Mathematics has always been a difficult and quite unattractive subject to students in many countries. Another reason why students do not get engaged in Mathematics is that they do not see its practical application and necessity in their lives as well as in other subjects. One more cause is their opinion and experience that it is boring as it usually involves sitting and solving problems with no interaction at all. However, the reality is that Mathematics is very important to the students’ future in every country both their studies (career) and their personal development, especially logical and critical thinking, problem solving in life in general, concentration, patience and perseverance. Those who commit to solving more complicated problems during Mathematics lessons do not give up when they have to solve sophisticated problems in real life. Mathematics is everywhere around us. Its relation with almost all subjects is clear, and mathematical knowledge is essential in order to study some other subjects successfully. Our project teachers want our students to discover, see and experience this relation. Working together as an international team we want to discover and present some new innovative and entertaining ways to our international group of students, apply new teaching methods while working with them, get them engaged into new kind of activities and integrate Mathematics with other subjects, our environment and life. The aim of the project is to make Mathematics an interesting, attractive and engaging subject not only to the target group of students participating in the project, but also throughout the project with the help of its diverse activities try to reach as many students as possible in our schools as well as spread the good and efficient practice to some other schools. We believe that this project will allow us to increase students’ motivation to learn and find the beauty and practicality of Mathematics. We want them to experience that "aha moment" which should lead to harder work and better marks. All teachers have a wish to share their good practices and work out new innovative methods as well as prepare material and guidelines for other colleagues experiencing the same problem and wishing to improve the situation with Mathematics. By the end of the project we want our participating students to get “hooked on Mathematics”, and our international team of teachers is ready to prepare the material and present some innovative teaching methods which would allow other colleagues to get their students “hooked on Mathematics” as well. We will reach our aim by organizing the module “Interesting Mathematics” which will last for both years. The target group of students participating in the module will be those who face difficulties in Mathematics, do not have motivation for that, see it as boring theory and an unattractive subject. Also, they think that Mathematics is not for them because they are not capable of understanding it, its importance, practicality and relation with other subject. However, in general those student are quite good at other subjects, especially those which are not based on Mathematics, and they lead quite active lives as personalities. There will be 20 students aged 15-16 in those target groups chosen in each country. Students from the same taget groups will participate in Short term learning teaching activities as well. The activities of the project involve the module “Interesting Mathematics”, one transnational meeting, five Short term learning teaching activities, seminars, conferences, contests, activities organized for the school communities and local people, exhibitions, cultural excursions and events, presentations, visiting museums, attending lectures at universities, meeting famous mathematicians, CLIL and STEM lessons. The methodology applied will involve group and team work, filling in online and paper Evaluation sheets, online and paper Reflexion cards, discussions, outdoor hiking and filming, making videos, doing research while preparing for presentations, seminars, conferences, educational programs in museums, observation, making models, presentations, workshops, wall displays and filling in questionnaires. Students will gain and develop new important competences such as critical thinking, communication and cooperation, foreign language, leadership, self-confidence, self-esteem and social activeness. Students will experience the qualitative change of their competences in general. Teachers will develop their professional and personal competences and experience the qualitative change of them in general as well . The project "Hooked on Mathematics" and its diverse trends and results will contribute to the development of inclusive education, CLIL and STEM promotion in relation with Mathematics and sustainability of being "hooked on Mathematics" in every participating country.
Mathematics has always been a difficult and quite unattractive subject to students in many countries. Another reason why students do not get engaged in Mathematics is that they do not see its practical application and necessity in their lives as well as in other subjects. One more cause is their opinion and experience that it is boring as it usually involves sitting and solving problems with no interaction at all. However, the reality is that Mathematics is very important to the students’ future in every country both their studies (career) and their personal development, especially logical and critical thinking, problem solving in life in general, concentration, patience and perseverance. Those who commit to solving more complicated problems during Mathematics lessons do not give up when they have to solve sophisticated problems in real life. Mathematics is everywhere around us. Its relation with almost all subjects is clear, and mathematical knowledge is essential in order to study some other subjects successfully. Our project teachers allowed our students to discover, see and experience this relation. Working together as an international team we discovered and presented some new innovative and entertaining ways to our international group of students, applied new teaching methods while working with them, got them engaged into new kind of activities and integrated Mathematics with other subjects, our environment and life. The aim of the project was to make Mathematics an interesting, attractive and engaging subject not only to the target group of students participating in the project, but also throughout the project with the help of its diverse activities we reached as many students as possible in our schools as well as spread the good and efficient practice to some other schools. This project allowed us to increase students’ motivation to learn and find the beauty and practicality of Mathematics. Our students experienced that "aha moment" which led them to harder work and better marks. All teachers shared their good practices and worked out new innovative methods as well as prepared material and guidelines for other colleagues experiencing the same problem and wishing to diverse the situation with Mathematics. We wanted our participating students to get “hooked on Mathematics”. We reached our aim by organizing integrated lessons (CLIL) and the module “Interesting Mathematics”. The students participating in the integrated lessons and the module were of different abilities: those who faced difficulties in Mathematics, did not have motivation for that, saw it as boring theory and an unattractive subject, thought that Mathematics was not for them because they were not capable of understanding it, its importance, practicality and relation with other subject as well as those who were good at Mathematics. Some of those students participated in Short term learning teaching activities as well. The activities of the project involved one transnational meeting, five Short term learning teaching activities, contests, activities organized for the school communities and local people, exhibitions, cultural excursions and events, seminars, presentations, visiting museums, attending lectures at universities, meeting famous mathematicians, CLIL and STEM lessons, the module “Interesting Mathematics” and some other minor events. The methodology applied involved group and team work, filling in online and paper Evaluation sheets, online and paper Reflection cards, interviews, discussions, outdoor hiking and filming, making videos, doing research while preparing for presentations, conferences, educational programs in museums, observation, making models, presentations, workshops, wall displays and filling in questionnaires. Students gained and developed new important competences such as critical thinking, communication and cooperation, foreign language, leadership, self-confidence, self-esteem and social activeness. Students experienced the qualitative change of their competences in general. Teachers developed their professional and personal competences and experienced the qualitative change of them in general as well. . The project "Hooked on Mathematics" and its diverse trends and results contributed to the development of inclusive education, CLIL and STEM promotion in relation with Mathematics and sustainability of being "hooked on Mathematics" in every participating country.