Open Access

Peter Mall, Maria Spychiger, Rose Vogel, Julia Zerlik

• Music and mathematics share an odd character: many people believe that they are not good at one or the other (or both). However, ‘I cannot sing’ or ‘I never understood mathematics’ will probably not keep them from having successful careers, and nor will it change the opinions others have about them. The project ‘European Music Portfolio – Sounding Ways into Mathematics’ (EMP-Maths) aims towards a different understanding with regards to this character. Everyone can sing and make music, and everyone can do mathematics. Both topics are integral parts of our life and society. What needs to be improved is our ability to give students opportunities to like them. This teacher’s handbook presents activities with different mathematical and musical content in order to offer teachers resources, ideas and examples. These activities are designed to be expandable, adaptable to different contexts, and adjustable to the needs of each teacher and their students. Furthermore, these activities are not just planned to be carried out individually; a teaching unit could be used to make sense of them, or they could even be developed in connection with each other. Apart from this teacher’s handbook, the project provides a continuing professional development (CPD) course, a webpage (http://maths.emportfolio.eu) from which all materials can be downloaded, and an online collaboration platform. A general overview of related literature and research is available in separate documents. Additional teacher booklets provide related materials and a brief overview of the theoretical background, and are the basis for the CPD courses. The project ‘Sounding Ways into Mathematics’ is related to the EMP-Languages project ‘A Creative Way into Languages’ (http://emportfolio.eu/emp/).