social media, direct mail campaigns targeting decision-makers, heads of institutions and the professional community, and on-line and off-line dissemination events. The considerable interest we have seen in adapting the results will lead to the development of further differentiated learning materials in the framework of the Seven SMART Steps project. Overall, the news has been widely disseminated, with dozens of teachers and hundreds of students actively using the project results.