Supporting mathematics and science teachers in implementing intercultural learning

Our current multicultural societies require that education addresses diversity and promotes cultural awareness and intercultural learning. Mathematics and science education can also contribute to this aspect of citizenship education and create a culture of belonging for all students. Professional development that integrates intercultural learning with educational practices is still uncommon in the field of science and mathematics teacher preparation and support. This study explores the possibilities to support science and mathematics teachers in implementing intercultural learning through a professional development course. The course was developed in a European setting, based on a theoretical analysis, and tried out with 319 teachers from six participating countries. The impact of the course on teachers’ take up of intercultural learning was measured with a pre-post questionnaire. We found that the course strengthened teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and extended their teaching practices with opportunities created by cultural diversity among their students or in their subjects. In addition to that, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and the perceived cultural diversity in class appeared to be influencing factors for teachers’ practices. Based on our findings we recommend that the combination of intercultural learning with educational practices of mathematics and science might be a suitable gateway to provide new intercultural learning opportunities for students

Mathematical Modelling Abilities of Artificial Intelligence Tools: The Case of ChatGPT

This work explores the mathematical modelling capabilities of various iterations of ChatGPT, focusing on their performance across tasks of differing complexity and openness. The study examines the abilities of GPT-3.5, GPT-4.0, and a more instructed version, GPT-MM, in multiple scenarios. It is observed that all versions demonstrate basic mathematical problem-solving skills. However, their effectiveness varies with increasing task complexity. While GPT-4.0 and GPT-MM show marginal improvements in providing detailed solutions, significant challenges persist, especially in moderate to complex modelling contexts where comprehending the nuances of tasks becomes challenging. Additionally, the study suggests that the openness of modelling tasks has a limited impact on performance, highlighting that mathematical and contextual complexities play more critical roles. The implications of these observations are discussed in terms of potential enhancements to teaching methodologies and the integration of AI tools like GPT in educational settings. This reiterates the importance of further research to fully understand the capabilities and limitations of AI tools and ensure their effective use in education

Promoting Active Citizenship in Mathematics and Science Teaching

The world is facing severe global challenges such as climate change, food security, rising migration, social justice, or the current corona crisis. In these times, citizenship education seems more important than ever. How can this citizenship education relate to mathematics and science learning? The research project MaSDiV (Supporting mathematics and science teachers in addressing diversity and promoting fundamental values) connected mathematics and science with citizenship education by modeling real-life problems relevant to society. In this paper, we present the foundational design features of the PD course as well the results from the accompanying evaluation of this PD course, which was implemented by partners in six countries to support teachers in connecting mathematics and science education with citizenship education. More specifically, we investigate how participating teachers experienced the PD program; how their self-efficacy beliefs, learning-related beliefs, as well as teaching practices change; and which factors contributed to that change. In order to investigate the outcome of the PD program, we surveyed N = 311 mathematics and science teachers’ pre- and post-participation of the PD in six different European countries. Among others, our results show that in general, most participating teachers reported a high overall satisfaction with the course across all six participating countries. They also indicate that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs about using relevant contexts, their learning-related beliefs about the benefits of using contexts, as well as their own teaching practice changed significantly after participating in the MaSDiV PD course