Title: Challenges and choices in developing complete digital courses in upper secondary Mathematics education
1Challenges and choicesin developing complete
digital courses in upper secondary Mathematics
education
- Cornelia Brodahl, University of Agder,
Norwaycornelia.brodahl_at_uia.no
ICME11, Monterrey, Mexico, July 6 - 13, 2008
2Facts on education in Norway
A Strategy of Joint Promotion MST of
Mathematics, Science and Technology
- Failing interest and recruitment to university
studies of mathematics, science and technology
(MST) - Recruitment to MST is a major challenge
- Need of
- Covering the society and working lifes needs
strengthened. - MST Competency in primary and lower secondary
education. - More students choosing depth studies in upper
secondary education. - More students in MST programmes in higher
education. - Researchers and developers with necessary
competency.
The percentage of graduates from upper secondary
education with a MST orientation in 1994 and
2003 Published by The Ministry of Education and
Research, 2006.
3Facts on education in Norway
- Population
- 4.5 mill.
- Ongoing education
- 0.9 mill. young
- 1.0 mill. in adult education courses
- Educational level
- 45 have upper secondary education
- 26 have higher education
- Upper secondary level
- 550 schools
- 164 200 pupils
- 22 100 teachers
- Free and open learning and research in Norway
- University and colleges
- 170 000 students
- ICT in Education
- By 2008, ICT shall be an integrated tool at all
levels in Norwegian education - The use of ICT resources is one strategy to
achieve recruitment to MST
4The resources
- Set out from the mathematics to be learned and
presents it in a logical and accessible fashion - Are organized as interactive textbooks in a LMS
- Provide chapters and sections with
- theory and examples
- small exercises
- simulations
- extension exercises
- summary
- Promote subjects in different and interactive
ways - learning objects
- step-by-step-explanations/instructions
- formative assessment exercises
- animations providing links to real life
Registered schools 30 in 2005 50 in 2008
www.parabel.no
demo
5Why parAbel?
- The use of ICT resources is one strategy to
achieve recruitment to MST - To meet the claim of using digital tools in
education (new curriculum) - Uses ICT-medium where it is suitable for learning
through interactivity and visualization. - Pupils can work with Mathematics at their own
level and at their own pace. - Adapted teaching - differentiation through
exercises with different degree of difficulty
- Use in classroom
- animations to illustrate mathematical ideas and
concepts - extra exercises, workbook
- motivation, variation
- individual or group work
6The parAbel team
- The course author team
- for Mathematics
- 1-2 mathematiciansexperienced educators,1 with
Flash competency
The projects development and administration model
7The constructivist principle
- Cognitive and social constructivist thinking
- Embracing new possibilities for making subjects
attractive and engaging. - Creating learning objects to motivate
- engagement
- activity
- reflection
- sustained engagement
8Developing Learning Objects (LO)
- Starting point is the Mathematics Curriculum
- Brainstorming for ideas to learning objects
- Studying the literature for mathematical teachers
- Studying the material of examples
- Frequently evaluating learning objects
-
- in a symbiotic activity related to research in
the field of learning objects
- Synopsis / functional specification
- Cycle of programming
9Example The suns path
- Wanted visualizing the sine function by a real
life graphic - From idea to realization
- A phenomena well known to Norwegian students
- Discussed in a Norwegian journal for Mathematics
Education - A photo collage
- An animation, faithful to real data
- An animation, traced and overdrawn by a curve
- A function plotter for sine curves to model the
curve - The ideal use of the learning object
- to experience and discuss aspects of the sine
function concept
10Serving different types of learners
- Learners in classroom
- Good teachers would carefully prepare for
demonstration and dialogue with the students - Lone learners and distributed learners
- How to compensate for the lack of supportfrom a
teacher and fellow students? - Multimedia and dynamic presentation of
theorywith graphical animations - Multi-step interactive explanations and exercises
- High ratio of self-assessment exercises intended
to challenge the learners beliefs - Non-trivial choices
- Relating algebraic theorems to geometry
- The Binomial theorem for n equal to 2
- Development of a formula
11Extending interactivity
Templates for reuse
- Goal Rich and complex interactive learning
objects - Concern for quantity and developmental effort
- A balance between
- Developing one-of-a-kind artifacts
- pedagogical interactivity
- providing content dialogue and interaction on
the learners initiative - Using built-in learning templates in LMS
- Using built-in learning templates in Flash
- Reuse of user-made Flash templates/elements
To provide a high proportion of interactivity
The Oracle
Degree of difficulty
Type of challenge
Scoring and tracking
12Further work
- Make the resources richer
- More courses. Vg1P primo January
- Teacher courses
- Formative evaluation (en extensive work to do)
- Pedagogical and mathematical didactical analysis
- LMS -gt Web 2.0
- Collaboration with Chinese developers
13Hilsen
Thank you for your attention
http//home.uia.no/cornelib/icme11
14The ParAbel Calculator
15The ParAbel Calculator