Mathfluencers

<< Background >>According to PISA results, the underachievement rate exceeded 30% in Romania (46.6%), Bulgaria (44.4%), and Croatia (31.2%).Students are engrossed in social media and spend a significant amount of time online. Even in classrooms, it has been observed that some students are often busy tweeting or using Facebook during lectures.The solution we propose is the use of social media as a learning tool.Our innovation bridges students' desires (spending time on social media) with their need to improve mathematics literacy and academic achievement.Our target group consists of high school teachers (ISCED 3).Needs:Embedding social media tools in education requires a shift in the role of teachers, who must act as guides and mentors, enabling and facilitating self-regulated learning processes.There is a lack of didactic methodologies, toolsets, and training programs for teachers that would facilitate this transition and enable them to assume this new role.There is a need for valid pedagogical concepts and methods for learning with social media. New approaches to support teachers, learners, and administrators are essential.<< Objectives >>The aim is to revolutionize the way students perceive mathematics by fostering a genuine appreciation for the subject through the use of social media, ultimately leading to improved math literacy and higher academic achievement.The objective is to equip teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively integrate social media into their teaching. Additionally, the project aims to develop training programs for teachers on creating engaging and impactful social media content related to mathematics.Specific Goals: Equip teachers with the knowledge and skills to effectively use social media to create engaging content, empower teachers to innovate and be creative in using social media for education, leverage social media to create interactive learning activities that reinforce mathematical concepts, including principles, formulas, and real-world applications.Objectives: Develop training program for teachers on creating impactful and engaging social media content related to mathematics. Through the project’s outcomes, provide professional development opportunities and equip educators with tools to enhance their classroom instruction.<< Implementation >>The main activity was bridging students' wants (spending time on social media) and needs for increasing levels of mathematics literacy and academic achievement.To reach this, we did:Exploration of ways to create influential social media content related to math - Reported on current stats, identified gaps, and documented good practices.Creation of social media clubs and spaces and engaging content related to math – pages and profiles on the most popular social media platforms. We periodically published content related to mathematics and collected feedback from teachers and students. Based on the feedback, we improved the content.We analyzed all surveys to conduct an in-depth analysis of the results, based on which we created training for teachers.Development of teachers' training - Developed the content - Created and implemented effective lesson plans for using social media to increase math literacy.Piloted teacher training at participating schools and updated the program.Produced the final version of the training concept and design.Translated the materials into the languages of project partners to ensure broader accessibility and impact.<< Results >>The main project results and outcomes are:Exploration of ways to create influential social media content related to math - Report on current stats, identified gaps, and documented good practices.Social media clubs and spaces – Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.Surveying students and teachers during all phases of implementation to ensure that activities and results bridged needs and wants - surveyed >360 students and >60 teachers in partner countries.Analysis of the survey results - Report based on analysis of the surveys and feedback received during social media campaigns.Prepared training for teachers, tested in 3 schools, and translated into partner languages.