Project meetings

Meeting minutes

13.09.2017/ Day No.1

The partner meeting and working seminar started with registration and welcoming coffee. After then all participants from all three institutions introduced to themselves. There were participating project manager, coordinators and teachers in this meeting. Project manager Sandra Bidzāne from RSTS told about the project, its aims, activities, results etc. Project coordinators Arita Ošiņa (RSTS) and Rainer Kuutma (VCVTC) as well as teacher Katriina Karkimo (PIC) presented their school and experience in e-studies, and told about working with e-learning materials. There are rather many differences among these three schools. RSTS has the biggest number of students and staff, there are also many specialities provided in RSTS. PIC and VCVTC are smaller educational institutions, but they are more experienced in working in e-environment and with e-learning materials than RSTS. All partner schools are working in Moodle. PIC is using different interactive on-line tools to make learning more attractive and interesting for their students. RSTS and VCVTC mainly are using PowerPoint presentations, lessons notes, different materials in PDF and tests as e-learning materials. Mathematics teachers Elita Kazakēviča (RSTS), Alexander Kainberg (PIC) and Sille Allik (VCVTC) told about teaching mathematics in their schools. There are also many differences. RSTS in the only school with final state examinations, which are the same as for the gymnasium and secondary school students. PIC and VCVTC haven’t final examinations at all. There is a huge difference in amount of mathematics lessons. RSTS has the biggest one. Also the most complicated mathematics topics are in RSTS.

In conclusion of the first day project manager and coordinators discussed about the project budget and project money for partners that RSTS hasn’t transferred yet due to complicated system in state institutions of Latvia.

Late in the evening project participants went to the Folk club ALA, where had a nice dinner.

14.09.2017/ Day No.2

The second day began with the partner meeting and conversations about project documentation, reports and next activities in Porvoo. At the beginning coordinators from PIC and VCVTC were unpleasantly surprised about all the complicated reporting that offered RSTS according to its previous experience in international projects. As coordinator from RSTS Arita Ošiņa went to the Nordplus seminar on September 15, she found out that it is possible to use more simple reporting and documentation. So project partners don’t have to make agreements on voluntary work, it will be enough with timesheets in the end of the project. Partners don’t have to submit originals of the invoices, tickets, cheques etc. regarding the travel and accommodation, it is enough with the copies and one report with all travel and accommodation costs for every meeting.

During the first part of working seminar teachers started to work with development of inquiry form for the students. Teachers of every school worked in the groups and wrote down some questions for this form. After then each group presented its questions and all seminar participants discussed about these questions. All seminar participants agreed on Katriina’s idea to divide the inquiry form in several parts. The first is background information, like gender, age and study program. The second part is about attitudes towards mathematics and studies in general. The third part is about materials used in learning mathematics. Then come 10 mathematics exercises. The last question is about student’s ideas for development new means for learning mathematics.

The last question is about student’s ideas for development new means for learning mathematics. In the second part of working seminar all 5 teachers worked together and wrote down mathematics exercises. At the beginning teachers had written down more than 10 exercises, but then all decided to reduce the number to 10 in order to have the inquiry form rather short and concrete. Katriina put all questions in Google Form as all had decided before. The Google Form allows to get a summary of all responses that is needed for this project.

15.09.2017/ Day No.3

There was only working seminar in the third meeting day, but project manager and coordinators from RSTS and VCVTC also participated in order to help their teachers with English.

In the first part of day teachers worked in groups – Estonian teachers together with Latvian teachers and both Swedish teachers in one group. They had to discuss about the form and content of the e-learning material in mathematics that has to be developed within the project. After lunch teachers presented their first ideas. Alexander from PIC showed 3 internet platforms where is possible to make different kind of exercises, tests etc. in attractive form. Estonian teacher showed one more platform. It was decided to use these 4 platforms for the development of e-learning material. All teachers got a homework to make at least 3 exercises in one or several of these platforms. These exercises should be developed based on the results of students’ survey in each school. Teachers have to present the exercises or explanation material during the next meeting in Porvoo in November 2017.

In the conclusion of the meeting project manager and coordinator from RSTS informed all participants about the tasks and deadlines until the meeting in Porvoo on November 8-10, 2017.

Meeting minutes

08.11.2017/ Day No.1

In the first meeting day PIC was presented, its curriculum and the students' viewpoint on the college and study opportunities. Over the course of the day, the project participants – RSTS, PIC and VCVTC presented the results of the questionnaire. As a result of the mathematics teachers' presentations, the data of all the participant countries questionnaires were compared and the common issues affecting all learners on the most challenging study topics were assessed and discussed. The results of the survey once again confirmed that the problems of mathematics acquisition are similar in all countries. For learners, mathematics seems to be difficult, often they do not see its link with real life, but at the same time, learners believe that mathematics is important and needed in their future professions. The students’ answers highlighted that they would love to master mathematics. Many suggested ideas for more attractive and interesting teaching materials. The results of the proposed mathematics tasks have revealed that the worst outcomes are obtained solving percentages, unit measurements and different equations.

Later, the PIC teachers introduced their college premises and study directions. The seminar participants went on a college tour to get acquainted with school, classrooms, training and leisure activities.

Over the course of the day, teachers from the project participant countries introduced the e-study environments they use at their educational establishments and countries. The representatives agreed on topics for which teachers in each project participant country would draw up their mathematics assignments in the Kahoot internet platform:

• Riga State Technical School – tasks for transition from one measurement unit to another;
• Porvoo International College – quadratic equations;
• Valga Vocational Education Training Centre – solving of percentage tasks.

It was decided that the tasks should be tied to social situations that would be binding on the students in order to see the link between mathematics and real life.

While mathematics teachers discussed their issues, project manager and three coordinators talked about and planned the next meeting in Valga on March 7-8 in 2018. There were also discussions about the documentation on project expenses for travel, board and lodging and meeting organization as well.

In the evening all project participants and representatives of PIC had a tasty dinner in the nice restaurant in old town.

09.11.2017/ Day No.2

The day began with an interesting and useful presentation about digitalization and IT tools in education of PIC by Katriina.

The representatives of the project participant countries presented the tasks they had set up in the Kahoot internet platform. The participants discussed the tasks that were developed and discussed the creation of the explanatory material for the theoretical material and tasks to be connected, and their link with possible e-study environments.

At the end of the meeting, the results of the work concluded were summarized, and it was decided until the next meeting in the VCVTC, to offer learners to calculate the above tasks using the previously developed theoretical material in order to assess the progress of the students and make the necessary conclusions.