ABOUT
Project Duration: October 2022 – September 2024
The importance and relevance of STEM subjects have shown that it is necessary for children to get familiar with this area as soon as possible, and STEM postulates are increasingly being used in the education of the youngest. Research has shown that early acquaintance (from primary school or even earlier) with STEM has a positive effect on educational outcomes.
However, we constate thanks to surveys and studies (such as OECD’s PISA) that performance in the areas of mathematics and sciences does not reach acceptable levels in most of the participant countries. These alarming statistics signal that the teaching methods and approaches being applied are not working as efficiently as they should – from a very early age, mathematics seems to be a challenging topic even for early levels of primary school, which demotivates learners and causes further difficulties in education.
A study from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports linked kinesthetic approaches to teaching math concepts. This study states that children learn more if they use their bodies to learn and that they improve at math when instruction engages their bodies.
After just six weeks of the study, all children involved improved their scores in a standardised test: children whose instruction included body activity performed best and presented twice as much improvement as the sedentary fine motor skills group.
For the realisation of our project aims, we will focus on teaching math through movement in a more basic sense so that it can be adapted to different types of learners (with physical handicaps, dyspraxia, and dyscalculia) and applicable not only in a formal education context but also at home with families and friends.
These math lessons with movement will be introduced via stories in e-books, which will present an excellent opportunity to develop digital skills for teachers, pupils and families. Digital learning is a good way to engage pupils and to increase their motivation. It also fosters inclusion, especially of those with special needs.
All materials will be tested by teachers, parents and pupils. The partnership will take into consideration their feedback, advice and recommendations (which will be gathered in a technical report) and will also gather their insight in a booklet that will be available and useful for other potential users of Math&Move resources.
The Math&Move project is co-financed by the ERASMUS+ program of the European Union, and will be implemented from October 2022 to September 2024. This website and the project content reflects the views of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
(Project code: 2022-1-FR01-KA220-SCH-000090086)