“I learned quite a few things about the windows”
What do the students that took part in the pilot sessions think about the tools? What are their thoughts on the topic? It is time to go to the real experts, the students.
One of the tools that was tested at Sandgärdskolan, Sweden was the very first tool called Gothic Art. This tool is written by Citizens in Power from Cyprus. In this post, you will hear one of the students that took part in the pilot and his ideas on it.
The first thing that struck Tom (not his real name) as different from ordinary Maths tasks was the length of it. Normally you would not have this long tasks and not get the chance to delve this deeply into the subject. “It was nice to really get the time to put yourself inside the task”, he says.
The Maths content in this tool, geometry, was not actually new to him. He knew how to draw triangles and find the medians in them. He also says that he knew how to draw circles and circumscribe these with others and with triangles. The new thing was the combination of these, which the tool offered.
More new learning came in the arts section, where there were many new pieces of information about gothic architecture and old religious buildings. “I must admit that I did not read all of the text as carefully as the actual tasks, but I learned quite a few things about the windows” Tom says.
When Tom is introduced to the rest of the topics and parts of the THEAMA tools he is especially interested in the fourth one. “I would definitely want to do one of the tools on cinematography”. When asked why, he simply says that movies is something that interests him and that he would like to find the Maths in one of the movies that is used. Perhaps he will get lucky next time there are THEAMA-tools in the Maths teaching at Sandgärdskolan.