Cross-curricular topics for the mathematics classroom, that matter to 21st century learners..
Austria’s national curricula and international education documents and initiatives emphasize the importance of promoting interdisciplinary competencies in all subjects. Critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity are cited as key competencies for 21st century learners. Particularly in mathematics, teachers, textbook authors, and researchers face the challenge of meaningfully linking mathematical content with socially relevant topics. At the same time, the literature highlights how important it is to consider the everyday lives of students. Despite this, students are rarely involved in the development of curricula or the concrete design of lessons.
The project "MathConnect" leverages the expertise of students at our partner school, BG St. Martin in Villach, as Citizen Scientists, and incorporates their experience in data collection, analysis, and the development and evaluation of interdisciplinary teaching materials for the mathematics classroom. The explicit inclusion of students’ know-how and perspectives in this process is intended to identify interdisciplinary topics that are relevant for students. The research questions will be explored in close collaboration with students from two upper secondary classes (10th and 11th grades).
The research project follows an exploratory approach, primarily using qualitative methods such as (partner) interviews and group discussions to address the research questions. The project is divided into several phases. In the first phase, the goal is to identify socially relevant topics that students of different age groups consider interesting and meaningful for the mathematics classroom. To achieve this, the students of the Citizen Scientist classes will develop appropriate methods in workshops to gather the opinions and interests of students of different ages. The collected data will then be analyzed by the students with the support of the project team. In the second phase, these topics will be linked with mathematical content, and the project team will develop corresponding teaching materials. In the final phase, the developed materials will be evaluated. During this phase, the Citizen Scientists will not only provide their own feedback but will also conduct interviews with other students and mathematics teachers to collect evaluation data of the designed materials. This feedback will be used to optimize the teaching materials so that they ultimately meet both the curriculum requirements and the interests of the students.