Mathematics is often consider to be difficult and unattractive, despite being a basic skill, a required competence to succeed in the labour market and a foundation for other sciences, technologies and applications. Enactive methodologies help to increase the attractiveness of Mathematics (they help to motivate students and stimulate mathematical acting and thinking) and, to a broader extent, contribute to reduce their underperformance. Nevertheless, the adoption of an enactive approach to Mathematics teaching is based on two main preconditions or premises. On the one hand, teachers need to acquire and be equipped with the adequate pedagogical skills to implement this methodology, particularly when it concerns to its applicability to the context of digital education and training. On the other hand, enactive materials can to be hard to obtain in the current context strongly affected by the COVID-19 crisis and especially considering the fact that, for several months, schools were closed and education was distance-based. EnLeMaH seeks to promote the adoption of innovative digital pedagogical competences for Mathematics school teachers, which will enable them to develop the knowledge and skills to: a) Implement an enactive teaching&learning methodology adapted to the context of digital education that contributes to make Mathematics more attractive for school students (12-16 years); b) Guide school students in creating, using household supplies, enactive materials that support their learning processes, with a special focus on Mathematics learning in the field of functions. Specifically, EnLeMaH will: - Provide teachers with adapted pedagogies and innovative teaching methodologies supporting high-quality and inclusive digital education in the field of Mathematics (with a special focus on functions); - Contribute to make Mathematics more attractive and to increase students’ engagement by promoting the use of manipulatives that support mathematical learning processes; - Empower and build the capacities of Mathematics school teachers to guide students in creating enactive materials using household supplies; - Offer Mathematics school teachers lifelong learning and professional development opportunities, as well as the possibility to collaborate and exchange practices with their peers. Over the course of 24 months, EnLeMaH will achieve the following Intellectual Outputs: - O1 – Definition of the EnLeMaH Methodological Framework describing the approach, principles and proposed actions to adopt enactive methodologies in the context of digital education; - O2 – Creation of the Online Teacher Training Course “Applying the EnLeMaH Methodology”, which will be aimed at providing Mathematics school teachers with adapted pedagogies and innovative teaching methodologies supporting high-quality and inclusive digital education in the field of Mathematics (with a special focus on functions); - O3 – Development of the EnLeMaH platform, which will serve as a learning hub for the EnLeMaH target groups and, in particular, O2 beneficiaries. EnLeMaH will directly impact Mathematics school teachers, both those that are already active in the labour market, as well as future teachers (that is, graduate students who are enrolled in Master’s degrees or other training programmes aimed at providing didactical competences in the field of Mathematics education). Indirectly, EnLeMaH will benefit schools (with a special focus on those that have curricula that address functions), as well as students aged between 12-16 years and enrolled in Mathematics classes. Other stakeholders encompass: education&training providers; institutions responsible for implementing teacher training programmes in the field of Mathematics education, active in building the capacities of Mathematics school teachers and/or involved in the lifelong learning and professional development of teachers; experts in the field of didactics, Mathematics education or the use of enactive methodologies in Mathematics teaching&learning; and public regional/national institutions and decision/policy-makers in the field of education&training. Coordinated by Bielefeld University, the EnLeMaH Consortium brings together 4 institutions from Germany, Croatia (University of Rijeka), Lithuania (St. Ignatius of Loyola University of Applied Sciences) and Spain (INCOMA), who are experienced actors in education&training and provide specific expertise in the field of Mathematics education and the promotion of key, transversal competences that favour employability and inclusion.
EnLeMaH has been guided by a main objective on two levels: i) to contribute to the improvement of the teaching-learning process in secondary mathematics ii) using a digital environment. Following the growing need to adapt traditional teaching to digital learning environments, EnLeMaH oriented its work to the creation of a teacher training course (TTC) where it would be possible for teachers to learn to work a) on the one hand with simple and concrete materials that secondary school students could find at home and b) on the other hand by placing the classes in a digital space usable in a distance learning situation. All this, from an enactive approach to the teaching-learning of mathematics. Taking mathematics teachers as the cornerstone of the improvement of the teaching-learning process, work has been done to equip them with the tools to design enactive learning environments for students themselves on the basis of a thoughtful and criteria-oriented theoretical foundation. This has not only contributed to increasing teachers' knowledge of the subject matter, but also to broadening their knowledge of how to act/interact appropriately from this methodological approach.
The EnLeMaH project has been created to contribute to the improvement and strengthening of secondary school mathematics learning, a discipline of vital importance for the future labour development of schoolchildren and their active participation in society. The teaching of mathematics, traditionally a difficult subject for many schoolchildren, has taken on a new challenge with the COVID crisis and the subsequent digitalisation process. Enactive learning of mathematics helps students to build a mental network that enables them to understand mathematical concepts and relationships and, above all, how to apply mathematics to everyday life. Enactive methods therefore help to increase the understanding and attractiveness of mathematics and contribute to a greater extent to reducing achievement deficits. To achieve this, it is necessary to first train mathematics teachers in the use of an enactive approach to teaching mathematics. Thus, this project has responded to such needs by helping teachers to (i) acquire innovative digital pedagogical competences to apply an enactive teaching and learning methodology adapted to the context of digital education and (ii) to create enactive materials/activities with focus on mathematical functions.