Abstract:

Logic was introduced as a key subject at the University of Debrecen in 1985, when Albert G. Dragalin professor of logic moved from the University of Moscow to Debrecen. He began teaching using the book he had cowritten with Kolgomorov [1]. At this time, no question bank of logic exercises existed, so then his exercises formed the base of the guides used by lecturers and tutors.

During the Bologna process, logic has - understandably - become an introductory course, which allows students to gain many competencies which will provide useful in coming years (for Computer Science and Database Management modules). However, as teaching morphed into mass education, the proportion of students successfully completing the course dropped. Therefore, the lecturers revolutionised the teaching material step-by step, aiming to make it easier to understand, and allow the integration of tools provided by the advance of technology. The current unit plan was created by the previous lecturer, who used a learning environment [2] - that is a Wiki - instead of the usual presentation slides, therefore the students could navigate through the interconnected topics. Unfortunately, this Wiki only works seamlessly on Firefox. We collected the definitions to be memorised into a a list of pairs containing a question and the corresponding answer, so the questions would not surprise students on the exam. This handout has been extended with the question bank used at tutorials, and its corresponding solution guides, therefore making learning and revision easy, even at home.

These materials formed the base of blended learning type education, however this became truly possible in 2015 when the University of Debrecen introduced the university-wide e-learning system. Naturally, this became the platform to share teaching materials with students, but we are also looking for opportunities to give them more support. Our aim was to create a blended learning environment complying with a face-to-face driver model by extending and modifying the existing material, where face-to-face classroom teaching is the main mode of delivery, but technology is used to supplement learning.

With the inclusion of this learning management system, we have the opportunity to use Multiple-choice questions for practice tests and exams. Our goal was to create a huge question bank, which could be used to evaluate learning even at higher cognitive levels, and to give students options to practice their knowledge, while reducing the probability of getting the same questions during the exam.

According to the results of the questionnaire aimed at understanding the students’ opinions on the module we found that students liked the online practice tests which give instant feedback, and requested additional features that are partially implemented yet.

In this article we show how we combine the traditional and online educational systems, how learning changes with new innovations and the tools we are hoping to implement.

References:
[1] A. N. Kolmogorov, A. G Dragalin: Introduction to the mathematical logic, Moscow State University, 1982
[2] T. Mihálydeák, Introduction into logic (in Hungarian), online at: https://arato.inf.unideb.hu/mihalydeak.tamas/Logika_my_twt-treeview.html, 1912

Keywords:

Blended learning, logic, undergraduate.