MatikkaPysäkki
Matikkapysäkki - Maths Club is an informal weekly meeting for children from 5 to 15 years old. Children play board games, solve puzzles and do mathematical problems with class teacher and mathematics teacher students and optionally with their parents. Children have also an opportunity to receive guidance for their homework.
The Matikkapysäkki Maths Club is a project run weekly during the school year by the LUMA (STEM) centre of the University of Oulu.
Maths Clubs are aimed at giving both children and trainee teachers the opportunity students to practise mathematics by playing board games and solving puzzles – talking and doing mathematics in an unofficial environment. Pupils have an opportunity to be guided in their homework in mathematics. The target group of the club is children from 5 to 15 years old. In Maths Club, a child is seen as a developing learner who can be guided from easier board games and tasks to understanding more difficult ones. Maths Clubs started in 2013. Approximately 10 children and four trainee teachers take part in a weekly 1.5 hour meeting. The student teacher gets a 2 to 6 ECT course through guidance, planning some activities or games and writing a report from a chosen perspective that they observing in Maths Club.
Basic information
At this time, there is no information about this project that could be useful to researchers.
Maths Club is coordinated by an OuLUMA employee who also guides the student teachers in regular meetings. Maths Club is advertised in schools near the University where the club takes place, as well as on OuLUMA’s website and Facebook.
The project does not include formal teaching, although a large number of board games, puzzles and mathematical problems are used and pupils’ homework is guided. The material consists of board games, puzzles and problems, as well as new games and activities planned and created by the students. Some of the material is available on the ouluma.fi website.
Participating in Maths Club gives an opportunity for children to practise mathematics in an informal way, to say out loud what they think and to solve puzzles and problems. In Maths Club, a child is seen as a developing learner who can be guided from easier board games and tasks to understand more difficult ones. The student class teachers and student mathematics teachers as instructors have an opportunity to practise their mathematics guiding, see children of different ages and talk with them about mathematics and other subjects in an informal environment with other students. Also, student teachers and parents have an opportunity to talk with one another.