Self-Paced Approach in Synergistic Model for Supporting and Testing Students

Abstract

This paper shows the model developed by the University of Turin to support students that must face the transition from the last year of secondary school to the first year of University. Integrations that are specifically designed for Learning Management Systems help sustain three effective actions conducted in synergy: increase students' awareness in the choice of the future course of study, support them in taking the admission tests and the first-year exams, allow the autonomous administration of admission tests led by the University. The methodological strategies adopted are presented and discussed based on the analysis of the data of the years 2015 and 2016.

Stem in Higher Education: The Use of an Advanced Computing Environment to Develop Fundamental Skills for University Career and the World of Work

“…The working methods were the following: in each lesson, part of the time was devoted to the exploration of the Maple ACE led by the teachers; in the remaining time, the students had the opportunity to work independently in the resolution of proposed exercises, so as to become familiar with the system; no homework tasks were assigned. All course materials and activities were made available to students through a Moodle platform integrated with the Maple ACE [9][10][11]. In the last 5 hours of the course, dedicated to problem solving with an ACE, students were asked to work in groups or individually on the creation of an interactive worksheet involving a STEM discipline of their interest and to submit it as a final evaluation test.…”

Empowering Engagement through Automatic Formative Assessment

“…Digital technologies are acknowledged to be powerful cognitive and social facilitators of engagement for several reasons: they enhance the possibilities to activate learning by doing or active learning strategies, which enable students to intellectually engage in the task [20], [21]; they increase the chances of interactions among peers and with the instructor [8]; they can facilitate self-regulation and adaptive learning through formative assessment [22], [23]; asynchronous activity enable learners to study at their own pace and to reflect on the learning process [24], [25]; in Mathematics and other STEM, they let you analyze real-world problems, thus making the subject interesting and relevant [10], [26].…”

Open Professional Development of Math Teachers Through an Online Course

“…The platform is integrated with various tools useful for learning STEM disciplines, in particular the Advanced Computing Environment Maple (https://www.maplesoft.com/) and the Automatic Assessment System Moebius Assessment (https://www.digitaled.com). The University of Turin has a great experience in the development and use of the Moodle platform for teaching (Barana et al, 2017b(Barana et al, , 2017c. The open online course is designed for teachers of Mathematics, but access is free through any social media, so all interested people can access it.…”