Working seminars

Each participant is invited to be a member of one of the working seminars. Discussions and exchange of experiences and ideas are the essential aspects of these activities. They are designed as an opportunity for participants who want to create something useful for their future work, based on the ideas gathered during the conference. The working seminars participants are not expected to present ready-made results, but to work together to create something new.

The working seminars in CME’26 will focus on three educational levels and will be led by the following researchers:

1. kindergarten and primary school (3–9-year-olds): Michaela Kaslová (Czechia)
2. primary school (10–13-year-olds): Sebastian Schorcht & Susanne Wöller (Germany)
3. secondary and upper-secondary school (14–18-year-olds): Péter Juhász (Hungary)

Descriptions of the CME’26 working seminars

1. (Title to be published soon)

2. Primary Mathematics Education in a Changing World — Curriculum, Teacher Education, and AI

What should children learn in mathematics and how do we ensure they can? This working seminar takes primary mathematics curricula as its starting point and asks how they have evolved across European countries, where they stand today, and where they need to go. From this foundation, two follow-up questions arise: How do we prepare teachers to bring these curricula to life? And how does the emergence of AI change what we teach and how we teach it? We develop together these questions across four sessions, following a single line of argument.

Primary mathematics curricula across Europe have undergone significant changes over the past decades, shaped by shifting educational philosophies and policy reforms. Yet despite shared challenges, countries have arrived at various answers to the question of what primary mathematics education should contain. Looking back at these developments and comparing across national contexts, we ask: Which curricular elements are essential for primary mathematics education? Together with participants, we work toward a shared framework, not a uniform curriculum, but a blueprint that identifies common foundations while respecting national diversity.

A curriculum, however well designed, only becomes effective through the teachers who enact it. This raises the question of how teacher education can better prepare future teachers for the realities of the classroom. We present a cross-phase seminar model in which pre-service teachers and teacher trainees in primary education collaboratively design, implement, and reflect on open mathematical tasks. Conceptualized as a „third space” (Zeichner, 2010), this format brings university knowledge and school practice into dialogue as different but equally legitimate perspectives.

The emergence of AI technologies introduces a factor that potentially transforms both above: what we include in curricula and how we prepare teachers for it. Using hands-on examples from primary classrooms, we explore how AI can meaningfully support mathematical learning at the primary level and where its limits lie. Beyond individual tools, we address a structural question that connects all three themes: How should the collaboration between people and AI technologies be organized so that curriculum development, teacher education, and classroom practice evolve together rather than apart?

This working seminar is not a presentation of finished solutions. We invite participants to bring their own national experiences and professional perspectives into the discussion.

Reference

Zeichner, K. (2010). Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college- and university-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1–2), 89–99.

3. The Pósa method in regular high school teaching

Guided discovery in learning mathematics is playing an increasingly significant role in mathematics education, and more and more teachers are incorporating certain elements of this approach into their teaching. Building on the long tradition of talent nurturing in Hungary, Lajos Pósa developed a special form of guided discovery teaching, known as the Pósa method. Pósa originally designed this method specifically for very talented students, and it was also optimized for special circumstances, as he refined the method for and during weekend mathematics camps.

So far, nearly 500 such weekend camps have been organized, and in recent years not only Pósa himself but also his former students have been running these camps. Over the past 25 years, almost every member of the Hungarian IMO team attended these camps for five or six years, despite the fact that the camps do not provide targeted competition training.

However, the world of highly talented students differs considerably from what teachers encounter in general public education. Does this method or a suitable adaptation of it have a place in regular high school teaching?

Our answer is yes. Between 2017 and 2021 an experiment was conducted with three high school groups in which the regular Hungaran high school curriculum was taught by three different teachers using the Pósa method. The experiment made it clear that, although the method cannot be transferred in its entirety, many of its key elements can be successfully applied in secondary education.

The aims of this working seminar are to:

• present the foundations, main objectives, and core tools of the Pósa method,

• provide insight into the details, implementation, and outcomes of the experiment,

• discuss how the original method had to be modified in order to function within the framework of a normal high school,

• address not only the obvious advantages but also the disadvantages, difficulties, and ways of handling them,

• introduce specific assessment techniques used in this approach, such as short quizzes at the beginning of lessons and tests in pairs,

• examine what the application of the method requires from the teacher.