Jose-Diego Mantecón

Dr. Jose M. Diego-Mantecón received his M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics education from Cambridge University (UK). He is currently working from University of Cantabria and he has large experience on developing and working on international projects. He was part of the Millennium Mathematics Project (MMP) of the University of Cambridge, which is directed by the theoretical physicist and mathematician John Barrow. As part of the MMP, Jose was responsible for several years of the Spanish version of the Maths Thesaurus Project, which is a thesaurus of school and undergraduate mathematics across different languages. Jose has an extensive background on the evaluation of comparative studies as well as on the design of methodological instruments for cross-cultural studies. In his research project he has developed a valid instrument to evaluated student mathematics-related beliefs in Mexico, Spain, Slovakia, Ireland, England, and Cyprus (Diego-Mantecón, 2013). Nowadays, Jose collaborates on TIMSS. He was the Spanish representative on a meeting of the project in Amsterdam (2012) for designing the mathematics items for TIMSS 2015. Jose led two European projects in the Spanish context: KIKS (Erasmus+) and STEMforYouth (Horizon2020). He is currently leading Mathematics EduLarp (Erasmus+) in Spain. Apart from the above, Jose works in several national projects in Spain which aim to reach education.

Open STEAM is a research Group focused on the teaching and learning of mathematics through a STEAM-based approach. Researchers and teachers from different universities and schools collaborate aiming to promote student motivation and learning across a variety of international STEAM projects such as KIKS (Erasmus+), STEMforYouth (Horizon2020), EAMARE-STEAM (Spanish National Government) and Mathematics EduLarp (Erasmus+). The main objectives of this research group are: providing a repository of activities for different educational stages including Preschool, Primary and Secondary, and investigating the effects of STEAM education on student motivation and learning.In particular, this talk describes the benefits of the STEMforYouth Project for developing key competences for lifelong learning. We present the results of an experimental study that evaluated a group of 2056 students across 68 high schools in six European countries (Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain). The students elaborated a number of STEAM activities during one academic year, increasing their motivation for learning—  after the experimental phase —as well as influencing Key Competences such as their Linguistic and Oral communication, their Mathematical, scientific and technological competence, their Digital competence, and their Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship.