Improvement projects: Portugal

  • Portuguese improvement project is now ready. All teachers involved worked in collaboration, in Drive, as you can see:

    http://bit.ly/PortuguesePlanification

    Now, it's time to vote for the Project's Name. Can you help us, too?  

    Please vote on https://doodle.com/poll/s47gbqpydwetzt88  (CLOSED)

    Thanks to all of you we have the name for our project: StarMath. See the results of our Doodle below:

    Our project:

    This project is being developed according to some latest studies that show that gamification can help students engaging school activities.

    In Portugal, a similar activity helped students improving their marks on Math and Mother Language. You can see the study here: EJML'2018 (pp. 693 - 694) and on the website developed for that activity.

     

    Name: StarMath

    Identification of the improvement aspect:

    As students’ progress in the school year, there is a growing lack of motivation and interest in the Mathematics discipline, which is also seen in their behavior in classrooms. The results to the Mathematics discipline have been worrying as well as the results obtained in the national exam of the Mathematics subject!

    At the end of the 9th grade students are evaluated, at national level. Year after year we verify their lack of motivation for the study as well as their lack of responsibility and commitment with their marks.

    Plan (explanation):

    According to the improving aspects we decided to gamify Math study.

    All students from 7th to 9th grade will solve Math challenges in a kind of competition. Challenges will consist in Math exercises that they will solve using some web 2.0 tools.

    There will be a ranking according to the points that students will win during our project. All them will have access to the rules and, at the end of May, there will be a winner.

    Rules:

    1. Each challenge (exercise):
    • Solved correctly: 100 points
    • Solved with some mistake: 50 points
    • Not solved: 0 points
    • 2. Scores in Math tests:
    • 0% - 19 %: 0 points
    • 20% - 49%: 100 points
    • 50% - 69%: 300 points
    • 70% - 89%: 500 points
    • 90% - 100%: 750 points

     

    1. Marks at the end of each school term:
    • Mark 1: 0 points
    • Mark 2: 500 points
    • Mark 3: 1000 points
    • Mark 4: 1500 points
    • Mark 5: 2000 points

     

    1. Marks from the 1st to the 2nd school term:
    • If student increases the previous mark: 1000 points
    • If student keeps the previous mark: 500 points
    • If students decrease previous mark: -500 points (loses points)

    Expected results:

    1. To engage students with the (Math) study
    2. To improve Math scores (at school and at national exams)
    3. To improve English skills
    4. To be involved in new life experiences
    5. To contact with new people and cultures
    6. To engage students in mathematics
    7. To change the students’ opinion about learning math