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Platform supports teachers and parents

TU research team wants to enable refugee children to start school successfully

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  • TU News
Portrait of a man. © Roland Baege​/​TU Dortmund
Christoph Selter is a professor at the Institute for the Development and Research of Mathematics Education.
More than 90,000 children and young people who have fled Ukraine are already being taught in German schools. In April, Karin Prien, President of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education of Germany, said that Germany would have to prepare for up to 400,000 additional students as a result of the war in Ukraine. How can the new school get off to a successful start? Support is now coming from a team led by mathematics professor Christoph Selter from TU Dortmund University: The researchers have created materials for math teachers that can help Ukrainian elementary school children. The materials are now online and will be continuously updated.

Integrating children without German language skills into the classroom is a particular challenge for elementary school teachers. According to Prof. Christoph Selter, mathematics lessons are particularly well suited for a successful start: "Mathematics has the advantage that you don't need quite as much language as in other subjects to experience initial success. The numbers are already familiar to the children. With the right support and bilingual materials, they can quickly jump in and show what they've got. This motivates them and creates confidence in their own abilities," says the Dortmund mathematics professor.

Four-step support program

Christoph Selter's team has implemented a four-step support program. It can be found on the website of PIKAS, a project of the German Center for Teacher Education in Mathematics, which has been providing teachers throughout Germany with materials for better mathematics instruction for many years. Here, teachers can now find basic information about mathematics classes in which refugees participate. The researchers also provide extensive diagnostic material: The tasks are available in two languages, so teachers can find out what their new students can already do and where they should start. Bilingual teaching materials can also be found on the platform: The material is scientifically based as well as interactive, it also contains audio material and promotes language education so that Ukrainian children promptly learn the terms and sentence phrases that are central to mathematics lessons. Bilingual information for parents on how to promote math learning in everyday life rounds out the offering.

 

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