Mathematics

projects a year all over Austria. Like in a fund, the teachers have to apply for a
project (describing e.g., challenge, innovation, goals and evaluation of the
project). They get (when successfully passing the review process with a final
decision and recommendations by a jury) – apart from individual support for
their project and participation in several meetings with colleagues and experts
– about € 1500 when finishing their project, including a written paper about
their innovation which is accessible at the internet IMST-Wiki
(http://www.imst.ac.at/wiki). High quality projects are presented at IMST
conferences, network meetings, partially at international conferences and in
the context of EU-projects (e.g., Fibonacci, KeyCoMath, and PROFILES)
where IMST is involved; or these projects might become winners of the annual
IMST award (currently six prizes, sponsored by state and economy). The
number of financed projects had with about 200 projects per year a peak,
recently, about 100 projects (covering all MINDT subjects and grades) are
supported. The actual four nation-wide TP focus on competence oriented
teaching in the fields of mathematics and science, writing and reading,
learning with digital media, and hands-on laboratory. This is supplemented by
a regional, economy-sponsored TP in Carinthia which focuses on creative
teaching in computer science. Teachers carrying out innovations within TP are
expected to be disseminate their knowledge, and thus become potential
bridge-builders between the work in Thematic Programmes and in the Network
Programme in IMST (see below).
d) Network structures (M4, enriched by some further activities): In order to
broaden the programme at the regional level, the plan was to set up Regional
Networks (M4) in all nine federal states in Austria. Measure M4 has been
implemented fully within a few years, and even developed further ideas to
strengthen the network idea. The first Regional Network was established in
2003, contracts with other federal states followed in the years 2004-2008.
Since then, these contracts (e.g., including the fact that the federal state
invests more resources than provided by IMST) have been prolonged till now
(with an average duration of 2-3 years). Each network has a steering
committee with representatives from practice, the federal state education
board, and the teacher education institutions (covering all MINDT subjects). As
a further development of network structures, support was provided by setting
up five district networks in reaction to needs articulated by regional
stakeholders like superintendents and/or bottom-up initiatives by teachers
involved in M2-activities. Often, the M4-activities were the driving force for
establishing the regional subject didactics centres (M3). In some smaller
MINT-subjects, where no university or university teacher college in Austria was
able to launch such a M3-centre (technical handicraft, nutrition, descriptive
geometry), IMST helped to establish nation-wide Thematic Networks as a
basis for a future regional (or even national) centre. All these initiatives are
recently bundled in the so-called Network Programme. In order to exchange
experiences among these networks, bi-annual meetings are organized, where
also representatives of universities and university colleges for teacher
education (including M3, M5, and M7) are invited, if new activities are
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