Reports

MATHEMATICS IN ACTION

The Project

Report: Barcelona

Important themes during the seminar:

The questionnaire

The results from the questionnaire about teachers’ attitudes towards teaching numeracy to adults at a basic level were presented by Mieke van Goenestijn. You can study the results here (pdf, 105 kB).

The partnership will consider how to deal with the questionnaire in the future. This will be an obligation that has to have a conclusion by the coordinators’ meeting April 2006.

Presentation of fieldwork done since the project seminar in Vilnius

The obligation the different partners had was to try out some of the learning styles that were presented during the project seminar in Vilnius.

Regional Education Centre (ROC) Utrecht, Netherlands

The Dutch teachers work with learners at first level in Hotel & Catering Industries Vocational Education. The learners, 12 in each group, are a mixture of immigrants and native Dutch and the level of language skills varies. During a regular week, the learners have to go to school two days and they have to work at a catering unit or in a kitchen in a restaurant assisting a cook two days. Some of the learners lack motivation to learn numeracy and don’t always understand the reason why.

The Dutch partner wanted to try out a part of the Spanish learning style; dialogic learning.

They chose to focus on, especially, one of the seven starting points; communication between learner and teacher based on equality.
Before the learners start the numaracy program, they have to take a test followed by a dialogue with the teacher. The test and specially the dialogue is important to learn the skills the learner has when entering the course. This gives the teacher and the learner the opportunity to facilitate the right kind of individual action plan.
During conversations with the learners, the teachers could sometimes pinpoint situations on the work floor that require numeracy skills. During a dialogue, Piet took along one of the learners, Piet asked the question: “Why don’t you work with a special type of machinery in the kitchen?” The learner answered that he avoided it because he was afraid he couldn’t manage the task which required simple measurements.

The dialogue based on equality the teacher and the learners have, can according to the Dutch partner help the learners to understand that numeracy skills are important in the kitchen. This made the learning situation a lot easier.

Slovenia

In Slovenia, teaching in adult education is a part time profession – The teachers representing the Slovenian partner only teach adults some parts of the year.
The Slovenian partner wanted to focus on one of the seven steps, from Mieke’s paper; when the learners learn from each other.
The learners take part in literacy classes where the purpose is to equip them with the skills they need for further education.
The topic they decided to try out was data analysis – collecting data from e.g. newspapers and presenting them by statistical charts and diagrams. They tried out this topic on two different groups of about 10 learners. The learners in the two groups had a similar background; half were employed and the number of years they had been absent from school experience varied from three up to more than 10 years.

The first group was taught the topic by a teacher the classical way: where the teacher explains what kind of way the learners shall understand the concepts and what kind of strategies they have to use to systemize the data.

The second group was presented the task, but they were not being assisted by the teacher in the learning process. They had to collaborate within the group to learn how to deal with the data with some instruction materials. The second group of learners had to learn the topic more independently than the first group.

After working with the topic for 60 minutes, the learners were tested. Then they waited one month and the two groups were tested again. The results from the first test, the two groups roughly showed the same results, but the test the learners took after a month showed that the second group actually had significantly better results than the first group. Many of the learners who had the opportunity to learn through collaboration with other learners had many positive comments about it.

SPAIN – AGORA

We were invited to visit different kinds of classes where we could learn how the teachers and learners work with numeracy at AGORA. It was very interesting. The atmosphere among the learners and teachers was really on an equal level – as in one of the seven starting points in their dialogic learning.

The Spanish partner is very enthusiastic about the dialogic learning style and they have it under there skin in everything they do. In all activities the learners are the main characters in the learning process. The learners at AGORA are a very heterogeneous group of people ranging from 20 – 82 years. Whenever the learners are involved in tasks from real life situations, the learners experience is always an important contribution to the learning process. One of the advantages of working in such heterogeneous groups is the wide range of different experiences the learners and the teachers can benefit from.

The learners very often learn numeracy through cross curricular activities. For example: A group of five or six learners can learn numeracy in combination with the French revolution, or they try to create a real life situation by using the Internet usually done like this: The teacher explains the content of the task, then the group works and learns from each other. When the group has finished the work they have done, there is always someone who has to present it to the others in the group or to other groups. This is usually done by a power point presentation. According to the Spanish partner, this way of learning gives the learners the opportunity to learn numeracy in a logical context, they learn to handle the computer and they learn the art of presenting the work they have done to others.

Another example: The group tries to create real life situations by using the Internet. For instance writing down a shopping list and then through a search on the Internet finding out the total cost of the shopping list. Again someone within the group has to present the work to the others in the group or to other groups.
The learners can e.g. learn about UNESCO. They search for information on the Internet and they collect data and present them by using e.g. Excel.
Then the group will go through the same procedures as explained earlier.

AGORA has participated in different kinds of projects, some of them within the Socrates framework. One is the ABE (Adult Basic Education) CAMPUS - VIRTUAL ADULT BASIC EDUCATION COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE. The campus has some numeracy tasks the learners at AGORA work with. Website: www.basicampus.net

In every activity they do, it seams as if AGORA has a solid focus on cross curricular activities in order to achieve competences in a logical context where central subjects in Adult Basic Education is in focus.

Glamsbjerg, Fyn - Denmark

The teachers representing the Danish partner shared something they did in a course in a Preparatory Adult Education class. The learners were presented a recipe for 20 persons that had to be converted to a recipe for 8 persons. In this particular case, the learners solved the task individually and afterwards the teacher interviewed each learner. Some of the ingredients were quite easy and others were more challenging to convert from 20 to 8 persons. The reason for solving this task individually was for the teacher to learn the level of understanding each individual had.

A process like this will, according to the Danes, form an excellent starting point for learning.

Lithuania - Vilnius

The learners at Vilnius Adult Education Centre are 18 years and older and they are there to prepare for further education. During maths classes the teachers will try to take advantage of the learners’ experiences from work and real life situations. Sometimes the teacher can benefit from the learners’ informal math competences. A very interesting example occurred in a class where they were working with areas. One of the learner’s line of work was setting up stages. He used metal rectangles 2 m x 1 m and metal squares 1 m x 1 m. He calculated the area of the stage by counting the rectangles and the squares.

The Lithuanian partner shared some of the didactic techniques they use when they work with topics like negative numbers, percentages and fractions. You can learn more about the presentation to Lithuanian by clicking here (pdf).

Hungarian partner

The teachers representing the Hungarian partner work with learners in a prison. They prepare the inmates for the future and further education e.g. by training them in professions they are likely to work in when they get out.. Agriculture and business are popular professions the inmates would like to qualify for.
The teacher shared an experience they have had in which the learner worked with mathematics related to business.

When you work in a small business in Hungary you have to deal with invoices and it’s important to be aware of how to calculate the VAT. This is according to the Hungarian partners an example of a mathematical theme which is very important fort the inmates to have knowledge of.

What the Hungarian partner did as a small research project for MiA was to challenge the learners at the prison with a test with different tasks in a business context. They could choose to answer as many tasks as they wanted. After a while, the same learners had to take another test with similar kinds of tasks. This time they had to answer all of them. The results showed that the learners performed better the second time. One of the explanations the Hungarian partner had, was that the learners were more comfortable with the test situation the second time. You can learn more about the Hungarian fieldwork by clicking here (pdf).

Future tasks the partnership has to do before next summer are:

Each partner has to choose three topics for the teaching/coaching experiments before the December 20. The topics the partners can choose among are: family budget – public transportation – your favourite cake recipe – sale (discount from the consumers view and discount from salesman’s view) – Health.

Each country analyses minimum two teaching/coaching experiments and presents reports by April 10 on the members’ communication platform.
Before each country starts summer vacation, the third teaching/coaching experiment has to be analysed and presented on the members’ communication platform.

Social events

It is always important to meet in order to get the project activities on the right track. Barcelona is a beautiful and very interesting city and we were lucky to be able to experience some of the atmosphere the city has to offer. Some of us were also able to see some of the sights the city has to offer. Sagrada Familia, Casa Milla, Las Ramblas and the old quarter are just a few out of many nice places. It is also interesting to learn about different traditions in the different partner countries. We had a three course lunch menu in two different restaurants on the two days the project seminar lasted. That was a different but very nice experience compared what is common in for instance the Scandinavian countries.

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