Open professional development of math teachers through an online course

The professional development of teachers is a task recognized by the European parliament and pursued by many institutions, both national and international ones. The support to teachers in STEM disciplines was one of the aims of the Erasmus+ SMART (Science and Mathematics Advanced Research for good Teaching) project, born in a European context, which developed as its main intellectual output two open online courses called Mathematical Modelling and Observing, Measuring and Modelling in Science, in order to help teachers in their continuous professional development. Both courses contain interactive problem-based materials ready to be downloaded, modified, used in the classroom and redistributed to the community. This paper gives an overview of the structure of the course Mathematical Modelling and analyzes its instructional quality, taking into account some measurables obtained in two years of operativity.