Formazione docenti in Piemonte su metodologie didattiche innovative per il superamento del divario di genere matematica
Teachers' professional development on innovative teaching practices to reduce the gender gap in mathematics
Aree / Gruppi di ricerca
Partecipanti al progetto
- Robutti Ornella (Responsabile)
- Ferrara Francesca (Ricercatore)
- Di Tommaso Maria Laura (Ricercatore)
- Contini Dalit (Ricercatore)
Descrizione del progetto
About
The project aims at reducing the gender gap in mathematics in Italy, through the professional development of mathematics teachers and specific educational actions on primary school students. The project focuses on the gender gap in mathematics in Piedmont: not only Italy is one of the countries with the highest gap in the world, but the Piedmont area has a particularly large gap, since primary school.
The project consists on devising and providing professional development for teachers (laboratorio di matematica), who then implement the activities in class. The effectiveness of the project is evaluated through a rigorous impact evaluation technique (randomized controlled trial), based on students’ assessment.
Objectives
The objectives of the project are at four levels:
- Teachers: training teachers on specific laboratory teaching practices
- Students: girls and boys participating in the project take advantage of an innovative and productive laboratory teaching practice
- Research: evaluating if the introduction of such practices in mathematics teaching leads to a decrease of the gender gap
- Society: inclusive impact on the cultural approach to STEM subjects
Setting
The research will take place in 25 schools in Italy, in the Torino province. It involves approximately 1,200 children in 50 third grade classes. We choose third grade classes because previous research showed that the GGM starts in 2nd grade. The laboratories take place in a.y. 2021-2022.
Intervention
The intervention – designed by scholars in the field of math education – will consist in laboratory sessions of three hours each, in five consecutive weeks, taking place at the classroom level. The intervention will carry out by 4 trained tutors with a math education background. School teachers remain in the classroom with the role of observers. Children are divided in small groups and are asked to do group activities and some individual work. All students take part to the activities, including student with disabilities or special needs (however, their data will not be processed). Children selected in the control group follow the usual curricula.
