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Browsing ISCAP - Matemática - Artigos by Author "Lopes, Ana Paula"
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- Assessment experiences in a math coursePublication . Soares, Filomena Baptista; Nunes, Paula; Lopes, Ana PaulaThe role of a teacher, as knowledge promoter and learning facilitator, is frequently opposed to the simultaneously inherent “validation” tasks, as far as grading and assessing are concerned, fundamentally from the students’ point of view, but, sometimes, even from our own. The generalised Math “trauma” is a difficult start-up invisible barrier that we must overcome every single semester, by implementing different strategies, developing new materials, motivating with digital and technological resources (using students’ digital skills), among many other tactics and schemes. But, in the end, the numerical grade – the knowledge and skills construction validation – must appear posted in the “system”. As Math lecturers in a Higher Education Institution, for more than twenty years, these problems are a daily challenge we face, and the issues we intend to analyse here, emerge as a consequence of a certain "emptiness" we feel regarding the assessment we have to carry out, in the sense that we still don’t have an answer to the following question: “Is it legitimate to "close your eyes" to the basic errors (some severe) when assessing learning outcomes in advanced subjects?” We teach at "end of the line", as far as General Mathematics is concerned, since our students are, essentially, from Management and Accounting Bachelor degrees. This paper will be structured in four distinct parts, starting with the Specific and General Outcomes and skills in the Math course in question, giving also a global vision of all its syllabus components and the teaching Methodologies implemented. Subsequently, we will refer to the coherence between teaching methods and the course learning objectives as well as their connection to the syllabus items. Finally, we will go through a section of small questions and answers, with their respective detailed analysis, in order to provide an objective reading material, trying to promote a fruitful and open discussion on the subject
- Behind video lectures in a MOOCPublication . Soares, Filomena Baptista; Lopes, Ana Paula; Vieira, IsabelThe year 2012 was the “boom year” in MOOC and all its outstanding growth until now, made us move forward in designing the first MOOC in our Institution (and the third in our country, Portugal). Most MOOC are video lectured based and the learning analytic process to these ones is just taking its first steps. Designing a video-lecture seems, at a first glance, very easy: one can just record a live lesson or lecture and turn it, directly, into a video-lecture (even here one may experience some “sound” and “camera” problems); but developing some engaging, appealing video-lecture, that motivates students to embrace knowledge and that really contributes to the teaching/learning process, it is not an easy task. Therefore questions like: “What kind of information can induce knowledge construction, in a video-lecture?”, “How can a professor interact in a video-lecture when he is not really there?”, “What are the video-lectures attributes that contribute the most to viewer’s engagement?”, “What seems to be the maximum “time-resistance” of a viewer?”, and many others, raised in our minds when designing video-lectures to a Mathematics MOOC from the scratch. We believe this technological resource can be a powerful tool to enhance students' learning process. Students that were born in digital/image era, respond and react slightly different to outside stimulus, than their teachers/professors ever did or do. In this article we will describe just how we have tried to overcome some of the difficulties and challenges we tackled when producing our own video-math-lectures and in what way, we feel, videos can contribute to the teaching and learning process at higher education level.
- Blendeed learning & MOOCPublication . Soares, Filomena Baptista; Lopes, Ana PaulaThe word MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) has its origins in an experience carried out by George Siemens and Stephen Downes in 2008 based on the theory of connectivism and social constructivism. This worldwide phenomenon appeared as an evolution of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. They are a new style of online classes that allow any person with web access, anywhere, usually free of charge, to participate through video lectures, computer graded tests and discussion forums which have been taking the attention of many higher education institutions around the world. The purpose of this paper is to give us an overview of how MOOCs and Blended Learning can be used with as an educational strategy in a Mathematics Course of “non Mathematic” degree programs. The pedagogical strategy embraced in this venture, was to combine the potentialities of some, already available, “good” OER, with a blended working scheme established side by side with the course development, regarding fundamental issues considered as prerequisites to it. We will explain the specific contents involved, as well as the general and specific objectives and outcomes, the evaluation procedures established for the course support and development, finishing with a summary of the complete results. We did not want to discover the “wheel”, it is from common knowledge for decades, but to present alternative ways to make a good use of it.
- Data analysis and learning analytics for measure effects of gamification in a math online projectPublication . Lopes, Ana Paula; babo, lurdes; Azevedo, Jose Manuel; Torres, CristinaNowadays the use of the information and communication technologies (ICT) is more and more common in the learning and teaching process. Modern forms of education have risen and these require the implementation of new learning paradigms: situated cognition, student-centred learning, distributed cognition, constructivism, and communities of practice, among others. However there is an important problem that concerns educators, the lack of student motivation and engagement in education, especially in the e-learning environment (Online Education, Online Courses), where the motivation and the active role of students are definitely the key. Therefore, the interest of researchers in the subject of gamification, which main pillars are motivation, progressiveness and instant feedback, has increased. Furthermore, influence of gamification, depending on utilized components (challenge, curiosity, competion, recognition, etc) may have different effects on students. Thus, there is a need of deeper understanding of dependencies between engagement and implemented gamification elements. The goal of such analysis could be personalization of an e-learning system based on a model that enables management of gamification process individually for every student. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how gamification affects a Mathematics Online Course that is using this model as a pedagogical strategy. It relates such strategy with active learning practices and discusses its effectiveness, investigating how gamification can motivate students to participate more deeply and even to change their self-concept as learners. Moreover, the learning analytics and data analysis shows that implementation of the gamification components contributes to the engagement of students in an e-learning environment, having a positive impact on the final grade.
- Different skills- differentiated learning plansPublication . Soares, Filomena Baptista; Lopes, Ana Paula; Nunes, PaulaPersonal development and realisation through academic success is an overall objective of Higher Educational Institutions (HEI), promoting the embracement of an open and fruitful future to their students. These students enrol in several Higher Education courses after attending well distinguished secondary school programs. The impact of these different backgrounds, with its inherent differentiated basic skills, is a general and worldwide challenge, fundamentally when facing some specific “constructive” subjects like foreign languages and Mathematics. In this paper we present a project developed in a Math course, with the first year students from the Accounting and Management Bachelor Degree in the School of Management and Industrial Studies (ESEIG). This project, which started in the academic year 2012/13, proved to be a success, both in terms of acceptance by the students and course global assessment results. We will describe all the methodologic steps connected to its development, implementation and maintenance, ranging from project submission to Scientific and Pedagogical boards for approval, student’s background “characterisation”, teachers and staff involvement in the different parts of the project, among many others. The project results over the last three years will be presented, assessing its pros and cons and we will also analyse its transferability to other courses and/or subjects, one of our actual major concerns. Like any other project that tries to promote success in some “historically critical” courses, there are many obstacles, objections and problems both in its implementation and, moreover, in its pursuit. However, it is not possible to develop a conscientious work, when confronted with recurrent student’s difficulties, just “move forward” without even trying to change “something”.
- Flipped classroom with aPublication . Lopes, Ana Paula; Soares, Filomena BaptistaNowadays, the online environment and technology tools are changing the way professors are developing and presenting course curriculum. Alongside this growth, we have assisted to the fast development of distance learning tools such as Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and the use of new teaching and learning models such the “Flipped Classroom” or “Inverted Classroom” model. This model is a pedagogical inversion of the traditional teaching paradigm: the main actions of the teaching and learning process that are used in classroom are now prepared by students previously before coming to class and provides the instructor with better opportunities for quality interaction with the students and helps students to develop a better understanding of the content and a deeper sense of community as a result of the student interaction in the course development and engagement. The purpose of this paper is to present an experimental Higher Educational plan called “Flipped Classroom with a MOOC”, within the project “Mathematics without STRESS - MOOC”, that is using flipped classroom model as a pedagogical strategy. Furthermore, it relates such strategy with active learning practices and discusses its effectiveness, investigating how the flipping affects student’s achievement and engagement. We also will present the results of a survey in which students were asked about “Flipped Learning with a MOOC” as a teaching method, using their experience from the course Mathematics Zero
- Flipping a financial mathematics course in a higher education institution (HEI)Publication . Lopes, Ana Paula; Soares, Filomena BaptistaIn the past few years, a new model for organizing the educational process in Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) arose and has been attracting the attention of many researchers and educators all over the world. This model, called “Flipped Classroom” or “Inverted Classroom”, is a pedagogical inversion of the traditional teaching paradigm: the main actions of the teaching and learning process that are used in classroom are now prepared by students previously before coming to class. As a result, when students come into class they already know what is the main issue and more important problems that will be under scope. Classroom is used to work on problems, advanced concepts, and engage in collaborative learning. This implies a much more active role for students and a more challenging mission for lecturers. The purpose of this paper is to present a Financial Mathematics Course in Polytechnic of Porto (P. Porto) that is using flipped classroom model as a pedagogical strategy. Moreover, it relates such strategy with active learning practices and discusses its effectiveness, investigating how the flipping affects student’s achievement and engagement in this course.
- A new horizon for online teaching and learningPublication . Lopes, Ana Paula; Vieira, Isabel; Soares, FilomenaThe Polytechnic Institute of Oporto (IPP), which has a solid history of online education and innovation through the use of technology, has been particularly interested and focused on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) developments. The aim of this paper is to present the whole process from initial discussions to completion of the “Mathematics Without Limits” MOOC Project that exists in IPP and also to contribute for a change in the way as teaching and learning Mathematics is seen and practiced nowadays. In 2013, IPP developed its own platform, which gave us the opportunity to explore new educational techniques as a pedagogical resource as well as to enhance students’ motivation, through a set of interactive materials at their disposal, totally adapted to their needs. Students lack of motivation is mainly justified by their weak Math preparation, poor consolidated basis on the subject and different backgrounds of the students. To tackle this issue and based on our Math online courses teaching experience, we decided to create short duration MOOC, expecting to aid retention of students and also to reverse the path of students giving up on Math by giving them a friendly way of managing their own learning commitment. We also think that this MOOC will be a good approach to level out some math skills among freshmen.
- Promoting audiovisual insights in math subjectsPublication . Soares, Filomena; Lopes, Ana PaulaIt seems that the digital world is all around us, wherever we turn to. Although not palpable, this world is already an important part of our everyday lives. When we talk specifically about the teaching/learning process we see that, at least in the last decade, the development of alternative and new strategies has been huge. The way students react to some methods and tactics is changing and engaging them in their own learning process is becoming a constant “challenge” to teachers, in all different educational levels. As Math professors in a High Education Institution where Mathematics is a basic and supporting course to other advanced (but non-Mathematical) ones, this so called “challenge” grows exponentially. In this paper, we analyze the impact of introducing and supporting some Math contents through video lectures, in a voice-over presentation style, based on animated arrangements, in our own mother language. These videos were developed for a first-year Math course in several Management degrees in the Tourism and Hospitality Area. The specific curricular items were chosen with a primary objective of trying to level up the mathematical competencies that are fundamental to the development of ‘mathematical literacy’ of our students. Our video lectures are available to students in our institutional Moodle platform, with all its features, along with other resources (as texts and proposed exercises) as well as in a YouTube channel. We will also describe students’ background areas of study in pre-university level and analyze if this has any influence in the way they interact with video-lectures in their own learning development and knowledge construction and report student’s perception of the eventual benefits of using this digital resource in engaging and promoting their self-responsibility in the learning process. Finally, we will analyze students’ evaluation of the videos recorded by the professors and uploaded to the Moodle platform and YouTube as a learning tool.
- Teaching and learning mathematics using moodlePublication . Lopes, Ana Paula; babo, lurdes; Azevedo, Jose ManuelThis paper summarizes a project that is contributing to a change in the way of teaching and learning Mathematics. Mathematics is a subject of the Accounting and Administration course. In this subject we teach: Functions and Algebra. The aim is that the student understand the basic concepts and is able to apply them in other issues, when possible, establishing a bridge between the issues that they have studied and their application in Accounting. As from this year, the Accounting course falls under in Bologna Process. The teacher and the student roles have changed. The time for theoretical and practical classes has been reduced, so it was necessary to modify the way of teaching and learning. In the theoretical classes we use systems of multimedia projection to present the concepts, and in the practical classes we solve exercises. We also use the Excel and the mathematical open source software wxMaxima. To supplement our theoretical and practical classes we have developed a project called MatActiva based on the Moodle platform offered by PAOL - Projecto de Apoio Online (Online Support Project). With the creation of this new project we wanted to take advantage already obtained results with the previous experiences, giving to the students opportunities to complement their study in Mathematics. One of the great objectives is to motivate students, encourage them to overcome theirs difficulties through an auto-study giving them more confidence. In the MatActiva project the students have a big collection of information about the way of the subject works, which includes the objectives, the program, recommended bibliography, evaluation method and summaries. It works as material support for the practical and theoretical classes, the slides of the theoretical classes are available, the sheets with exercises for the students to do in the classroom and complementary exercises, as well as the exams of previous years. Students can also do diagnostic tests and evaluation tests online. Our approach is a reflexive one, based on the professional experience of the teachers that explore and incorporate new tools of Moodle with their students and coordinate the project MatActiva.