ITEM – Innovative Teaching Education in Mathematics

Project website: item.hmu.gr

Holon Institute of Technology is a partner in the ITEM Project funded by the Erasmus+ program. ITEM stands for Innovative Teaching Education in Mathematics.
Its main objective is to improve the teaching, learning, and understanding of 1st-year Mathematics among Engineering and Computer Science students in Europe, Israel, Kosovo, and Uzbekistan.

The majority of students preparing for an engineering or computer science degree do not appreciate the importance and the role mathematics plays in solving real-life problems and applications and lack motivation to spend time and efforts mastering it. Key to ITEM's approach is to strive, whenever possible, to derive the mathematic theory from a real-life problem. In other words, students will be introduced to a real-life problem, and then, through the solution to the problem, will either develop or be introduced to mathematical concepts and theory.

ITEM is also focused on further developing teachers' abilities to deliver knowledge to students more effectively and more interactively, using modern educational strategies & tools such as Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Project-Oriented Problem-Based Learning (POPBL).

Another important guiding principle of the ITEM project is replication: the ability of other Higher Education Institutes (HEIs( to easily adopt the methodologies that are used in ITEM. It will provide open access to ICT tools (e.g. automated testing, automated exercises) and educational material (e.g. video lectures, offline manuals, lecture notes) that will be developed during the project. The open access of the ITEM deliverables will support the life-long learning policy that all the engaged regions support as priority.

ITEM aims & objectives (in a nutshell):

• Improve mathematics skills of 1st year Computer Science and Electrical Engineering students
• Motivate students to learn mathematics
• Engage students in mathematics studies
• Build students confidence in their ability to acquire mathematics skills
• Reduce failure rate in mathematics courses and during 1st year of academic studies as a result of failure in mathematics courses
• Improve teaching and teaching deliverable tools along mathematics lecture sessions
• Promote inter-disciplinary teaching
• Build digital literacy of teachers & students
• Promote a personalised education 

Members of HIT's academic staff who take part in the project:

Dr. Nissim Harel
Dr. Ayelet Butman
Dr. Dimitry Goldstein 
 

Our partners in the project:

From Israel:

• Hadassah Academic College (HAC)(Israel)
• Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS)(Israel)

From abroad:

• Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU)(Greece)
• Aalborg University (AAU)(Denmark)
• Czech Technical University in Prague (CVUT) (Czech Republic)
• Ss Cyril and Methodius University (UKIM)(North Macedonia)
• Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics, and Technology (UMIT) (Austria)
• The National University of Uzbekistan (NUUz)(Uzbekistan)
• Tashkent University of Information Technologies (TUIT)(Uzbekistan)
• Karshi Engineering-Economic Institute (KEEI)(Uzbekistan)
• University of Mitrovica ‘Isa Boletini’ (UMIB)(Kosovo)
• Universum College (UC)(Kosovo)
• University of Pristina (UP)(Kosovo)
• Karlstad University (KSU)(Sweden)
• The Universidad de La Laguna (ULL)(Spain)

Meetings and training events

• Kick off meeting: 14-15 February 2019, Chania, Greece
• First progress meeting: 18-19 June 2019, Prague, Czech Republic
• Training event: ITEM school in PBL and POPBL teaching techniques: 28-29 October 2019, Copenhagen, Denmark
• Second progress meeting: 30 October 2019, Copenhagen, Denmark

For further details about the project