The Future of Education
Developing Tools for the eLearning Platform MathE
Ana I. Pereira, Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CeDRI) - Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Florbela P. Fernandes, Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CeDRI) - Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
M. Fátima Pacheco, Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CeDRI) - Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Paula Maria Barros, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Flora Silva, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Edite Cordeiro, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Carla Geraldes, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Carla Cruz, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Carlos Balsa, Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CeDRI) - Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Clara Vaz, Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CeDRI), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Elisa Barros, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Inês Barbedo, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
João P. Almeida, Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CeDRI) - Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
M. Cristina Martins, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Manuel Vara Pires, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Marcela Seabra, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal)
Abstract
MathE (mathe.pixel-online.org) is an eLearning platform for higher education developed and implemented by a consortium of seven institutional partners from five European countries. The aim of the project is enhance the quality of teaching and improve pedagogies and assessment methods by facilitating the identification of students’ gaps in Math, providing appropriate digital sources and promoting the self evaluation with immediate feedback. The Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (IPB), in Portugal, is one of the consortium members: sixteen of its teachers collaborate in the development of this platform, being responsible for thirteen of the topics/subtopics in which the platform is structured. Such topics cover a wide range of contents, from linear transformations to integration, from graph theory to probabilities. The articulation of the topics of the MathE collection corresponds to the canonic mathematics content of engineering, business and education degrees. The MathE platform is organized into three main sections: Student´s Assessment, MathE Library and Community of Practice. So far, IPB has already developed a collection of around 1000 questions for the student´s assessment section and is currently developing the MathE Library. More than 350 students from IPB are using the MathE platform; some offered as volunteers, whose role is testing the behavior of the platform as well as looking for bugs and other details that require improvement, while others are already using the platform in their study. The feedback received up until now is quite encouraging.
Keywords: Active Learning. Higher education. Pedagogical innovation. Digital resources. Distance learning. Mathematics.
References:
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