TOPOS
Teacher education: Orientation through Playing Or Sortingproposed name
Card sorting and game-based activities that build mathematical orientation in university teacher education — developed in probability, designed to carry further
This is a basis for our discussion, not an application. The work and the hours are set out here; who does what, and in which country, is deliberately left open — that is what we decide together.
Two marks run through the page.
A question mark is a decision. There are twelve, and each one stands in the margin at the point where it arises, with a field to write your answer in.
A P is a proposal — a name or a cut I have put forward so that we have something to argue with. Nothing behind one of these is settled.
Everything else is the project as it would be proposed: what we already have, what the work would be, what it would cost.
Every paragraph also carries a faint ✎ in the left margin: click it and a note opens beside that passage. “Copy everything I wrote” at the top collects your notes together with the passages they belong to, ready to paste into a mail.
1The idea
Three teacher education institutions develop, trial and validate two activity formats for university mathematics — card sorting activities and game-based Borel activities — which let student teachers build mathematical orientation themselves, together with the design criteria that say what such an activity must do in order to produce orientation. Everything produced is published as an Open Educational Resource.
How must task activities in university mathematics courses be designed if they are to build mathematical orientation — and how far can AI support the design and the use of such activities?
The project answers that question with things others can use: activities that have been trialled and revised, the criteria they are built on, and an assistant that helps to build more of them.
We take probability as the one content domain for the first two years. It is where our Borel work sits, and it does two things at once: it goes well beyond school mathematics, and its content reaches back into school statistics and data work.
We sit alongside the existing work, not against it. Interface tasks supply the links between mathematical content and concrete teaching situations, and have students work on them; there is evidence that this helps. Our claim is of a different kind: that activities of this sort build the orientation — a reference map with paths through it, a perspective toolbox, an attitude — from which a student can form such links themselves. We build the activities to do exactly that, and each trial wave shows where they do and where they have to change. Whether the two approaches then strengthen each other is a question the project opens for later work.
What the project leaves behind
| Card sorting | Borel | |
|---|---|---|
| Design criteria | both strands What an activity has to do if students are to build a reference map, a perspective toolbox and a mathematical attitude. A common core for both formats, with the parts that are specific to each marked as such. | |
| Instruments | both strands A reflection format, an observation scheme for the moment a decision has to be made, and a coding guide. In three languages, and usable by other institutions — they measure the same thing in both strands. | |
| The activity set | Eight sets on probability, trialled twice at three universities — once as they are, once revised against the design criteria. | Two to three digital Borel activities for university teaching, trialled twice and revised once. |
| The assistant | KasperKArtensets Planen, Erzeugen, Revidieren planning, generating and revising card sets-ORIENTATION.proposed name Kasper adapted to university level and to orientation, and shown to work in hands other than its author's. |
Kasper-BOREL.proposed name Built along the lines of Kasper, out of the card prompt and BorelGPT — activity and assistant are one piece of work. |
| Transfer | Carried furthest. Sets for complex numbers and differential equations, built against the criteria and trialled once in the third wave — the criteria demonstrably carry to other topics. | Opened, not promised. Whether the format carries to other topics is a question we leave open; we do not undertake it. |
What we publish are the activities, the criteria and the instruments. The two assistants stay inside the consortium for now — see the question below.
How far the assistants go is the one open question about what we release — and we are inclined to go slowly. They stay inside the consortium for now, but not with their authors alone: the research staff at all three universities work with them, and that is what makes their transferability testable at all. Whether we then open them to lecturers outside the project is a decision for the second half, once we know whether they hold up in other hands. We can open them later; we cannot take it back.
2What Erasmus+ pays for, and where we come in
A Cooperation Partnership is not a research grant. KA220 pays for development and for results a third party can pick up and use. Of the hundred assessment points, twenty-five go to impact and dissemination and none at all to what we find out. Our question stays in — it is what keeps the development honest — but the application is not built around it.
What it pays for
Developing the activities, the criteria and the instruments; trialling them; putting them in a form someone else can use; publishing them as an Open Educational Resource; and running a partnership across three countries, which is what makes the transferability claim possible at all.
What it does not pay for
Findings. There is no field for a research question and no bibliography. Our publications count here as a route by which the results travel, not as the results themselves — which is why the plan lists what comes out of the project rather than what we hope to learn.
Where the analysis sits. About a quarter of the hours — 12 of 53 PM — go into the instruments, data management, coding, the synthesis and the validation report. That is the right size for a development project, provided every piece of it ends in a revision: the first wave changes the sets, the second fixes the final version, the third shows that the criteria carry to new topics. None of us has outside money for this analysis, so it has to be in the grant — and it goes in as what it is here: the part of the development that tells us what to change. What goes beyond that — findings in their own right, and the papers that report them — is ours to carry, and the ground for a later research proposal.
Much of this is a matter of wording, but the wording runs through all seventy-odd fields, so I would rather we settled on it early than corrected it late. What I would propose:proposal
| Not | But |
|---|---|
| “We investigate whether …” | “We develop, trial and validate …” |
| A research question | Specific objectives, one set per work package |
| Publications as the result | Publications as one way of spreading the results |
| A sample | Target groups, and how many of them |
The three priorities
An application names one main priority and up to two more. These are the priorities as they stood in 2026; the 2027 call may word them differently, and I will check when it appears in November.
| The priority | What we bring to it |
|---|---|
| main priorityRewarding high-quality learning, teaching and skills development | It names “the training of academics in new and innovative pedagogies, and new curriculum design, delivery and assessment” in so many words. That is what we are doing: a way of teaching that lecturers do not currently have at their disposal, and the design criteria that let someone else build it. |
| secondSupporting STEM, and the participation of women in STEM | The project sits wholly in a STEM subject, and with the cohort that carries mathematics into schools — so it works on the supply of STEM teaching rather than only on STEM students. |
| horizontalAddressing digital transformation through digital skills and digital readiness | This one names AI explicitly. We put generative AI where we think it belongs — in the design of teaching material, with the didactic judgement staying with the lecturer — and the project is in a position to say where it does not belong, which is rarer than the claim that it helps. |
What we would build the case on
The form asks for an evidence-based needs analysis, and the evidence it has in mind is not the literature. It is what we have done: the eight sets run twice and revised, the Borel implementations in three countries, the public project site — set beside the European policy documents that the priorities themselves rest on. Our own publications have their place as well, in the section on background and experience, where they show that the three of us can carry this out.
So the needs analysis names one or two works and stands on our own practice. That is a real difference from the papers we are used to writing, and it is worth knowing before anyone drafts a passage: the application is read against a scoring grid, by assessors with little time, and a sentence that sends them looking something up has already cost us.
3How the project runs
and instruments
and transfer
build and revise
Kasper-ORIENTATION
build and revise
Kasper-BOREL
Our three courses run at different times, and that works in our favour: Lucerne from September, Hamburg from October, Oslo from January (MAT4010, spring semester). One round of data collection is therefore an academic year rather than a semester. That gives us four months for translation before Oslo starts, and it makes three waves possible instead of two. The summer between them is free at all three institutions and carries the revisions.
Three languages, and each of them has a place.proposal The results are written in English — that is where they have to be publishable, and it is the language of the application. What students and lecturers actually work with exists three times over: English, German and Norwegian. Students work in their own language. That is not a courtesy. What we are looking at is how they reason about mathematics out loud, and a student doing that in a foreign language is not showing us the same thing. The consequence is a practical one — who can analyse what. Lucerne and Hamburg can take in each other's material, provided the Swiss sessions are held in standard German rather than in dialect; the Norwegian material is read in Oslo.
The first wave is deliberately a baseline. The sets run as they are, which is what makes an early start possible at all — nothing has to be developed in the first weeks, only collected — and it gives the revisions something to be measured against.
The asymmetry between the two strands is deliberate. The card sets are ready in substance and go into use in year 1; Borel has to be built first and goes into use in year 2, with its assistant developed alongside the activity rather than after it. A project that already collects data in its first year reads as feasible; one that develops everywhere at once reads as risky. The staggering also spreads the load, so that no single year carries both a major development effort and a major analysis peak.
What the prior work gives us is certainty, not a head start. We know the activities work in the room. What we do not have is a form in which anyone outside our own courses could use them — and the evidence that they still work there.
4What we bring in, and what the project makes of it
All of this exists at project start, and all of it was financed elsewhere.
| Where we stand | What still has to happen | |
|---|---|---|
| The conceptual foundation | ||
| The orientation framework | Ours — developed by the three of us together, and published. The works are listed under what we can point to below | We have used it to describe orientation, never to design for it. Turning it into design criteria is the first thing the project does |
| The card sorting strand — the content is there | ||
| Eight card sets on probability, tertiary level | Used over one academic year in two courses in Lucerne, and already revised once | No systematic data collection at all. Fine-tuning to orientation; technical consolidation; localisation into three languages |
| A classification of sorting activities, and design features for card sets | Prior work, revised in the SORT project. The sorting logics and a number of quality features are settled and carry over | They are not yet tied to orientation. Connecting the two — what a sorting activity must do to build a reference map, a perspective toolbox and a mathematical attitude — is the conceptual core of the project |
| KasperKArtensets Planen, Erzeugen, Revidieren planning, generating and revising card sets, the assistant |
Trained on those design features; takes over and supports the technical implementation through to a working HTML file. Built for secondary level | Adapting it to university level and to orientation — and making it work in hands other than its author's |
| Further sets: complex numbers, differential equations | Differential equations: deliberately built along the classification, used once, and used a second time before project start. Complex numbers: reworked with Kasper this semester, used once before project start | Revised again in the light of what the project finds. They are why a transfer to further topics is a promise we can plan for rather than a hope |
| The Borel strand — the groundwork is done, the building is not | ||
| Borel in the classroom | Iterative implementations in Switzerland, Germany and Norway, and all three of us already use Borel in teacher education | None of it is designed for orientation, and none of it is systematically documented |
| The card-generation prompt and BorelGPT | Both published with our MTED article. Together they are the basis for a Borel assistant built along the lines of Kasper and working the same way | That assistant does not exist. Building it — together with the Borel activity itself — is the development work of year 1 |
| Shared infrastructure | ||
| The data capture and analysis tool | Tested and validated through SORT: records card movements and audio and makes the process replayable | Adapting it to university teaching and three languages. It is what makes collection across three countries affordable and manageable |
What we can point to
Erasmus+ has no bibliography and no obligation to cite. This list is not for the form — it is so that we know which claim rests on what, and where we have nothing yet. Nils and Helmer: please complete your own lines.
| The claim | What it rests on |
|---|---|
| all three of usMathematical orientation is a describable competence, and we have described it | Five works, four of them by the three of us. ZDM 55, 851–865 (2023), Strengthening mathematical orientation: how university mathematics courses can gain relevance for pre-service teachers — already built on 85 student reflections from Norway and Switzerland, so the transnational work is not new to us · INDRUM 2024 Barcelona, Mathematical orientation as part of teaching competence · BzMU 2025 · Allmendinger 2026, Felix Klein und die mathematische Orientierung (DMV) · the Festschrift chapter Pfade legen, Brücken schlagen. Two in English. Underneath it lies the Klein work the framework grew out of: the doctoral thesis Felix Kleins „Elementarmathematik vom höheren Standpunkte aus“ — eine Analyse aus historischer und mathematikdidaktischer Sicht (Siegen 2014) · Die Didaktik in Felix Kleins „Elementarmathematik vom höheren Standpunkte aus“ (Journal für Mathematik-Didaktik 37, 2016) · Examples of Klein's Practice: Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint, Volume I, in The Legacy of Felix Klein (ICME-13 Monographs, Springer 2019, 203–213), from the thematic afternoon at ICME-13 in Hamburg. |
| all three of usBorel elicits probabilistic reasoning, and we know what it demands of the teacher | Four works, all three of us on each. mathematik lehren 229 (2021), the original classroom article · two GAME conference papers (ERME 2025), Borel: a customizable game about probability experiments and Using the game BOREL for stimulating probabilistic thinking · MTED 2026, From Game to Classroom, accepted. Classroom implementations in all three countries. And Helmer on a game outside our trio: Secret Hitler: Reflecting on Democracy and Human Rights, Through Probabilistic Reasoning (2026, with Brander and Abtahi) — a board game put to work for probabilistic reasoning. |
| from HamburgGenerative AI can augment a teacher's work — and we know where it cannot | Bastian, Buchholtz & Kaiser 2025, Using AI chatbots to facilitate mathematics preservice teachers' noticing skills (Frontiers in Education) · Buchholtz & Huget 2024, ChatGPT as a reflection tool to promote the lesson planning competencies of pre-service teachers (MEDA 4) · the special issue Mathematics education in the era of ChatGPT (Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education, 2025). Plus the two AI tools in our own MTED article. |
| from OsloMathematics from an advanced standpoint can be turned into teaching — not only described | A continuous series with Christoph Kirfel that reworks school topics from an advanced standpoint and makes them teachable: In the Realm of Cubics (Mathematics Magazine 2026) · Integration by Riemann Triangles (Mathematics Magazine 2022) · Ein alternativer Zugang zur Ableitung (Der Mathematikunterricht 2018) · two pieces on area, volume and the derivative in Tangenten (2018). Alongside it, task design: Utforskende oppgaver med parabler (2023) and med tredjegradskurver (2024), also in Tangenten — exploratory tasks, built and published. Plus Mathematics, Astronomy and Culture: Helping Students See Connections (2012), and MAT4010, the course Helmer introduced at UiO and in which the trialling will run. |
| from LucerneCard sorting activities work in university courses | Nothing published yet, and we will not get there before we submit. What we can show instead is the public SORT project site — in English by then — and eight sets already run twice in two module courses. Turning that practice into activities others can use, and showing that they work there, is what we are asking to be funded, and it is the one claim of the five that stands on practice alone. |
What we lean on, beyond our own work
Four anchors, one sentence each. Not a bibliography — Erasmus+ has none — but the four points at which the needs analysis and the claim to innovation have to meet the field.
| Anchor | What it does for us |
|---|---|
| The double discontinuity, and the discussion since Klein 1908 as its origin |
Klein named it; the work since is what the needs analysis actually stands on. Winsløw and Grønbæk reread the two discontinuities for the calculus case (Klein's double discontinuity revisited, Recherches en Didactique des Mathématiques 34, 2014), and Eichler and Isaev showed that an intervention can shift what students believe about coherence and relevance (Journal für Mathematik-Didaktik 44, 2023). One sentence of this belongs in the needs analysis — enough to show we stand in a discussion, not enough to turn the field into a literature review. |
| Interface tasks Bauer 2013 · Eichler & Isaev 2023 |
The established answer — and the one our work stands alongside. Interface tasks make the links between university and school mathematics their explicit topic, with evidence on their effect on students' beliefs about the discontinuity. Our claim is of a different kind: not that we supply the links to teaching situations, but that activities of this sort build the orientation from which a student can form them. That is the framework's own order — reference map, perspective toolbox, attitude, and the links as what grows out of them. The two approaches can stand side by side, and may well strengthen each other. This is the one passage we have to get exactly right. It is where the form asks “what makes your proposal innovative?” — and the difference we name has to be a difference in route, not a verdict on theirs. I would like the three of us to go over those sentences together. |
| Card sorting as an established format Swan, Collaborative Learning in Mathematics (2006); “classifying mathematical objects” |
The format is not ours and we should say so. Classifying and sorting is one of Swan's five task types for conceptual development in school mathematics, and it is well established there. What is new is the level and the purpose: at university, with pre-service teachers, and aimed at orientation rather than at the concept being sorted. That framing protects us from the obvious objection. |
| Game-based approaches in mathematics education the ERME GAME community |
The community our two Borel conference papers already sit in — a recognised strand with its own conference, not a private interest of ours. It also gives the Borel work a place to be disseminated into. |
What can we count as our own contribution? Erasmus+ requires co-financing in principle, and nothing has to be declared or evidenced — what is weighed is the value of the activities we describe. The Movetia webinar confirmed this: there are no figures, but the application has to make visible where the project goes beyond what the grant pays for. Our own time beyond what the grant pays, the courses in which the trialling happens, the infrastructure behind them: all of that plainly counts. Where the line runs, and what each institution can actually put in, none of us can say alone.
5Work packages, hours and money
Five work packages, the maximum Erasmus+ recommends, including management. One person-month (PM) is one full-time person for one month — roughly 160 hours. Over the 36 months of the project, 12 PM is about a third of a post, 18 PM about half, 36 PM a full post. Hours are given alongside, since that is how Lucerne plans.
Open a work package to see its tasks and who does them. “At each university” means the work arises at all three universities and cannot be pooled; “once, for all three” means it is done a single time and can go to whoever is best placed. The cut into five packages, and every figure in it, is a first estimateproposal — there to be argued with.
The figures are per work package, not per country. How the hours and the money divide between the three universities is something we settle together. One thing we were told at the Movetia webinar: an even split does not convince. An application in which every partner gets the same share reads as assembled rather than planned — the shares should follow the work each of us actually leads. Who leads which work package is open as well — that is the first thing to discuss, and the money follows from it.
WP1Coordination and quality assurance 5.5 PM · 880 h · EUR 55,000
Consortium agreement, six meetings, financial control, reporting; ethics and data protection across three jurisdictions.
us 1.6research 3.4students 0.5
| Task | us | research | students | technical | total PM | once, or at each university? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | Consortium agreement, kick-off, project structure | 0.5 | · | · | · | 0.5 | once, for all three |
| 1.2 | Administration, financial control, six consortium meetings | · | 2 | 0.5 | · | 2.5 | once, for all three |
| 1.3 | Ethics and data protection procedures | 0.6 | 0.9 | · | · | 1.5 | at each university |
| 1.4 | Interim and final reports | 0.5 | 0.5 | · | · | 1 | once, for all three |
| together | 1.6 | 3.4 | 0.5 | · | 5.5 |
Travel and the closing conference still need money of their own.proposal The figure above covers working time only. Six meetings, each at one of the three universities, with two people travelling from each of the other two, make 24 trips; the closing conference, with three people from each guest university, another six. At about 750 a trip — the figure Lucerne put into a 2023 SNF application for the two of you coming to Switzerland, CHF 3,000 for two visits — that is some EUR 22,500. Room and catering for the closing conference are not in it yet.
Whether EUR 55,000 carries this is open. At the rates we are working with, the paid working time in this package comes to about 30,000, which would leave some 2,500 for the conference itself. Either the package grows, or fewer of us travel to each meeting.
WP2Design criteria and instruments 8 PM · 1,280 h · EUR 70,000
Turning the orientation framework into criteria an activity can be built and checked against; the instruments that show whether an activity does what the criteria ask of it.
us 3.35research 1.85students 0.9technical 1.9
| Task | us | research | students | technical | total PM | once, or at each university? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | Deriving the design criteria from the framework | 2 | · | · | · | 2 | all three together |
| 2.2 | Adapting the capture tool to university teaching | · | · | · | 1.5 | 1.5 | once, for all three |
| 2.3 | Localising the tool in three languages | · | · | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1 | at each university |
| 2.4 | Reflection format and observation scheme | 1 | 1 | · | · | 2 | once, for all three |
| 2.5 | Piloting the instruments | · | 0.45 | 0.3 | · | 0.75 | at each university |
| 2.6 | Revising the instruments after the first collection | 0.35 | 0.4 | · | · | 0.75 | once, for all three |
| together | 3.35 | 1.85 | 0.9 | 1.9 | 8 |
WP3The activities 15.5 PM · 2,480 h · EUR 115,000
Consolidating, localising and revising the card sets; building the Borel activities; extending to two further topics in year 3.
us 3.3research 4.7students 3.2technical 4.3
| Task | us | research | students | technical | total PM | once, or at each university? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | Technical consolidation of the eight sets to OER quality | · | · | · | 3 | 3 | once, for all three |
| 3.2 | Fine-tuning the sets against the design criteria | 0.8 | 0.7 | · | · | 1.5 | once, for all three |
| 3.3 | Localising the sets — translation, curricular fit, technical check | · | 1 | 1.5 | · | 2.5 | at each university |
| 3.4 | Revising the sets against the design criteria, after the first wave | · | 0.9 | 0.6 | · | 1.5 | once, for all three |
| 3.5 | Final version of the probability sets, after the second wave | · | 0.6 | 0.4 | · | 1 | once, for all three |
| 3.6 | Taking Borel to tertiary level — what is worth discussing there | 1.5 | · | · | · | 1.5 | all three together |
| 3.7 | Building two to three Borel activities | 0.4 | 0.6 | · | 1 | 2 | once, for all three |
| 3.8 | Revising the Borel activity after its first use | 0.3 | 0.4 | · | 0.3 | 1 | once, for all three |
| 3.9 | Building the transfer topics — complex numbers, differential equations — against the criteria, for the third wave | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.7 | · | 1.5 | once, for all three |
| together | 3.3 | 4.7 | 3.2 | 4.3 | 15.5 |
WP4The digital assistants 9 PM · 1,440 h · EUR 65,000
Kasper-ORIENTATION and Kasper-BORELproposed names — the first for the sorting activities at university level, the second built alongside the Borel activity.
us 1.7research 4.4students 0.7technical 2.2
| Task | us | research | students | technical | total PM | once, or at each university? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.1 | Adapting Kasper to university level and to orientation (Kasper-ORIENTATION) | 0.9 | 0.6 | · | 1 | 2.5 | once, for all three |
| 4.2 | Introduction and documentation, so it works in other hands | · | 0.6 | 0.4 | · | 1 | once, for all three |
| 4.3 | Transferability check — staff generate activities with it | 0.3 | 1.2 | · | · | 1.5 | at each university |
| 4.4 | Adapting the Borel card prompt to tertiary level | 0.5 | 0.5 | · | · | 1 | once, for all three |
| 4.5 | Building Kasper-BOREL, alongside the activity (year 1) | · | 0.8 | · | 1.2 | 2 | once, for all three |
| 4.6 | Guidance for lecturers without AI experience | · | 0.7 | 0.3 | · | 1 | once, for all three |
| together | 1.7 | 4.4 | 0.7 | 2.2 | 9 |
WP5Trialling, validation and transfer 15 PM · 2,400 h · EUR 95,000
Three trial waves at three universities. Each wave ends in a revision — of the sets, the Borel activities, the criteria or the instruments — so the analysis is part of the development: it tells us what to change, and shows that the changed version holds. Then publication as an OER, and the closing conference.
us 2.6research 6.3students 5.3technical 0.8
| Task | us | research | students | technical | total PM | once, or at each university? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.1 | Running the three trial waves — organisation, consent, session support; ten working groups per university per wave | · | 1.5 | 1.5 | · | 3 | at each university, each wave |
| 5.2 | Data management — export, anonymisation, storage, consent tracking across three jurisdictions | · | 0.6 | 1.2 | · | 1.8 | at each university |
| 5.3 | Transcription and coding against the design criteria — process data from every group; audio from four groups on two activities per university and wave | · | 1.4 | 1.6 | · | 3 | at each university, each wave |
| 5.4 | Coding scheme derived from the design criteria, and the sampling rule | 0.8 | 0.7 | · | · | 1.5 | once, for all three |
| 5.5 | Synthesis across the three universities — what each revision has to change, and what holds in all three countries | 0.4 | 1.1 | · | · | 1.5 | once, for all three |
| 5.6 | Validation report — what the final versions do, with the evidence from three countries | 1 | · | · | · | 1 | once, for all three |
| 5.7 | OER preparation: project site, archive with a DOI, Results Platform | 0.2 | · | 0.5 | 0.8 | 1.5 | once, for all three |
| 5.8 | An outside lecturer uses the activities, and we document how that goes | · | 0.7 | 0.3 | · | 1 | at one university |
| 5.9 | Closing conference | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.2 | · | 0.7 | once, for all three |
| together | 2.6 | 6.3 | 5.3 | 0.8 | 15 |
Project management is 13.75 per cent; the ceiling is 20. Coordination is paid from the lump sum — the form provides a work package for exactly that.
| Who does it | PM | hours | over 36 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| The three of us | 12.6 | 2,010 | about a third of a post, between the three of us |
| Research staff | 20.7 | 3,310 | a little over half a post, across the three universities |
| Student assistants | 10.6 | 1,700 | transcription, card production, localisation, events |
| Technical work | 9.2 | 1,470 | about a quarter of a post, one person |
How much do we collect? Each course has two or three tutorial groups of around five working groups, so roughly ten working groups per university and wave — but that is Lucerne's shape, and Hamburg's and Oslo's may differ. Recording all of them on every activity would produce more material than anyone can analyse. The tool takes part of that away: it records the card movements of every group on every activity, automatically and at no cost in working time, and speech recognition runs locally, so a first transcript of whatever audio we do record is nearly free. What no tool does for us is correct the transcript where it matters and code the reasoning against the criteria — and that is what sets the limit.
What does not get cheaper is managing the data: consent, anonymisation, storage and retrieval across three jurisdictions and three years. It has its own line in the work packages rather than hiding inside the collection.
The transfer topics still need a place. Complex numbers and differential equations sit in standalone courses in Lucerne, separate from the probability course; the sets exist and have been used there. Whether the two topics have a home in Hamburg or in Oslo, and in which course, is open. If they do not, the transfer is built and trialled in Lucerne and the third wave runs elsewhere on the final probability sets. That is defensible for a first round: what the transfer has to show is that the design criteria and the assistant carry to other mathematical content, and one site can carry that claim — whereas the comparison across three countries is the thing we cannot give up.
6What is settled, and what the programme fixes
What is already settled: probability as the content domain for years 1 and 2; three collection waves, one per academic year, at all three universities — card sorting in all three, Borel in the last two; the transfer to further topics in year 3 for the card sorting activities — for Borel we do not promise it; the assistants are development tools rather than products; and everything produced is published as an OER, on a project site, in an archive with a DOI and on the Erasmus+ Results Platform.
| Action | KA220-HED, Cooperation Partnerships in Higher Education |
| Grant | A lump sum of 120,000 / 250,000 / 400,000 — no cost categories and no cost reporting |
| Consortium | Minimum three institutions from three programme countries; we are exactly that — so if one of us drops out before submission, we cannot submit |
| Assessment | Relevance 25 · design and implementation 30 · partnership 20 · impact and dissemination 25. Threshold 70, and at least half in each criterion |
| Co-financing | Required in principle, but nothing is declared or evidenced. Our own work counts explicitly — the form says “in form of invested goods, services and work”. The application has to show where the project goes beyond what the grant pays for |
| Priorities | Rewarding high-quality learning, teaching and skills development; Supporting STEM; and horizontally, Addressing digital transformation |
| Length | About 74 free-text fields, with five work packages |
One condition is outside our control, and only one. Switzerland's participation from the 2027 call depends on the association agreement between Switzerland and the EU, which is in parliament now; nobody in this consortium can move it, and it will only be settled in the course of the year. The Charter is no longer a hurdle: Lucerne's application for the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education went in within the deadline.
If Switzerland is not associated, Lucerne could still take part with money from Movetia. But it could not appear in the application as prominently as it does here — and the card sets and Kasper, one of the two strands, come from Lucerne. We do not think the application stands without it. So we plan on association, and we need a fallback in case it fails.