The latest OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data show that one in five pupils in the EU has insufficient proficiency in reading, mathematics and science. Between 2012 and 2015, the trend in underachievement for the EU as a whole has worsened. In the countries involved in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) 2012, between 5% and 28% of adults are proficient at only the lowest levels in literacy and 8% to 32% are proficient at only the lowest levels in numeracy. According to the European Commission's contribution to the Leaders' meeting in Gothenburg(17/11/2017), the share of pupils with low achievements in mathematics has been stagnating for years at around 20%. These young people will encounter serious problems on the labour market. IDEA project through experiential action aims to address underachievement in the basic skills of maths. It aims at working effectively in relation to the subject of mathematics (covering maths material of the first 3 grades of the primary school including addition, subtraction, fractions, measuring length in millimeters and centimeters, decimal numbers, patterns, multiplication, division, geometrical shapes, etc) focusing on the "multiplication table" because of the complexity and the succession of manoeuvres needed for its application. IDEA project through experiential action will be fostering critical thinking skills by addressing cultural context in teaching science. IDEA comes to help teachers help students overcome their fear of maths. IDEA's 3D cultural games, will make pupils work effectively fulfilling missions, including confidence-building mini-games that look challenging but enable all students to do well. Experiential Teaching methodologies and learning by doing will be utilized to develop teachers’ relevant professional skills and boost pupils’ confidence and self-efficacy in maths, but also social, civic, linguistic and intercultural competencies. The project will be based on cartoon 3D environments representing selected cultural routes, one in each participating country. In these environments, with the help of mini-games, tasks and missions, the students will be able to interact with the 3D objects and get points, rewards and badges. The innovation of the 3D environments is that those will be available on web browsers (WebGL) and tablets, and that the content will be dynamically updated by the teachers through their web browser or tablet. Teachers will be able to select the mini-games they want, customize and translate the content, add narration, select the rewards and set up a personalized training path for each trainee. "IDEA PLATFORM" will be built using state of the art technologies and will be available in WebGL format that can run on any browser without the need for plugins. The platform will be free for all schools and parents to use. The platform will be open and more training material (math or other) would be possible to be added and used for training purposes. Free Apps with training scenarios will be offered through Google Play for Android. The consortium is composed from 10 partners from 4 European Countries (Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, Spain) collecting all the required expertise in the design and development of interdisciplinary tools and learning by doing methodologies for maths training, covering maths material of the first 3 grades of the primary school. The duration of the project is 24 months. As far for the implementation plan of IDEA this is structured around the main goal of the project that is to deliver the foreseen training tools and evaluate it against real needs of students. Thus, the first activity foresees the drafting of the pedagogical framework of the IDEA platform. The activities that follow deal with the scenarios development (exercises covering the basic skills of the maths course of the first 3 grades of the primary school). From the proposed cultural scenarios the needs for 3D models, animations and graphics will be determined. Next these assets will be developed and together with the required mechanisms and game mechanics to support maths skills development will be integrated in the IDEA Educational 3D Game platform. In parallel, 2 teachers from each school will follow the short term joint staff training event from Galway University in Game Based Learning, Digital Storytelling and the use of Tablets in Primary Education. Real application and evaluation of the platform will then take place with the participation of the schools for an entire school year. During this period multiplier events will be taking place in order to disseminate the project's outputs. The training contents that are going to be produced as a result of IDEA project will be offered as Open Educational Resources (OERs) under a Creative Commons Public License (CCPL).
The project aimed to support students in the first grades of primary school to overcome their fear of Mathematics through the use of an online platform based on gamification. At the same time, it aimed to promote cultural understanding among students through the reproduction of archaeological sites on the game platform and the presentation of cultural and historical information of the participating countries. Furthermore, it sought to develop cooperation between students from different countries and contact with different cultures through educational visits to archaeological sites and participating schools. It is worth noting that the students who participated in the mobility were around ten years old and had their first opportunity to get in touch with other civilisations and travel to other countries.
The proposal submitted was motivated by the problematic nature of the low performance of a significant proportion of pupils in Mathematics in the EU. The most recent data from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that one in five students in the EU is not proficient in reading, mathematics and science. Between 2012 and 2015, this trend worsened across the EU as a whole. In the countries that took part in the OECD Adult Skills Survey (PIAAC) in 2012, between 5% and 28% of adults have low literacy skills and between 8% and 32% have low math skills. According to the conclusions of the European Commission's meeting of leaders in Gothenburg (17/11/2017), the percentage of low-achieving pupils in mathematics has been stagnating at around 20% for years. For these reasons, we believe that we can use the expertise and experience of our consortium to develop an online tool to help students overcome their fear of mathematics from the first grades of primary school. English translation: What did you want to achieve by implementing the project?