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The professional development of teachers is a task recognized by the European parliament and pursued by many institutions, both national and international ones. The support to teachers in STEM disciplines was one of the aims of the Erasmus+ SMART (Science and Mathematics Advanced Research for good Teaching) project, born in a European context, which developed as its main intellectual output two open online courses called Mathematical Modelling and Observing, Measuring and Modelling in Science, in order to help teachers in their continuous professional development. Both courses contain interactive problem-based materials ready to be downloaded, modified, used in the classroom and redistributed to the community. This paper gives an overview of the structure of the course Mathematical Modelling and analyzes its instructional quality, taking into account some measurables obtained in two years of operativity. [For the full proceedings, see ED621557.]

In recent years, gamification has raised considerable interest in various fields, including industry, healthcare, business and education. Moreover, the spread of technological and IT tools has contributed to the claim of new methodologies, approaches and tools, such as games, in the education field. Teachers are often attracted by gamification but they do not know how to put it into practice. It is therefore necessary to train teachers not only on the theoretical contents, but also and above all on the planning of didactic activities to adopt innovative educational approaches. The context of this research is the immersive 3-hour workshop on the theme "Gamification and education: innovative approaches to facilitate learning" which involved 54 teachers from all over Italy from primary to secondary school. After a short theoretical introduction, the teachers were guided through the individual step-by-step creation of a gamification activity. The research questions are: Which are the most frequent characteristics, factors and elements of gaming employed in the planning of didactic activities by school teachers? What were the most adopted gamification strategies? To answer the research questions, we analyzed teachers' responses to the initial questionnaire before the workshop and to the final questionnaire at the end. We considered also the design forms filled by teachers in order to understand how teachers employed the proposed methodology within their educational activity. The results show that teachers really appreciated the proposed methodologies and they tried immediately to put them into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern societies, life itself is a problem solving. OCSE-PISA defined the problem-solving competence as the capacity to engage in cognitive processing to understand and solve problem situations where a method of solution is not immediately obvious. Hence in teaching Mathematics, and in general scientific subjects, it becomes important to adopt new methods centred on student learning, which are able not only to deliver knowledge but also to enhance the competence in problem solving. It is essential to start from simulated real-life problem situations in order to explain new concepts, since it enables students to understand the application of Mathematics as well as to enhance their ability to regulate problem-solving processes. The University of Turin has adopted problem solving digital methodologies using a virtual learning environment integrated with an advanced computing environment, automatic assessment and a web conference system. This set of technologies promote interaction among students and help teachers guide and coach their students in creating, conjecturing, exploring, testing and verifying. In the Erasmus+ Project SMART -- Science and Mathematics Advanced Research in good Teaching - the University of Turin shared these methodologies with other European partners (Strategic Partnership Key action). The aim of this exchange of best practices is to obtain Mathematics and Science teachers who are more involved in the methodology and consequently students who are better equipped to develop coherent mental representations of problem situations, more flexible in incorporating feedback and in reflecting. In the paper, examples of interactive material produced and tested in the Project are presented and the results of the experience are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]