Mathematics learning and assessment using MathE platform: A case study

Abstract

Universities are encouraging the implementation of innovative methodologies and teaching strategies to develop an interactive and appealing educational environment where students are the focus of the learning process. In such a personalised learning environment, an increase of the students’ engagement and the improvement of the outcomes arise. MathE has been developed to help achieve this goal. Based on collaborative procedures, internet resources – both pre-existing and freely available as well as resources specifically conceived by the project team – and communities of practices, MathE intends to be a tool to nurture and stimulate the learning of Mathematics in higher education. This study introduces and describes the MathE platform, which is divided into three sections: Student’s Assessment, Library and Community of Practice. An in-depth description of the Student’s Assessment section is presented and an analysis of the results obtained from students, when using this feature of the platform, is also provided. After this, and based on the answers to an online survey, the impact of the MathE platform among students and teachers of eight countries is shown. Although the number of collected results is still scarce, it allows the recognition of a trend regarding the use of the material of the Student’s Assessment section for autonomous study. The results indicate the platform is well organized, with a satisfactory amount and diversity of questions and good interconnection between the various parts. Nevertheless, both teachers and students indicate that more questions should be introduced. The overall opinion about the MathE platform is very favourable.

Trends and Research on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics in Higher Education Institutions Through Mobile Learning

“…These scenarios are mainly based on the development of mobile applications and the design of digital content mediated by specialized platforms (Chuang, Jou, Lin, & Lu, 2015;Azevedo, Pereira, Fernandes & Pacheco 2021), and interactive (LMS) such as Blackboard and Moodle, some with the support of software such as GeoGebra, Maple, Mathematica and online forms made with tools provided by Google and social networks.…”

Analyzing the MathE Platform Through Clustering Algorithms

“…The classification into basic or advanced is done by a professor registered on the platform. However, previous studies [3] concluded that two levels are insufficient for separating the available content. Therefore, to further meet the needs of users of the MathE platform in a more suitable and personalized way, it is undergoing profound changes that will make it even more interactive and customized.…”

“…In its current stage, the platform is organized into three main sections: Student's Assessment (composed of multiple-choice questions divided into topics, with two difficulty levels (basic and advanced), which were previously defined by a professor member of the platform); MathE Library (composed of valuable and diversified materials related to the topics and subtopics covered by the platform, such as videos, lessons, exercises, training tests and other formats); and Community of Practice (provides a virtual place where teachers and students have the opportunity to interact in order to fulfill their common goals, thus consolidating a strong network community). More details about each section are described in [2,3], and can also be found in the Platform Website (mathe.pixel-online.org). 1.…”

“…In the Final Assessment section, the teacher can select the questions and the assessment will be available for the students at a chosen moment, defined by the teacher. In this case, the student will submit the test and receive feedback on the following day; the teacher will have access to the results at the end of the test, one day before the students [3].…”

“…In the third step, the similarity between clusters, R ij , is computed as the sum of two intra-cluster dispersions divided by the separation measure, given by Equation (3), that is the within-to-between cluster distance ratio for the ith and jth clusters.…”