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I am VAssiliki from Alexandroupolis, Greece.I have been teaching for 8 years now, the last four in the present school but with different groups of pupils. I am part of the staff at the 1st Experimental School of Alexandroupolis.

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I am working with 6th graders this year. This is the second year I teach the same group of pupils which means we have come a long way together. Mine is an experimental primary school and I have been teaching Maths following the supplementary math curricula launched in 2011 for two years now. I am part of a math practise group created in my school with the support of uni. teachers and a colleague acting as facilitator. This means I very often get the chance to discuss with them new ways of teaching math, solving teaching methodology problems etc. My class is equipped with a laptop and projector and I use them to do interactive math activities in the platform photodentro provided by our national ministry of Education.

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The last two years I've been fortunate enough to work with students that mostly love Maths. I don't know if it is because I modified my teaching methodology and approach to Maths (non-text orientated teaching - but fullfilling the objectives of the national curricula) or it is just that these kids happened to like Maths or they had had previously enlightened teachers that made them love Maths. Of course, there are some students still struggling but it's only a minority. Sure, I had students who absolutely hated Maths in the past and this might be because of the level of mathematical knowledge offered to them (too high or abstract for their age), unsuitable textbooks, inefficient teaching methodology. My current students are very resourceful, meaning they work in different ways when approaching a problem and I devote enough time to have them heard and see that different ways can be right!!!

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1.3. Personalising Learning in your Math classroom

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1.3. Personalising Learning in your Math classroom

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I teach six grade (11-12 years old) and my students are mainly lower middle class and working class children. We have access to a computer lab but only a few hours a week. Thorough planning and scheduling will allow us to take advantage of available time slots. Also, there is a laptop in my class and a projector as well which we use to watch videos, the interactive math book and some applications of the Greek educational platform when time is permitting.
http://photodentro.edu.gr
It's fortunate that I have become part of this community and I can get some knowledge about new resources and teaching pedagogies which I can adapt to the level of my class and make the most of them. I didn't know about the Mangahigh which I think my students will find interesting because they are into computers and from what I can deduce from their words they spend a considerable part of their free time in front of a computer. Also, I am part of a community math practice set up at our school where we exchange and explore teaching methodologies. Last year I taught my students using the optional supplementary national math curriculum (in parallel use with the standard one) and I think that had an impact on my students because we were not only interested in procedure (doing calculations properly) but in thinking why we think in such a way to reach a solution. My students like maths and they are intrigued by open problems and indeed I am surpised by the mechanisms they apply to reach all kind of solutions. It is usually accepted that when you teach older primary school kids, you don't need to use material to visualise mathematical ideas. Last year teaching decimal numbers and fractions I made use of hands on material which immensely boost my students understanding of the mathematical ideas. Of course, there are students struggling with maths but this is in combination with other difficulties they have. My students get bored easily in other subjects but when it comes to maths, it's easier to keep them concentrated. They like open problems but they find calculations boring. We have a textbook which we use (doing the mostinteresting stuff) but in general, me and my colleagues create search for or create alternative materials to keep our students engaged. Being part of the community math practice I mentioned earlier means that we usually exchange ideas of what worked or didn't with our students, so there is always feedback on how to modify our teaching pedagogy.

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Module 2: Bringing the real world into your Maths classroom						

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Module 2: Bringing the real world into your Maths classroom						

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2.1. Applying Maths skills to a real-world problem
Two years ago I was implementing a reading engagement programme with my 5th grade students based on the book Made on Earth which takes as its subject the effects of globalisation both on the human and the natural environment. It tells the story of a red jacket and how it was manufactured in an Eastern Asian country by workers working under harsh conditions (long hours of work and low wages) and traces the trip both of the raw material and resources required for its production as well as the trip of the jacket across the world from production to first owner to recycling bin to an illegal immigrant crossing the Meditteranean. It was a great opportunity to approach subjects ranging from inequality, violation of human rights to global warming. As a warm up activity I had my students make a short survey in four groups of fifth and sixth graders about their trainers. So, off they went with their notebooks to each of the four groups and made a list of the material the trainers of each pupil were made (usually plastic) plus the country of production.Then after accumulating their data they came back and they had to present the results of their survey using statistics. They worked on Excel and then they presented their conclusions to the class. Below you can see one of the sheets they produce where they accumulated their data as well as some of their findings using Excel.If you download the attachment you'll see that they used different types of diagrams to present their findings which only confirmed what the book they were reading argued for !!!

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Αντίγραφο του ΠαπούτσιαTRYPI KOMNINI

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2.2. Textbook-type problems in the real world

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2.2. Textbook-type problems in the real world

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Last year we conducted with my class the Eratosthenes experiment in the school yard as part of our participation in an etwinning programme. The students observed their shadow at different times from morning till noon, they made measurements and they ended up calculating the circumference of the Earth.

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Last year I ran a geometry and literature after school club with a colleague - also a participant in this course. We organized a short trip in the neighbourhood of our school which we called "geometrical walk". Armed with tablets, the students took photos of various shapes they found, then we projected them, we printed and grouped them in categories of shapes, identifying common elements between them. So, this session was based on material that was "mathematical" and could be found in their surroundings.

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Two years as part of my school's involvement in MASCIL, a research on Maths, we invited at our schools an energy supervisor. My class got involved in a project trying to determine how we could save on energy, exploring aspects such as the orientation of the school, the surface of the windows, the money spend on bulbs and on electricity. The energy supervisor came to our school and discuss with the students aspects of his work that are connected both with Maths and Physics. Therefore, they could see how Maths is used in a real-world job.

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https://www.stem.org.uk/elibrary/resource/25755

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MODULE 3: CREATIVITY IN THE MATHS CLASSROOM

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MODULE 3: CREATIVITY IN THE MATHS CLASSROOM

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3.1. Music and maths
I only know that you can teach fractions using musical notes, that's what I found out talking to our music teacher, some years ago when I was teaching fifth grade.

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Another tricky combination for me. As with music, I really find it difficult to be resourceful when ot comes to combine these subjects with Maths but I am all eager to see, study and learn from the practices of colleagues and make my lesson more appealing to my students. I am thinking that I could work together with the PE teacher at our school and after my students have been taught the steps of a traditional dance have them trace the patterns on paper and work on the sequence of motifs.

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While running a math club after school, we combined maths and crafts. We made origami, 3D christmas trees from 2D sketches and little angels using cone shapes and shperes. You can have a look at our blog at the address: http://pantonia.weebly.com/home/archives/12-2016

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As part of our curriculum in the MAths and literature after school club we ran last year with my colleague Antonia Petridou at the 1st Experimental Primary School of Alexandroupolis, the students were prompted to produce limericks about the geometrical shapes which appear in the Flatland a movie on geometry based on a 19th sentury classic under the same title. After watching the movie, and exlporing through hands-on-activities the properties of the shapes and used Venn diagrammes to classify them,the students went on to write limericks as a follow-up activity. We also used little flapbooks which came out in different shapes to write them on. You can have a look at the results here: http://pantonia.weebly.com/home/12
and http://pantonia.weebly.com/home/13.
Unfortunately, our work is described in Greek so only Greek speakers can understand.

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This teacher sets an example at least for me. I wish I could have this teaching environment both in terms of setting and atmosphere. He has achieved what every teacher dreams of: a group collaborating, following rules and thinking for themselves in a really nice teaching setting. I myself iivest a lot of my time, energy and space at the beginning of the year in trying to cement the bonds between my students but I can't say I am always successful. It works with some kids but not with all of them. From my personal experience, when I assign a task in maths to my students to work on it as a team, it is always the ones who like the subject that really care to carry out the task. Of course, there are those who are struggling and some of my students try to support them and illustrate how they have been thinking but there is always a disruptive minority - at least in some schools - that can blow up the whole set up in minutes. But I certainly agree that when you achieve to inspire your students to work as a team the effects are by far more lasting and the whole process of learning becomes so much more enjoyable.

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4.3. Collaborative Projects in Maths: eTwinning

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4.3. Collaborative Projects in Maths: eTwinning

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I have been involved in a couple of etwinning projects and I really learned a lot and my students found the whole process enjoyable and rewarding. None of the projects took math as its subject but the after school math and literature club meand my colleague ran last year could be very easily turned - I believe - in an interesting etwinning project. It focused on geometry, touch upon subjects like dimensions, shapes and common attributes, symmetry, geometry in art, tesselation, the Moebius strip, the cartesian coordinates etc. On the literature part, we read books such as The Dot, The Dot and the Line, The Book with a hole, limericks by Edward Lear whore pattern we used to create our limerics about shapes, The escapees of the chess board (a graphic novel) and having seen the short film Flatland then we created comics about the heroes appearing in this film. Also we read a chapter of a metafictional novel A drawing by Christina wherein a girl moves across various genres among them a geometry book as well where she is threatened by a circle. The kids turned this particular chapter into a comic blending in their own new Knowledge gained during their involvement in the club. It was great fun both for us, the teachers but also for the kids. You can take a peak into our work at the following address:http://pantonia.weebly.com

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https://www.edutopia.org
http://www.experiencingmaths.org/
http://www.realworldmath.org/
https://www.yummymath.com/
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/09/thinking-blocks-model-your-math.html#.WdPgWLhBMfg
http://www.mamajenn.com/livingmathbooks/
fractions and music at:http://www.philtulga.com/fractionbars.html
How to make origami at:http://www.origamiplayer.com/origami_ch.php
geometry and bake-offs: https://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2013/jun/26/mathematics
popup cards at: https://threesixty360.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/a-pop-up-sierpinski-valentine-card/
dressing a Mr Cube: https://www.slideshare.net/ivasil/dressing-mr-cube-how-we-worked
Look for professor's bruno d'amore arte e matematica in the journal artebambini
Fiction writing and math: https://www.hightechhigh.org/htm/project/our-mathematical-adventure/
See an example of a pi-em (instead of poem, using the number pi-each line has as many words as each digit of the number dictates:
https://www.scribd.com/document/211065224/Math-a-Piem
Math and literature:
http://www.math.uconn.edu/~glaz/Arcadia-University-Math-Poems-by-Students.pdf
Poetry and maths (pi-ems, pi-kus, pi-mericks) at:
https://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/interests/pilish-literature-10191004?vk=mK4wXkUjgU&SSAID=314743&refid=5425&refsub=314743&refdata=149361&utm_source=ShareASale&utm_medium=affiliate&SSAIDDATA=SSCID_31k0_fnteh
Creative Maths at:  http://www.makebelievearts.co.uk/ (excellent sit with examples of teaching maths using children's lit.)
Look at this site for further resources:
http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/math/math.html
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr249.shtml
Irena's blog A Taste of Maths where you can find lots of fun math activities:
https://atasteofmaths.blogspot.gr/p/maths-fun.html
Khan Academy
Youcubed

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2017/07/20-youtube-channels-every-math-teacher.html
https://education.minecraft.net/
https://education.minecraft.net/class-resources/lessons/ (lesson plans for many subject areas)
How to use QR codes in the classroom (the teacher's guide)
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/06/qr-codes-are-gaining-momentum-in-todays.html
QR generator:
https://www.qrstuff.com/
https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/ (easier to use)

Teaching fractions with the use of technology:
https://www.slideshare.net/knlynch/teaching-fractions-using-technology

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5.1.Why use digital technologies in Maths?

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5.1.Why use digital technologies in Maths?

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I think it's very important to try to incorporate digital technologies in our teaching in general and in Maths in particular. Teaching and learning cannot be the same in a fast-changing world where ICT has become the order of the day in all parts of life. I can recognize the benefits of teaching with the aid of ICT but I would like to make a few points: Can we use technology to the same extent across the age levels (i.e. at pres-school education, high schoo)?How well-prepared are we as teachers to make the most of technology in our teaching? Can we teach everything using technology or are there particular math subjects that are better facilitated with the use of ICT? Using technology doesn't make us necessarily better teachers. I think that the tools and the content to be taught must be very well selected so as not to deprive our students of such skills as collaboration, discussion, analysis synthesis, argumentation etc.

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Flipped MAths classroom ? Never heard of it before and I am kind of enthusiastic about this innovative method. I would like to try it after being more informed about it myself and see how it works in practice with my own students. When I apply myself this model, only then I will be able to see its benefits for the students and the limits it poses to both teaching and learning. Yet, I can't be but sceptical since in our educational system teaching most of the times is implemented in realistic time and very little homework can be assigned to the students according to the instructions we get from our national ministry of education. I have to admit that it sounds very promising but my question to those who have implemented this model of blended learning is: does it work with students who have difficulties?
As for alternative tools that can be used in the math class I could suggest edmodo (a virtual class) or wikis, the latter for solving a math problem in cooperation.

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I first heard of Geogebra last year when there was a seminar for primary school teachers on how to use this innovative tool in class. I didn't have time at the time but this year it is one of the goals I have set for myself; learn how to use it and use it in the ICT lab with my students. Now I have heard about desmos, I intend to explore that. Too much knowledge to juggle but I feel intrigued and I like to vary my teaching methodology.

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I know that Minecraft is a popular children's game and I have heard my students talk about it and how they watch mindcraft games on youtube but I have never tried my hand at it let alone it use it in the Maths class. To do that, I need first to familiarise myself with how it works and then create my own lessons to serve my intended aims. But I wouldn't use it all the time as I am a bit sceptical as to how my students would respond. Of course, they are going to be more engaged since they are familiar with minecraft but I don't know how far I will be able to keep them concentrated on the mathematical idea rather than on the play itself. Yet, it is certainly a great advantage for us teachers to be able to variate our classes and avoid monotonhy and boredom.

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I have seen my colleagues especially the ones involved in etwinning projects using QR codes to assign tasks to their students and I was kind of curious to find out about them so I included them in my list of new things to learn. Now while doing this course, I am given the chance to try my hand at them and see how they work in class. It makes the lesson, I guess, more interesting, but I would like to see how else we could use them apart from being used to reveal the solution to a math problem or give instructions to students. Sure, a math class is by far more things than just getting instructions or finding the solution. So, I see QR codes as actually facilitating teaching rather than making students think, at least in the examples I have seen.

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Using a smartphone or a tablet scan the following code