Assessing Calculus students in Engineering schools

1. Assessing Calculus students in Engineering schools Authors: M. Rosa Estela Carbonell Joel Sa� Seoane

2. Summary Calculus Virtual Course Virtual and innovating content Graphic resources, Laboratories, Calendar, Forums and other contact ways� Assessment Current evaluation, Interactive exercises, Televoting, Questionnaires, Further possibilities for teachers Motivating tasks for students 2 M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa�

3. Calculus Virtual Course A new and complete course on Calculus has been developed. Thought to be used by students on their first academic year at engineering degrees. The innovating element is mainly the interactivity between student and teacher, through the platform Moodle. M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 3

4. Calculus Virtual Course M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 4

5. Calculus Virtual Course The paper version material is not forgotten. Actually students find it essential in order to be able to study satisfactorily. Therefore: C�lculo, con soporte interactivo en Moodle. Pearson Educaci�n. 2008 The course is now all available in a digital version on Moodle: all the theory contenets, exercises� and also using the interactive tools that the platform offers. www.mates24h.com/pearson/ M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 5

6. Virtual and innovating content The greatest advantage that the adaptation of the course to Moodle offers is mainly focused on the diferent sections that this platform makes now possible: Questionnaires, Forums,� as well as the tools that one can adapt to Moodle depending on the course taught. In this case, using Wiris: Laboratories, Exercises� M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 6

7. Graphic resources The virtual version of the course allows the incorporation of moving graphics as well as better color combination than the paper version. Many 2D and 3D resources have been included in order to help the student understand the different concepts or ideas. The student can also easily create his/her own pictures and graphics using Wiris, which has the particular advantage of being very user-friendly. M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 7

8. Laboratories Wiris is a mathematical software used for solving many problems regarding math's. Graphic resources of this software makes it more accurate for a course of Calculus like ours than other similar products such as Maple or Matlab. Lab�s are thought to be for personal practice for the students. They can interact with a window showing a particular problem changing the initial values and moving the graphic. M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 8

9. Calendar, forums and other contact ways M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 9

10. Assessment M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 10 max{0.4P1+0.4P2+0.3CE, 0.7F+0.3CE}

11. Current evaluation M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 11

12. Interactive exercises Working a little bit further with laboratories, some interactive exercises can be thought and developed. That is, for an specific topic, students can find a link to a new window of interactive exercises. In this window, the student will find many different kind of exercises, regarding the topic, which must be solved. Student can ask for a hunt or just see the solution. A counter registers the grades that the student gets. M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 12

13. Televoting The last innovation is called televoting. This is a mean of teaching that can sometimes be used in room lessons in order to get the student attention and help their motivation to increase. Teachers must prepare little program very similar to a power point with an specific software and then go to class and let the students answer through a remote control. Instant statistics are shown on the screen. M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 13

14. Questionnaires A large bank of questions has been developed and so the students can solve a questionnaire for each chapter, having a totally new questionnaire for each attempt. Some question-naires have been thought to be solved by the students at home as self training; but there is al-ways a particular question-naire which is asked to be done in a computer class session and which is part of the continuous evalua-tion grade. M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 14

15. Nuevas posibilidades para el profesor M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 15

16. Teachers can adapt this to their personal course, as Moodle allows to add or delete/hide information if it is not remarkable for an specific Course. M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 16

17. Motivating tasks for students The students give a very to this new methodology positive answer of teaching and learning. There has been a very nice acceptance to this availability of fair and comfortable material. As a result, a highest dedication is shown by students and so, instantaneously, a far better performance while they learn far more Calculus than some years ago. M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 17

18. Acknowledgements Universitat Polit�cnica de Catalunya (UPC) Escola T�cnica Superior d�Enginyers de Camins, Canals i Ports de Barcelona (ETSECCPB) Institut de Ci�ncies de l�Educaci� (ICE) Ag�ncia de Gesti� d�Ajuts Universitaris i Recerca (Agaur) Pearson Educaci�n Mathsformore (Wiris) M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 18

19. Thank you! M. Rosa Estela and Joel Sa� 19