Dear MathCityMap Community,
last week, our first international student and teacher meeting took place in Seville. We had a fantastic week full of exciting activities, international collaboration, and excellent weather for doing mathematics outdoors!
On Monday, the MCM team as well as all school groups and their teachers arrived. In the evening, we held a welcome session in which all teams introduced themselves and an overview of the week was presented.
Tuesday was filled with joint activities in various small groups. We began with a more intensive get-to-know-each-other session, where everyone had the opportunity to talk with participants from all groups. Afterwards, the first mixed teams were formed. These groups were initially language-based but included students from different schools. In these teams, the participants took part in a Math Trail Challenge in the nearby María Luisa Park. All teams collected many points, and at the end there was, of course, a small award ceremony.
After a longer lunch break, there was an input session on what makes a good MathCityMap task and what aspects need to be considered when creating tasks. The newly learned knowledge was immediately tested in a Kahoot quiz. Afterwards, there was time for all kinds of MCM-related questions directed to the team. In the early evening, participants first took part in a selfie challenge in randomly assigned teams before the working groups for the week were formed. These teams immediately faced their first challenge: building the tallest tower possible using 20 sheets of paper.
On Wednesday, the individual teams, accompanied by one or two teachers, headed into the city to create their own tasks. To do this, they explored different areas of Seville. In the afternoon, the tasks were transferred into the portal. During this process, the students supported each other and could ask the MCM experts questions at any time.
On Thursday, each team reviewed another team’s trail. Equipped with the task feedback form (available for download on our materials page), the groups tested another team’s tasks and checked whether they were solvable and whether the sample solutions and hints were helpful. Students from Seville also joined the activities. Afterwards, we had the opportunity to visit their school, where we received a tour and enjoyed a traditional Spanish lunch. In the afternoon, everyone had time to upload their feedback to the portal, revise their own tasks, and finalize their trails.
On Friday morning, we took part in a guided city tour, during which we learned even more about the history of Seville. We also revisited several places and objects that had appeared in the students’ tasks.
Afterwards, the closing session took place, during which we looked back at photos from the week together and presented awards for the trails and tasks. The highlight of the session was the videos the teams had created throughout the week. In these videos, they documented their working process and presented their trails in impressive and creative ways. In the afternoon, everyone had some free time before the big departure day on Saturday.
The videos will be uploaded to our Instagram account in the coming days. Until then, there are already a few impressions from the week available to see.
We are very happy that everything went so well and would like to sincerely thank all students and teachers for the wonderful collaboration. We very much hope that we will be able to organize a meeting like this again in the future.
