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Relevant initiatives

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RELEVANT INITIATIVES FORM

Title of Initiative / Project
Maths is B.E.A.U. (Beautiful Easy Amusing Useful)
Name of Organiser
Ist. Istr. Sup. San Giovanni Bosco
Start and ending date of the Initiative
2010 - 2012
Level
European
Was the initiative carried out in the framework of a funded project?
Yes
Funding Programme
LLP-Comenius
Title of the project
Maths is B.E.A.U. (Beautiful Easy Amusing Useful)
Promoter
Ist. Istr. Sup. San Giovanni Bosco
Project number
2010-1-IT2-COM06-14377
Type of deliverables
Video, On-line Game, Didactical resource
Thematic area
Maths
Language of the deliverable
Italian, English
Target Group
Teachers, Students
Description of the initiative
The project involved partners from Italy, Iceland, Spain, France, Turkey and United Kingdom.
The aim of the initiative is to explore new ways to communicate mathematics and to develop new teaching methods. The idea is to motivate students with everyday-life contexts and also to look for contexts that are experientially real for the students and can be used as starting points for progressive mathematization.
The web site provides access to:
- two questionnaires with the aim to gather information about the attitudes of our students to Maths and their lives.
- A section which demonstrate that maths is everywhere
- A section presenting the relation between maths and architecture
- Online games.
More Information
This initiative is the outcome of a project that has the purpose of illustrate the funny side of the mathematics, trying to make this subject, less attractive, more interesting for students.
The results that this project makes available of the users won’t have an exceptional pedagogic range, but they could be useful to encourage the interest, particularly those of the students, less disposed to the subject.
The website sends to a video: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqtVoXW2nNU&feature=youtu.be) and games (http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/document_library/get_file?p_l_id=10347385&folderId=12149015&name=DLFE-326640.doc). Both video and games can be proposed again in the classrooms and can turn out to be interesting for the methodology.
Moreover, other sections show the participation of mathematical aspects in everyday life (http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=6044894) and they make available for inquiring people logic games(http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=10347354&p_p_id=36&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_count=4&_36_struts_action=%2Fwiki%2Fview&_36_nodeName=Main&p_r_p_185834411_title=02+The+cube).
Teachers’ Opinion
I think this web site can be very useful both for teachers and students. It shows how maths is connected with everyday life or some specific subject such as architecture. (This aspect could be shared with the teacher of art).
Videos and online games can increase students’ motivation and offer an amusing training for national maths competitions.
Activities from several european countries are presented, so “Maths is BEAU” can be seen as a sort of guide of how foreign students do this subject.
Students’ Opinion
Very amusing and funny. Different from normal school activities, of course, e but it can be used together with teacher’s lessons.

Comments on this Relevant initiatives

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Date: 2015.03.28

Posted by Anna Luise (Italy)

I think this initiative is quite interesting, since it is on the same wavelenght with my teaching method. Math often results indigestible if you refer to it as numbers and symbols, while it is less abstract when you look for it in your daily reality. Going through this initiative, I hope to find interesting sparks to be able to explain Maths in a charming way in order to show my students that this subject is not so heavy as they think.

News

Dissemination Seminar in Florence

31 October 2015 The seminar has been held in ITIS “A. Meucci” one of the schools involved within Goerudio project activities. Its main aim was to promote the results of the project toward a broad sample of stakeholders even overcrossing the number of people directly involved in the production of project outcomes. This purpose has been totally achieved especially thanks to the participation of students and teachers coming from different schools or from other classes instead of those ones directly involved within the project activities.